Our last days in Singapore

February 19th/20th - Singapore

Our last two days in Singapore were pretty chilled. 

The day after Chinese New Year we slept in late and then ventured out to Little India for some food - most Singaporian places were closed as it was a public holiday so everywhere was quite quiet. We had a lassi and a masala curry which was pretty spicy!

We then wandered down to the Asian Civilization Museum but were so tired and hot by that point we didn't end up staying very long. We sat by the Quay in the sunshine before heading back to the hostel for an early night.

The Quays

Our last day in Singapore we went further afield to visit the Changi War Museum and Chapel. It is a museum about the Japanese occupation of Singapore during WW2 and commemorates the POWs held at the Changi Prison. It was a really good museum and very moving. 

We went back to our hostel via Chinatown and went to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. It was really busy because everyone was going to give offerings for Chinese New Year. They were giving incense and money and oranges to the different gods. 

A woman giving a cent to each of 100 gods

That night Chieh's parents took us out for dinner at their favourite restaurant. It was amazing - we tried duck, beef, chicken, scallops and noodles made out of fish - there was so much food. For dessert we tried mango soup and herb jelly. At the start of the meal for Chinese New Year they have a noodle salad and each ingredient has a different significance and is meant to bring you either wealth or love or happiness, for example. Everyone then uses their chopsticks to toss the salad - the higher you toss it the more of the good things you will get!!! It tends to make quite a mess!

The noodle salad

The noodle salad being tossed

At Chinese New Year people give each other packets of money and Chieh's mum kindly gave us one each - the envelopes had a little Chinese boy and girl on and were very cute:

Chieh gave us a lift to the airport and we said our farewells. Then it was on to Darwin - we had heard that there was a cyclone heading straight for it...!!