Second time visiting Singapore, I had some idea how to make the best out of this trip. I’m not big on shopping so we skipped that part altogether. I still managed to get a nice top during a short window shopping (according to ktula, I conned him into buying the top for me). We did however indulge ourselves in food of all kinds.
Food
The local desserts have so many varieties and oh so delicious we had it everyday. While I tried different ones such as Mango Kachang, Sea Coconuts, Red Ruby and Cheng Tng, kutla stick with his favorite Chendol. They are no doubt the best thing after a long walk under hot, humid day.
Ordering coffee was tricky. What’s considered ‘regular’ is coffee already mixed with milk and sugar. I learned my lesson from my last visit. This time, to make sure my coffee was served in its original form, I ordered my coffee with very specific instruction. I also noticed coffee came with options – coffee-0 and coffee-c. I don’t remember exactly what they stand for. But one is with milk and the other is with sugar.
Last time we had some amazing Thai food here. So we headed back to the same Thai restaurant on Orchard to get our craving fixed. The dish was good but the portion was smaller than I remembered.
Next, how about something exotic, like steamed shark head? In the Singapore episode of “Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations”, Tony presented his fans with yet another bizarre and curiously mouth-watering dish – Tian Jin Hai’s signature steamed shark head.
According to the address on No Reservations website, we arrived at Jackson Kopitiam to only find the entire place was shut down several months ago. All the food stands inside the kopititam were relocated. ktula tenaciously investigated and found Tian Jin Hai’s new location. We took a long ride on MRT. The station was so remote, we didn’t see an available taxi for nearly 15 minutes. Finally, we saw a taxi about to make a u-turn 2 intersections away. Ktula jumped out to the middle of the road, started waving like a mad man. The taxi driver saw us. Another 10 minutes or so, we arrived Jin Tian Hai inside a country club.
A medium shark head costs $45 Singapore dollars (about $32 US dollars). At first it took me a little while to work up the courage biting into a shark. Once I did, the taste was quite unique. The shark itself had a mild taste. But the seasoning is where the magic begins. Biting into it, the texture is similar to the fatty part of pig knuckle, very soft gelatin like. In addition to the shark head, we ordered 3 more dishes. 2 out of the 4 dishes turned out not so great.
Other than pigging out, we also did some sightseeing.
Underwater World
First we tried Fish Reflexology. Basically, you pay the spa to feed their fish with your dead skins. These fish are Turkish spa fish. In their native environment, they live in hot spring or lakes. As soon as we dipped our feet in the warm pool, school of fish came to nibble on our feet. Pretty neat experience.
Entering Underwater World, we were greeted by several large Touch Pools. One of them was ray pool. Some of the rays were quite large. They were super soft on the touch. Ktula bought me some raw fish pieces to feed these gentle giants. A smaller ray was particularly interested at a quick meal. It eagerly came after the fish pieces in between my fingers. And with a quick suction action, it sucked the fish out of my hand and swallowed it.
The aquarium carries lots of exotic underwater creatures such as nautilus, giant spider crabs, camouflage shrimp and crab species… This place is great!
Singapore Zoo
I can’t say the same about the zoo. We traveled a long way to the zoo in a really hot and humid day. Then waited 45 minutes in line before we could get in. The place stunk and the exhibition was very limited. They do however have a large collection of monkeys. I don’t like monkeys so that didn’t do me any good.
Chinatown
I found the concept of a Chinatown in Singapore very strange. This country is filled with ethnic Chinese singaporean. Everywhere we went, there were Chinese speaking their own Chinese dialogs. For me, the entire Singapore is the Chinatown. But talking to local cab drivers, they’ll tell you the subtle difference in Chinatown versus other areas.
Living in the Seattle area, Smelly is a user experience designer by day, a running, cycling, gardening type of girl when she wasn't wearing the designer hat.
