A Weekend of Fun

I've spent my first full weekend in Singapore since coming back and its been full of action. First off on Friday night I met some of my boyfriend's friends and we went for something to eat and a few drinks. This was good but I made my first food error as I managed to order both noodles and rice. I thought I was ordering a chicken dish with a rice dish but the chicken dish actually came with noodles as well. However I was starving so I managed to eat most of it, you live and learn :-)

We went to a bar called 5 on Emerald Hill Road after that. This area, according to the guidebooks, was granted to an Englishman called William Cuppage in 1845 and for some years after that was a nutmeg plantation. Apparently there are some exquisite crafted houses on this road dating from the period following this man's death and the sale of this land to the Peranakan community that had evolved in Malay as a result of intermarriage between Chinese settlers and Malay women but I'm afraid on Friday I didn't see any of that. Even worse though I've now discovered that this bar is housed in a 1910 built Peranakan style shophouse, this might explain the decoration inside and clearly justifies another visit some time! Instead though I tried lychee martinis - DELICIOUS!! I also observed an interesting concept in the bar with the use of beer mats. The beer mats had messages on them such as, 'back in 5 mins' and it seems that if you need the toilet or want to go for a cigarette you put one of these beer mats on top of your drink so it doesn't get cleared away. Can you imagine doing that in the UK? No, it would be gone or someone would put something in it.....

Whilst on the subject of beer mats there does seem to be a bit of a national obsession with them in bars though. If you buy a drink and dare to put it on the table or bar without first putting a beer mat down it won't be long before one of the bar staff come along put one down for you and put your drink on the mat.

On Saturday we took a visit to Ikea or Ekea as it is pronounced here, it was fun in a had to be done way and the flat is benefiting from the trip. It took a long time to get there and back though as half the roads were shut for a dress rehearsal for the parade on National Day, 9 August. I'll write more on that later but it promises to be good I think as on Saturday evening we saw a number of military jets doing a practice fly past (sort of like the Red Arrows).

Back to Saturday day though we went into the centre of Singapore in the afternoon, an area called Clarke Quay (once an area of colonial commerce) for a late lunch and I had a wombat burger. I'm fairly confident this wasn't actual wombat just rather the combination in the burger that gave it its name (though I did try kangaroo the day after I arrived), which included pineapple, beetroot and a fried egg. We then went to another bar which had a number of TV screens displaying jokes which could easily offend. I'm kind of surprised they get away with it here but maybe no one has noticed......

On the Sunday we went to Sentosa, an island of the main island of Singapore which has been reinvented with numerous attractions, beaches and entertainment. I came here on visit in January and when we came then it was a beautiful day but it rained all day Sunday including an absolute torrential downpour at one point. The weather in general seems to be as rainy as it is sunny and the other night I was woken up by a thunder storm. There was just constant flashes of lightning which lit up the whole room the rain was lashing down and it must have lasted over an hour. On our trip to Sentosa yesterday though we specifically went to Fort Siloso which was built in the 1880's and last used during the Second World War. It was very interesting. We also got the added bonus of coming across a family of monkey's devouring the contents of a bin they had turned over.



Due to the 'wonderful' weather we went to a bar on Sentosa I've visited previously called Coastes which is right on the beach looking out over the sea. I had a chicken curry but in both places I've eaten it now the chicken seems to comes in the form of chicken legs in a curry sauce. No problem with that but there was so much curry sauce yesterday that I couldn't find the chicken to actually cut any of it off the legs! Yesterday's also came with a baguette (which proved useful for soaking up the sauce) rather than rice so maybe I'll have something else next time I visit....

I'll be back soon, take care!

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