saltwatersteve.com/travel

We were just in Singapore for 4 days and confirmed our suspicions that it is a really cool city/country. As rumored, it is immaculate: chewing gum is banned and littering comes with a hefty fine. It is a beautiful city with gardens, trees, and flowers everywhere; groomed hedges line the highways. Simultaneously, everything seems very modern with stainless steel everywhere, curved escalators, all the latest and greatest technology, a very efficient subway system that is always connected to shopping centers where you can get sushi without having to ascend to middle earth.
You are never more than a minute from food, so obviously it is my kind of city. Singapore is a melting pot of Malaysian, Chinese, Indian and Indonesia cultures (among others) which makes eating very exciting. We went to several “hawker” centers which are like our food courts at home where we tried such culinary delights as Chinese Rojak (aka Chinese Salad)—pineapple, cucumber, jicama, fried noodles, bean sprouts covered in a spicy, sweet peanut sauce. I think I could eat that for every meal. “Food Courts” in Singapore are very classy. One that we went to even had stylish leather chairs, and of course any type of food imaginable. At this particular food court we sampled desserts. We had ice kachang which is like a giant snow cone with the addition of sweet beans, sweet corn, and “jellies” (stiff jello cubes of various flavors). We also tried a traditional Chinese dessert that was also like a snow cone but had sweet potatoes, ginko nuts, white fungus, and red dates. It sounds like an odd combination, and to us it was, but it was surprisingly good, and it must be healthier than our desserts.
Now, we wouldn’t have known what to eat where if it hadn’t been for our fabulous tour guide Jai. We met Jai in Kuala Lumpur, and he graciously offered to meet up with us when we came to Singapore. Jai is our answer book to all things Singaporean. He patiently answered all of our questions concerning culture, religion, laws, politics, environment and daily life in Singapore.
We spent most of our time in Singapore eating. We did run occasionally, and we hiked up Mt. Faber so we could justify eating even more. The view from the top of Mt. Faber is spectacular with the city and all of its impressive buildings on one side and the port with all of its boats on the other. From Mt. Faber we took a cable car to Sentosa Island where we went up in a rotating tower and saw an amazing light show from afar. The images were projected into mist and really looked 3D. The island is covered with nice pathways, fountains, flowers and trees, apparently peacocks (we didn’t see any at night but there were signs) and a mosaic waterway reminiscent of Guell Park in Barcelona.