Singapore, China, and India

This morning, after sleeping in a bit, my mom and I got to touring at 11 am. After getting our three day public transportation pass we headed to Chinatown, as if we hadn't already had our fair share of China. We first walked to a wet market, which is similar to a farmers market, but hard to explain. Next, we went to a little bakery where I had a savory green bean bun. Our next stop was the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, where a tooth of Buddha is housed. After covering our legs and shoulders we wandered the halls of the beautiful temple. On the fourth floor we were actually able to see the tooth, surrounded by an ornate alter with four gold lions. We looked at the rooftop garden with the largest prayer wheel in the world, then hit the streets again to walk down a trendy road to a "park," that didn't actually have grass. This park led us to a street with lots of food and another small temple. We stopped to eat some noodles before going to get some really amazing foot massages.

In the People's Park Complex we found countless massage vendors jumping for the opportunity to grab our feet. Following the advice of our guide book we headed to Mr. Lim's foot reflexology and got 45 minute massages. The man who did my mom's was a crack up. He studied Chinese medicine and was able to tell my mom about how her body felt by examining her feet. He managed to do this with strange accuracy, even guessing her genetic makeup, food habits, and back pack carrying aches without help. Feeling refreshed, we headed for some pineapple juice and then off to Little India we went.

When we arrived in Little India we walked down a road with lots for fresh fruit and veggie vendors with a few flower garland stands mixed in. We also found a building called the Tan House, which was poorly named. It was covered in vibrant colors that in no way matched, but somehow went together. In another local, Indian wet market we found foods similar to this in the Chinatown wet market except for a few extra booths full of spices. Next, we walked to the Abdul Gafoor Mosque, where I am certain we offended almost everybody. There was a sign welcoming visitors to come in, but the actual instructions were too blurry to read. We just stood at the entrance for a while because we had no idea how to get to the extra coverings that were pretty far into the mosque area. Eventually we just dashed to the clothing rack and put some on. In Turkey we had to cover our heads to enter mosques so we assumed we had to here too. We couldn't find any headscarves so we just found some more clothes and put them on our head. A man who was there to worship kindly walked up to us and told us we didn't need to cover our heads, so we took the random garments off. We then walked into the mosque and felt a little weird because we had only seen men inside of the mosque. After looking for a bit we were told by a man that we needed to walk out and go to the right, which we did and we found a ladies worshiping room. We accidentally went where only the man were allowed... whoops!

After that adventure we walked to our dinner spot to make a reservation and talk to who I assumed was the owner. We headed over to the Indian Heritage Center after that, where we eventually met up with my dad and a woman he works with, Allison. There were many cool exhibits like clothing that belongs to different cultures, certain kinds of dances, and a movie with information about how Indian got to Singapore. Most importantly though, there was air conditioning! At the museum we also found a map with murals that were painted around Little India. We found four of them before heading to dinner and they were amazing.

Dinner was quite the experience. We went to a restaurant called Lagnaa, where upstairs you eat barefoot on the floor. The food was delicious! My favorite was the Yellow Dahl with naan because it wasn't spicy. I even ate with my hands, which is the Indian way of eating. Feeling very satisfied by the nice people working there and yummy food we went exploring for the other murals. Along the way we saw the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, which is the first Hindu temple I've ever seen. It was beautiful and super ornate. We headed back toward the hotel on the subway and got off near the Marina Bay because Allison hadn't seen it yet. We walked half way around it to the hotel and got to be dazzled by the architecture around there again. After a long day of traveling to three different countries, we were exhausted and ready for bed.