We're heeerrrrrre!

I am sitting, at the moment, in a small internet café across the road from an Aussie pub in the heart of a Singaporean province called Little India (ten points for guessing the majority nationality here). We - Lee and I - just caught up with a friend, Chris, whom we haven't seen since we first met and had a few drinks in Munich and Paris over 2 years ago, during our first European trip. The three of us shared some dishes at quite an authentic Indian restaurant called The Banana Leaf Apolo, including their signature dish, the delectable-sounding Curry Fish Head. And that it was, literally a massive fish head (equipped with eyes, lips and teeth) sitting in a bowl of curry soup which we had to pick the meat from. Mmmm..
The plane trips from Adelaide to Singapore via KL were smooth as. Smoothest landings I've ever had I reckon which is good for me because the landings are my least favourite bit. We arrived in Singapore airport at around midnight on Sunday. From there we caught a taxi directly to an apartment block in the Hougang area in the north of the country - there are highrise apartment blocks all over the country, everywhere you look; about 85% of Singaporeans live in this style of Government-run accommodation. We met a guy by the name of Jianggan through a website called Couchsurfing.com: basically a website on which people can offer up their couch (or spare bed, etc.) for travellers to rest their weary heads. He has very kindly offered his couch for us to stay for our 4 nights in Singapore. We pretty much went to sleep straight away as it had been a very draining final few days and we were exhausted.
Monday, Lee and I ventured out into this unexplored (small - approximately 40km by 24km) country using their wonderfully efficient train system, the MRT, firstly to Little India for a brief walk before heading closer to the city centre in the Chinatown district. Breakfast was first on the agenda from a simple shopping centre café - soft-boiled eggs with soy sauce and pepper (traditionally sipped from the bowl you mix it in), orange toast with kaya (butter and coconut) and tea with condensed milk.. Another Mmmm. It took a while to get used to the thought of drinking raw eggs and we felt a bit funny afterwards but it was merely psychological.
For the rest of the day we basically walked around this seemingly uneventful city, swinging by the new Singapore Eye (London's sister) and the main tourist shopping district of Orchard Road. Lunch consisted of vegetarian noodles, soup and fruit in a central food court. The food here is quite interesting compared to those you would find in a typical Asian restaurant in Oz. For instance, give Pig's Organ Soup - proudly advertised as so - a go.. I know I wouldn't haha. Or maybe, just maybe I will.. In the evening, we took Jianggan out for dinner at a Thai restaurant to say thanks for the accommodation - he is a very informative fellow and gave us a lot of info about Asia in general.
This morning we thought we'd go for a quick walk around to the local Hawker Centre (basically a cheap Asian food market/hall set outside with seating) for breakfast. We ended up having essentially the same thing as the day before: eggs, kaya and tea - a common Singaporean breakfast dish. After this we caught a train and bus out to the Singapore Zoo which was great - one of the best ones I have seen. On our way back to meet up with Chris we walked around the city a little more, checked out a supermarket (our first one in Asia - again with some very interesting culinary delights... ready-to-drink Essence of Chicken? If that's not your thing, how about Essence of Bird's Nest, which is basically a drink made from sparrow saliva..) Question: Why?

Photos:

1. Putting my shoes back on
2. The curried fish head
3. In the Kuala Lumpur airport
4. Our plane from Adelaide
5. The pool in Jianggan's apartment complex.. Awesome!
6. How I slept our first night, using my towel as a blanket - not the most comfortable..
7. Breakfast
8. Us and Jianggan
9. A familiar face
10. I'll have two bowls thanks..
11. the local Hawker centre