Singapore: Still Day One? Or Is It Day Two?

Day One, Or, With Jet Lag Factored In, Day Two:

Day One/Two began with a hawker center lunch.

Hawker centers are collctions of tiny stalls that offer an incredible variety of Chinese, Thai, Malay, Perankan, Japanese, “Western” and Indian food. Singaporeans love to eat it seems, so there are about four hawker centers within five minutes walk of our out-of-the-way hotel. The closest is called the Airfield Cafe, perhaps for its proximity to the Singaporean Air Force base though I don’t see any servicemen eating here, only tourists and hotel employees.

Each stall at the Airfield Cafe was run by an individual or individuals who specialize in some kind of cuisine. In front of the stalls are a collection of plastic chairs and tables that are communal to the center. If the hawkers are less aggressive, one orders at the stall, sits at any table, and pays when the food is brought to the table. This is called “self-service” and many stalls feature a sign indicating that they are “self-service.” If the hawkers are more aggressive, they direct you to a table, hand you a menu, and direct you to the most expensive dishes on the menu. (I tend to favor the self-service option, as I hate anyone being pushy about anything.) Drinks are offered by a separate stall, and include beer and the familiar soft drinks (Pepsi, Pocari Sweat, Coke, Coke Light, diet Pepsi) and the unfamiliar soft drinks (soursop soda, Miranda orange drink), teas (green, barley, and black), soya juice, and coffee and tea drinks (kopi, kopi with condensed milk). Beer is served in mugs with a glass of ice on the side. We drank sodas for $1 SGD or 640 ml Tiger Beer for $5.40 SGD.

A dish called chicken rice is popular here, so there are several stalls that specialize in it. The chicken rice stalls are characterized by their display windows where roasted or boiled chickens and ducks with their heads on hang from hooks at eye-level. Chicken rice is simply slices of boiled chicken on rice, sometimes it’s served with a few slices of cucumber and some parsley, sometimes with a sauce of shoyu and fish sauce (nam plak) poured over, sometimes with chili. The same stalls that offer chicken rice also often offer roast chicken rice, which is simply the same dish with roast chicken slices on top of the rice. Roasted duck rice is the same, as is roasted “meat” rice--slices of pork (I think) on rice. A dish of chicken/duck/meat rice cost between $2-3 Singaporean dollars. These are at the low end of the hawker fare offerings.

At the higher priced end are the stalls that offer seafood. Even in the poorest hawker center, tanks of fish and crabs sit out in front of the seafood stalls. Sad-looking crabs sit in the tanks, already bound up in twine, their legs and claws tied tightly to their bodies. I couldn’t eat them--or any seafood--on this trip. Akira, however, was happy to try the popular dishes, and I watched as he ate seafood bee hoon (a noodle dish with tiny shrimp) and chili crab. Chili crab is very popular here. This is simply a large crab in a sauce made from chili and eggs. The crabs cost $3-5 per 100g, so Akira paid about $25 for one. On another night, Akira tried some kind of fish and shrimp dish cooked on a very hot brick.The raw fish was laid on the brick, and the whole contraption was brought to our table. The man who brought the dish was surprised to see Akira quickly and unabashedly dig into the half-raw fish and the man very quickly corrected the very Japanese idea that fish should be eaten raw. No, apparently fish requires three to four minutes of cooking per side on the hot brick.

On our first day, however, we chose the busiest center (always a safe bet), and ordered from two different booths (three if you count the drinks booth) and for the princely sum of $16 SGD (about $10 USD), we had an enormous meal. From the dim sum place, we ordered barbequed chicken feet, rolled noodle dumplings filled with what might have been duck, lotus paste steamed buns, and a banana leaf wrapped package consisting of steamed glutinous rice filled with fish and chicken. From another booth, we ordered char kway teow (noodles, clams, and eggs fried in chili oil and black bean sauce) and chye tow kway (also commonly called carrot cake--though it contains no carrots, but rather eggs, radish, chili, and garlic). I loved the chicken feet, little swollen, chewy bits of gelatinous skin filled with many bones. Akira loved the rice and noodle dishes.

After lunch, we caught a cab to Little India and from there walked to Arab Street. From Arab Street, we caught the subway to Chinatown, then returned to Little India for dinner.

The cab driver who took us from the hotel to LIttle India at first mistook our destination. “Tekka Center,” I said mentioning the place we’ve arbitrarily picked from the guidebook. “Takashimaya?” he replied, the name of the famous Japanese department store, perhaps after glancing at Akira. “No,” I corrected, “Tekka Center.” “Ah,” the Indian-Singaporean driver said, “Little India.” On the drive, he points out the shopping malls. “Biggest shopping mall. Open twenty-four hours. One too many shopping malls,” he says. “Looks like Tokyo,” I say, jokingly. I poke Akira in the ribs and say, “Too many Japanese tourists.” I ask about what to eat and am immediately told I should try fish-head curry.

It is the last day of Deepavali, the Indian Festival of Lights. Peacock decorations hang over the packed streets. Later in the evening, the streets are filled with thousands and thousands of Indian and Indian-Singaporean young men, many dressed in white. They stand around, looking and talking. I am unnerved by their pointed gaze. Their eyes seem to bore holes in me, and they don’t look away when I look at them.

In Little India, we wandered the streets for a bit before we got caught in a sudden rain shower that drove us to seek shelter in a typical market. The market was a multistoried building that sold meats and fruits and vegetables on the first floor and clothes, shoes, and tools on the second floor. There was a hawker’s center (also on the first floor)--as there is in every market and shopping center in Singapore. At the market, I bought some dragon fruit, which Akira had never tried. We looked at the fish and vegetables for sale, but the meat area of the market was overwhelming. The strong, gamey smell of meat drove us upstairs to browse among the cheap clothes until the rain stopped.

After leaving Little India, we walked a few blocks to the Arab Quarter (Kampong Glam), where we visited the Sultan’s Mosque. Forgive my ignorance, but I think it was Ramadam, and many of the businesses were closed for the day. We did a quick tour of the tiny mosque, saw its digital clocks and the computer display of what prayers were to be said at which times, and looked out of a few windows. On the way out, I picked up a pamphlet that purported to explain away some misconceptions about Islamic women.

After leaving the mosque, we browsed through some touristy shops, buying nothing, then stopped for coffee in a tiny coffee shop. I had an Americano, and Akira a cappucino and an Americano. The coffees were $4 SGD each, about the same as a Starbucks. We sat and chatted at an outside table and watched the tour groups come past on their visit to the mosque.

After the caffeine kicked in, we decided to head to Chinatown by MRT.

We wandered Chinatown for a bit, looking in the shops and checking out the MRT station. After a while, we found a street vendor selling ice cream. I ordered a scoop or orange-lavender, and Akira had chocolate chip. Next to the ice cream booth, there was an Austrian selling sausages and Chinese acrobats performing in the street. We walked for hours past booth after booth of the same Chinese souvenirs that are found all over the world, cheap cloisonne jewelry and polyester disguised as silk. Booth after booth offering the same things, for the same price.

As we walked past one shop, a skinny, slouched, middle-aged man tried to hand Akira a flyer for massage. “Good massage,” he said. “You want massage?” Akira declined the flyer, as did I. After we declined, the man turned and spoke in Chinese to a woman in the shop. He was clearly talking to her about us. The woman looked down and away from us as he spoke, perhaps wanting to agree with the man but not wanting to ruin any potential purchase we might make in her shop. I understood the man’s meaning--clearly he was mocking us for not wanting his cheap massage--even though I didn’t understand his words. But that is not strictly true. I did understand one word of his friendly-faced derision. Mixed into his Chinese was the Japanese word “Osenbei,” rice cracker. When I heard this, I wanted to turn and say something to the man, maybe ask him if he had something he’d like to say directly to me, but Akira hadn’t noticed anything was amiss and I didn’t want to cause a scene. I didn’t say anything, but it stuck with me, this little throwaway word. I wonder if he was simply indulging in a bit of racism directed at Akira (and certainly the Japanese face some bit of this for their part in WWII), or if he was commenting on both of us. Did I miss the part where he indulged in the anti-American bit of racism?

As we were discussing where to have dinner, we wandered down a side street and I saw the inevitable collection of hawker center stalls, but this time with a difference. Out in front of one stall, there was a table full of transvestites. I adore transvestities. The four were sitting at a table that was practically in the middle of the street, and each of them was wearing tight,sexy clothes, full makeup and high heels. They all had similar thick, swooping, dramatically overdrawn eyebrows and hardened expressions on their faces. Transvestites always look to me like large, exotic birds, intelligent and alien. I tried to get a good look without staring.

Eventually, we decided to have dinner in Little India. We picked a restaurant at random and were beckoned inward by a waiter. It wasn’t until we are seated that I noticed that I was the only woman in the restaurant and Akira and I were the only non-Indians. We ordered and ate $6 SGD set meals (tandoori chicken and mutton) off banana leaves. There were several different foods on the banana leaf, only a handful of which I could name. There was rice, of course, and papadum (thin, crispy bread), raita (a kind of salad of cucumbers in yogurt), sambar (vegetables, lentils, and split peas). There was also a cauliflower and potato dish, two soups (one spicy and fishy, the other not spicy and possibly vegetarian), another vegetable dish that seemed to be made of some kind of squash and tomato, and what was perhaps some kind of very hot achar (pickle) with onion. I drank lime juice and Akira had a diet Coke. The waiter brought us forks and spoons, a concession to our foreigness. Around us, everyone else was eating with their hands, scooping up rice and sauce mixed into a chunky, wet paste. I have eaten Indian food with my hands of course, but I don’t try it here, and instead I gratefully take up the offered spoon and fork.

On the way out of the restaurant, I see a plastic tub filled with syrup and gulab jamun (fried balls of cheese), my favorite Indian dessert, but it’s too late to order any. Besides, I’m stuffed.

We caught the MRT from Little India Station to Changi airport, where the hotel shuttle picked us up. I like the Singaporean MRT system. First, it’s entirely in English, and second, the ticket booths are touch screens that display the (admittedly limited) subway lines. All you do is touch the correct station, and the machine calculates your fare. You put in your money and the machine spits out your change and a credit card-sized ticket made of stiff cardboard. There is a $1 deposit for every ticket which can be collected at the end of the ride---or any time within 30 days after purchasing the ticket. The returned tickets are reused. I notice that there are charity boxes set up near the ticket machines where you can drop your used ticket and allow the charity to collect the $1 deposit. I like the idea--but I don’t drop my ticket.