Weekend in Singapore Day 3 - 15 June 2009

What d'ya know - it's our last day in Singapore already. Man, time flies! Our flight was at 7.10pm and that gave us a good couple of hours to go out and about.
This was taken from the road behind where we stayed & that covered structure is the Boon Keng MRT station, just a short walk away. Convenient, eh? Also in this pix is an old man patiently walking his old dog.. such love..

I'd decided to take Dila to the Kampong Glam area and we headed straight there after checking out at 11.00am. We made our rounds to all the regular places - the Sultan Mosque, the Istana Kampong Glam and its grounds, including the gelam tree, the Bussorah Street Mall.. Dila seemed happy and took loads of pix. Although we were just there, we decided not to venture into the Malay Heritage Museum due to time constraints. Since we didn't have breakfast, we stopped to have an early lunch of nasi padang at this place called Sabar Menanti. I would've liked to have gone to Hajah Maimunah's a few streets away for their delicious nasi padang but opted for convenience instead, Still, what we had was quite tasty.

The Istana Kampong Galm behind me, which has been converted to the Malay Heritage Museum..


Nasi padang lunch at Sabar Menanti.. Dila diggin' in.. I had simple meal of fried chicken & sambal brinjal.. Yummy!
The Bussorah Street Mall where we did a bit of souvenir shopping after lunch..

After finishing at Kampong Glam, we headed to Mustafa's to do our last minute shopping. Our 'survey' earlier on helped loads as we knew what we wanted to get and it was a fairly quick in and out. Then, it was back to The Hive to pack all our goodies into our bags and head for the airport.

We took the 'scenic' road via Geylang/Katong, then the ECP and got to the airport in good time. We checked in early and had plenty of time to spare. So, Dila and I grabbed a quick bite and browsed around the shops.

The honeycomb like hanging structure at the airport - funny how I'd never noticed it. The airport was choc-a-bloc and we were glad we got there early to check-in.

Our flight was on time and we left. Bye, Singapore.. for now..

Weekend in Singapore Day 2 - 14 June 2009

WATCH THIS SPACE!

Our 2nd day in Singapore was great - we made a trip to the National Museum of Singapore, spending a good 3 hours there and would've stayed longer if we didn't need to go in search of food! We walked all over Orchard Road, went to the Hard Rock, spent hours at Borders where they had a sale and bought ourselves some books and tho' we wanted to go off to either The Esplanade or Boat Quay or the East Coast Park foodcourt to have dinner, we decided to just stay at Orchard Road instead. I'd managed to snap some pix before my battery ran flat and had to use Dila's cam. Will update this space once I get my pix from her.

Weekend in Singapore - Verner Panton Exhibition - 14 June 2009

It's our second day in Singapore and we decided to go to the National Museum of Singapore. I'd been here a couple of times myself and really like the place and decided to bring Dila here - Dila liked it too!

There was a special exhibition going on, the Verner Panton, The Collected Works, and we decided to have a look-see. I have to dedicate a whole page for the exhibition as there were loads to see and photograph! It was an amazing exhibition.. Me like! And, the dress I was wearing blended right in.. haha.. Have a look.

Outside the Verner Panton exhibition

The Verner Panton exhibition

The wall text

Early works

First Furniture Produced in a Series

Experimental Furniture

Furnishing Textile

Lighting

Phantasy Landscape

Mobile Furniture & The Panton Chairs

The kids area inspired by Verner Panton & developed by the Nasional Museum of Singapore

Weekend in Singapore Day 1 - 13 June 2009

Dila had not been to Singapore in a long while and her last trip there, a work one, didn't quite count 'coz she barely had time to do much except make a trip to Mustafa's and a short walk around Orchard Road despite staying there. So, when Air Asia had one of their (many) promos, we decided to grab us some ticket and make Singapore one of our destinations for 2009.

Time flies and before we knew it, it was time for our trip. Our flight at 12.40pm was on schedule and we arrived in Singapore at 1.40pm. We took a train (from Terminal 1) to Terminal 3 so that I could go buy some merchandise from Hard Rock for my colleague, Hafeez. And, we got distracted and stayed there for a bit..

On the train headed for Terminal 3.. The fascinating Crowne Plaza building up close..

Our 'distraction'.. Yes, we ended up doing a couple of these..

We got out of the airport and headed straight for The Hive, at Seranggoon Road. It's backpackers place that was simple, clean and safe - no complaints.. we only need it mainly to sleep and have our showers. The Hive is spread out in a few different shoplots and we got the (new) one at Lavender Street and had it practically all to ourselves as there was only one other room occupied on our first night and it was just us the rest of the time.

Dila in front of the main Hive (not ours).. The lounge area at the place where we stayed..

The pantry.. And, the PC's with (free) internet access..

Dila in our room...

Moi on our bed.. Interesting - diagonally across the street, at the bottom (brown signage) is 'Sin Peng Mid-Nite Lounge' & above is Singapore Institute of Science..

After we settled in and freshened up, we headed to Mustafa's which was just down the road. It wasn't a very long walk and we were there in no time. Since we hadn't eaten since our brunch of Marry Brown at 11-ish, we decided to stop at have a snack first.

Snack at Madura's.. So, this is what sin (dosa) looks like..

Dila had vadai, I had a qeema naan & it was teh ais (in fancy glasses) all around..

Then, it was off to Mustafa's. This was meant to only be a 'survey' trip to check out and make a note of stuff that we potentially wanted to buy. So, we spent a whole lot of time simply browsing. It was a good few hours in Mustafa's before venturing to some of the shops across the street till we got hungry and went in search of food.

Since we didn't know any better, we ended up having makan at this random shop. The food turned out to be good, I especially liked the peas cooked in goats cheese! Yum! So tasty.. And, service was good too. Actually, it was just this one guy who did almost everything and he did a great job!

Dila tucking in.. What was on my plate..

Fed and full, we took a slow walk back, had our showers, watched a bit of TV and called it a night. Good rest is a good thing I reckon as I'm pretty sure we'd be out the whole day tomorrow.