Little India

The same way you have many India(s) in India, you have many India(s) in Little India.



Let me explain, you have many different part of India even in the Little India around the world, yet you can expect to see the same thing over and over again. In every Little India, you will be able to find the jewelry shop with the protected bar between you and the merchandized.



You will still be able to find terraces where you can seat down all day long and drink Massala Chai while talking with your friends rebuilding the world over and over again.



You can even find Sari shops where you eyes will hurt attacked by so many colors dress and scarf that you will have to close them for a while before moving back to your exploration.



You will eventually find a street shop in a back alley, where the line up is so huge that you have to stop and ask why people waiting in line. You might face an awkward smile and a head shaking urging you to take your turn in the line for a fantastic Dosa or Butter Chicken.



But you have in each Little India a small a slide different taste that you don’t have in the other one you can find in the world, even mother land. In Singapore you can find in some places some Chinese signs slowly being replaced with Tamil, Hindi, Bengali and other more exotic Indian scripts.



Houses in Little India in Singapore are almost all the time colonial style, two storeys high with 2 wooden windows symmetrical to the entrance door.



Then at the end of the block, you have the biggest mall of all, Mustafa Center, Open 24 hours, where you can find whatever you want ranging from Rolex watches and washing machines to fresh mangoes, bags of lentils and tailored suits.



In the middle of the place, the busiest street in the place to house hair cut shop that takes you back to the future of 1988. Only Tamil Latin dance competitor, Scandinavian soccer player or Singaporean skateboarder can appreciate the deepness and the range of the long-tail-but-no-pony-tail look you can get there.



Within a block, temples, churches and other devotion places cover the main Serangoon Street and compete with other place of religion more modern I would add, namely Backpacker Hostels.



The smell you can grasp on your journey has nothing to do with what you can expect from a (small or big) Little India. Flowers used to warships the Hindu gods and goddesses fulfill the streets with not only graceful colors but also with some amazing exotic smell. You can buy your flower necklace of bangle for your pray just before going to the temple, but also as I saw many times to garnish your home for the special event you throwing tonight.



Everything changes when around 7 PM, people start going out to appreciate the cool and pleasant nascent night on their way back from work. Fruits and vegetables change colors and shape due to the over lighting that shops put together to attract mosquitoes and buyers.



In the blue night of Singapore, the colorful Little India made me wonder what would be the Big India at night. I whish I could use this transportation machine I saw during the day in one of this scary shop in the Little India, to go to the real thing. Maybe one day I use a plane instead. More time though but less experimental.

Eating stops along the way.

• Komala Vilas (76-78 Serangoon Road). A Singaporean institution featuring purely vegetarian Indian food. Downstairs is fast food, head up for restaurant-style seating and serving. Sets start at less than $2 and even the largest platter of breads and dips will cost less than $5.
• Saravana Bhavan (36 Belilios Lane). The Singapore branch of a restaurant chain from Chennai, serving up vegetarian Indian food. Cheap and fantastic Massala Chai.
• Banana Leaf Apolo (54-58 Race Course Rd) An institution for all sorts of South Indian food; no prizes for guessing what serves as the plate. You eat on a banala leaf, with your hand, a lot of food in your stomach.
• Tandoori Restaurant (166 Serangoon Road) has an excelent Chicken butter, and Cheese Nan.
• Sitara Restaurant (291 Serangoon Road) supposed to have the best sea food menu in the Little town. Same owner as Tandoori. Mentioned but not tasted.
• Azmi Restaurant (Junction of Serangoon Rd and Norris Rd) is a unique restuarant, very cheap and authentic where Chapati are still made the old way by old man and distributed on old table for old fashion customers, at an old price.
• Sri Kamala Villas (662 Buffalo Road) is reputed to have the best Dosai in town, not yet tasted, but soon to be.

Colonial District

One of the 90 rivers in Singapore most polluted yet clean.



Some call it Singapore river some Quays, and even some downtown, I call it the Colonial District for the historical importance of the area, but make no mistake, this is not a place where you can fish a giant squid, but rather a giant tourist bus.



During the day the river is a full of restaurants and others stomach needed location, but when comes the night the place change itself into one the most alive place in the city state. This is where people check in and get check out. Among the best spot of the river check it out at the famous Zouk (17 Jiak Kim St) Singapore's best-known nightclub and in fact a complex of 4 spaces. A full-entry ticket is rather pricey, but the place is happening especially when foreign DJs are in town. Then Attica (3A River Valley Rd #01-03 in Clarke Quay), a popular club complex split into four zones as well. The Ministry of Sound (3C River Valley Road #01-02 in Clarke Quay), was a main translation of the London mega-club. Now for the easy hears, Jazz@Southbridge (82B Boat Quay), is a small, intimate, and only Singapore's descent jazz spot.



A popular way to see the heart of the city is with Singapore River Cruises, in which you can enjoy the Esplanade/Merlion/Boat Quay area and appreciate some great views of Singapore while making for a fine walk if you don’t like tourist waves.



Saint Andrew's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Singapore, reputedly the country's largest cathedral. It is located near City Hall MRT Interchange in the Downtown Core, within the Central Area in Singapore's central business district.



The mouth of the Singapore River was the old Port of Singapore, being naturally sheltered by the southern islands. Historically, the city of Singapore initially grew around the port so the river mouth became the centre of trade, commerce and finance. To this day, area around the old Singapore River mouth, the Downtown Core, remains the most expensive and economically important piece of land in Singapore.



The Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, (1 Esplanade Drive - City Hall MRT), is Singapore's equivalent of Sydney's famous Opera House, except that its resemble more to a spiky durian version of it. Opera, dance, classical concerts and similar entertainment is offered daily.



The Merlion is Singapore's official symbol, 8.6 meters tall and weighing 70 tons, spouts water daily on the south bank of the mouth of the Singapore river. Designed by the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board in 1964, many a commentator has pondered on the inherent contradictions of a creature that is half-cat, half-fish — much like Singapore itself. Singaporeas themselves regard the monument as a bit of a joke, and indeed in Singaporean slang the verb to merlion means "to vomit"!



Eat pauses are so important that you will have to come often to test all of them.

Gluttons Bay, Esplanade Mall #01-15. Run by famous foodies Makansutra, this outdoor eatery puts together 12 of Singapore's most famous hawkers.

Lau Pa Sat, 18 Raffles Quay (near Raffles Place MRT). A nicely done up Victorian-style hawker centre, but unfortunately suffering from a lack of hawkers caused by overly high rents. The satay here is famous though (open only in the evening), with Fatman Satay (Stall #1) generally getting the best reviews.

Jumbo Seafood, 20 Upper Circular Road #B1-48 (The Riverwalk), is a popular seafood chain famed for their Chilli Crabs, a Singapore specialty.

HaPpY NeW YeAr 2oo8 to YoU!

Here it is, the 2008 came along to us, and once again we are obliged to adapt. I was now comfortable with writing down 2007 everywhere; forget almost how to write 2006, that I have to change again.

Hope this year will slow down and will have more than 365 days in it, just to be sure to enjoy each and every second passing by.


Resolution list
1. No resolution list
2. See rule 1.

Bugis & Kampong Glam

Singapore is one big Shopping Mall


You have many places in Singapore where you can shop. But there is an unique one where you can shop cheap. Burgis Street is one big block in which you can get squeeze as much as your wallet. The gigantic fan is not enough to support the no personal space experience you have down there.


Not only you have to shop, but you have no seat to stop. You are constantly on the move. If by chance you find a chair, a stool, or better a bench, you will have to fight will old Chinese man on their daily nap.


Right in the middle of the area, a mass gothic building erects from the ground. This post modern-pre art Nouveau style could have been the live décor of Metropolis.


The building is right in the middle of an open space, and the legend wants that the owner of the building did not support any people around him. I guess he made it happen. The building is surrounded by grass and takes one entire block.


On the way to Kamplong Glam, you cross the middle-eastern part of Singapore. You must enjoy the Cairo Café on one hand and the Narguile pipes with all the colorful flavors you can imagine, but also all the designs shops from the latest trends (mid-80’s).


At the end of the street the Bussorah Pedestrian Mall leads to Masjid Sultan (Sultan Mosque). The mosque is considered one of the most important mosques in Singapore. The prayer hall and domes highlight the mosque's star features.


Kampong Glam is derived from two Malay words, Kampong, meaning "village" or "settlement", and Glam (or Gelam) referring to a variety of eucalyptus (Malaleuca leucadendron) which grew in the area. Today, Kampong Glam still retains strong ties to the ethnic-Malay and Muslim community, and has sometimes been termed the "Muslim Quarter" due to its history.


Before another beautiful sunset under the tropic, the only descent food stop was at the Qi Ji (160 Rochor Road) for some Popiah rolls.

Joo Chiat Road

The Malay Village has some Indonesian flavor. Go figure


The afternoon trip started a bit late for my taste, before lunch but at 2:30 PM. The adventure based on the Self Tour Discovery of the Inn Crowd Hostel. Rather than starting at the beginning of Geyland Road, we instead started a bit further down the trip at the Singapore Post Office at Paya Lebar MRT Station. The building is in the middle of nowhere and in facing an empty space for the future development of the MRT Circle Line.


We walked toward the temporary Geylang Serai Market & Food Centre in front of the Malay Village center. The $5 entrance fee you have to pay for entering the Village is not worth the time you are exploring the fake village. You better spend some time in the Geylang Serai Market & Food Centre instead.


The Sunday 3 PM mark did not remove any spices from our discovery. Various stools were still full on, but what was very important for an empty stomach the food center was still there with some amazing Indonesian food.


For once it was not as oily as we used to have around the corner. The food was an explosion of Nasi, Bukit Tinggi, Kapau and other Goren. Sinar Pagi Nasi Padang is also located at 13 Circular Road (Behind Boat Quay), and I guess that will be a very good backup plan when in town.


The wander around was a bit difficult on a full belly, but the exploration was surprising with plenty of dresses, women, and woman dressed in dresses.


The Joo Chiat Road is just a stone away from the Malay Village and it could be best describe as an old road linking the main town to the East Coast part of the city island.


The street only 10 blocks long but full of houses from the 60’s with balconies on the first floor and a covered side walked for the sun.


All houses are only 1 storey high and are preserved, restored and well maintained in an authentic style. Colors are not as socking as what you could imagine and actually make the ambiance a bit more exotic. Wooden balconies add the last touch of the colonial aspect of the area.


The place is pack with people eating drinking or watching. Restaurants are somehow just a link between houses and help you jump from one spot to another and keep it safe and clean. At each end of a block a more concentrated pool of stool and other hawker vendor form an official spot for lasting a bit longer on a chair.


The street is a compilation of Malay, Indonesian and Singaporean food that you must try on your way down. You can find a stool where you can buy Popiah Skins (Springroll Skins), a bit later you can pop by an old Chinese herbal shop next to Fei Fei Wanton Noodle shop. The Bak Chang, glutinous rice dumplings stuffed wrapped in lotus leaf could be your next stop; or maybe you prefer the Banana Leaf Otah and the Banana chocolate fudge cake for desert covert by the famous local Tau Kwa Pau, a fried beancurd stuffed with minced meat, egg, fried yam, cucumber and coriander.


Nonetheless your meal could not follow the normal rhythm that one might know (appetizer, entrée, main, desserts), but rather be what you encounter on your way. You might eat desert before a well know fried yam and finished by a soup. It’s not a question of eating at that point, but rather a question of tasting.


A short distance into Ceylon Road, the Hindu Temple called Sri Senpaga Vinavagar Temple has finally been restored and presents a well deserved stop for the ones who wish.


Unfortunately the rain was so heavy around 7PM and after maybe 10 different stools and other shop break that we add to stop in front of the best Laksa of the planet on Ceylon Road (Katong Laksa). Laksa is a noodle dish served in a thick bowl of spicy, coconut-based gravy, topped with fresh cockles and fishcakes. Nothing bad for you even if you are full and on the cutting edge of exploding.

But who can refuse a tiny S$3 soup after all when its rain?

Christmas in Singapore

Is Christmas with no snowman and no hot chocolate a real Christmas?



Yes, as soon as you have mass shopping frenzy, fake snow flakes and Christmas songs.

Merry Christmas!

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

It might be a bit late, but I am still writing to you anyway. After all I recently believe in you and you never know if you don’t read it, maybe one of your personal assistants might read it and pass the info to you.

I know that you have been very busy these days, and today was your last day of hard work and you finally had some time off ahead of you (well deserve time off I would add) but I am still writing to you for asking some help/advice.



Now I am quite a patient man and I would not ask for much for myself and definitely not ask it for tomorrow either. You can give help me when you want, but I would hope that you would help me before next year come along, and re-iterate publicly my embarrassing request to you.

I do understand as well that you might not be the right person to talk to and I would greatly appreciate if you could give me the contact information of anyone involves in the process or if you could point to the right direction for my inquire.

Some people would argue that being unemployed for as long as 20 months, the best I could ask would be a job. But I know that you are only involve in manufacturing, and since you offshore all your mass toy production to China in late 90’s, I would not be able to drop my standard to that level of devotion even for a kid cause.

Working 14 hours per day for less than $10 a month is not something that I can imagine actually doing, unless I’ve been punished by a legal authority to a sudden death sentence, and that is the only way to prologue my now painful surviving activities.

No I am not asking for a job in your Chinese factories, not in your newly quality control program that you had to put in place recently due to some malfunctions. No, I am not asking for a job (if I have to choose, I would prefer money over job anytime), but I am asking to find somebody else another job. I would like you to find someone, and convince him to find himself or herself another job on the planet.

I would like as well you to find a way to repair the damage that this person did to the face of human life and the future generation.

It might seem unusual but you are my last chance on this planet, and I have to admit I am desperately turning my hope to you since nobody on this planet seems to be interested by this massive ecological threat.



Here comes my wish for this Christmas 2007:
Find the person who invented the cheese in a can, and fire him!

Yours sincerely,

Botanic Garden

Take a green stop at the Botanic Garden


A block away from frenetic Orchard Road, the Botanic Garden is an almost peaceful place to rest, and a best way to spend a day enjoying the over 1,000 Orchids garden.


In the middle of the island this simple up and down the hill garden give families a chance to play Frisbees, kite fly or picnic on the grass.


The incredible amount of turtles can only be explain by the left over that Malays and Indian family forget intentionally to take back home. Obviously the last 2 swans do not enjoy the Indian-Malay diet that visitors force on them, and if not taking care of, the swan lake will be only a whish for the future generation. Please stop feeding the swan, or start doing it with the turtles


Paths and stylish landscapes give the walker a good grasp of would have been the vegetation before man hand started to correct its wildness.


I can only imagine the difficulty of surviving in this hot, humid and then unwelcoming land at the early time Singapore was created for Chinese decedents in Malaysia as a “gift” for their new country.


The Botanic Garden is a nice place to go, but too many trolleys at the House club.

Buildings at night

It’s not only at Singapore, but here the phenomenon is amplified.


The answer to a fast growing population on an island, the government decided to build many different complex buildings. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) project was created for low income and helps mainly 80% of the population on the island.


Each HDB flats complex is working like a small town in which you have a food court or hawker center where people can eat for few dollars, all the shops amenities one fancy as well all the medical or schooling necessarily for the complex to self survived.


I am sure that older people would find all their need in their HDB. The community formed there is a strong and helpful one. In a hot and poor country, windows are usually open most of time giving a chance to exchange a piece of people life when wind blows a bit stronger than usual.


Here, one might hear the fight that happen on the second floor, here one might see the under wears of the new beautiful lady from the 14 floor, or one might see that the old man is always sleeping watching channel 8 during the afternoon. No more private life, only a public one.


These walls of apartment are very impressive during the day, because you have enough space to embrace them from very far away.


But it is a night time that HDB are even more impressive. Like sleeping giants, they take their lightning armors and wait for the sun to rise. I often try to capture the immensity of the HDB in one picture, but I do not give justice to the size, the life or even the form of buildings at night. One day I will take a proper picture I am sure of it.

Somerset on wheels

When you think about it, only a street culture can exist in Singapore. There is no country side after all.


Taking your car and running away to the cottage house is out of the equation. I expected to see a more vigorous street urban culture, where graffiti and other street vendor outfit will fight each other to supply the vast majority of the local kids. I was wrong, the sub-urban culture is underground, and I only saw it surfacing at two occasions. Once was at a party where the DJ tried to explain in music without much success, that Hip-Hop was not a evil music to a sitting crow which was sucking up with passion on their straw.


The second time was at the stake park. Behind the Somerset subway stop, and between buildings in a middle of nowhere, a Skate ramp was build up where kids of all age try to impress their colleagues on how to jump high and fly low. Beside the fact that nobody is talking, and almost everyone is listening to an iPod, the ramp can not provide enough adrenaline to lift up the random spectator that I was on my multiple occasions on my way back home.


I would have like to see something higher and stronger, but after all this is Singapore and having a place to catalyze the young urban energy is not that bad. Kids are rolling from one instrument to the other in a very coordinated and civilized way, very opposite of the skateboarding principles that Thrasher Magazine was once proud of pushing ahead in the face of the world (Skate and Destroy).


The skate-boring community is growing in Singapore, slowly but surely, and will maybe one day extend to a second skate park. This day is not yet there, and I am glad to witness the ever changing graffiti competition on the single wall that the city offers to the underground urban artists.