Singapore

We explored the MRT the next day along the purple route to the Harbourside and stopped off at Little India.
We walked around; veg markets everywhere, men in small hawker trucks making flower garlands as offerings. Vibrant colours and pictures of cows crafted the walls. A temple in Little India was on it’s 6th Day festival - celebration, prayers and offerings in a cacophony of smells and noises echoed around the temple. A band played on traditional instruments.

Pigs (2019 Year of the Pig) were strategically placed everywhere. Some, in very interesting positions based on the angle you walked down the road. Street corners seemed to be the movie set for The Three Little Pigs.

The shop fronts in Little China were fantastically preserved in pastels and vibrant colours with wooded veneers clamping over windows. I hear these are the original Chinese buildings. We met up with our mate from NZ here and chilled with an ice cold beer in the middle. Touristy as anything, but a wonderful vantage point for seeing, smelling and hearing. When the wind wafted our direction, the magical durian fruit let our senses conjure unsavoury images. The ammonia nappy smell is impregnated into my memory DNA bank for future references. We also walked around the Budha’s finger temple which was fascinating.

We travelled to Sentosa Island the next day.
Alarm set for 6.00am, we speedily got ready and ambled to register for the Aquathon event. Never even thought of doing anything like this before. Swimming is not my thing. Soon we were kitted out with fancy swim caps, numbers down our arms and were positioned on the starting line on the beach.

And then it was beer o’clock. Well deserved.