As much as I love finding the adventure in my travels, there’s
also something comforting about revisiting old haunts. The Raffles Hotel,
for instance, costs nearly half a month’s pay to stay there for two
nights, but I do it for the history (Kipling! Tigers in the Billiard Room!) and
for the sheer luxury after months of sleeping in a tiny shipboard rack.
The rooms are all large suites, with neato lighting systems that are
simultaneously old fashioned and completely automated. And each room
comes with a butler. I’ve stayed at Raffles three times now and
never used the butler because really, what does one do with a butler? It’s
not like I have shoes that need to be shined.
There’s also wonderful eating everywhere in Singapore.
I indulge myself with everything from high end dining to street food. My favorite
meal of the visit was at a hot pot style place with a group of my Senior
Enlisted guys. There were nine of us crowded around a couple of long card
tables with big soup tureens in the middle bubbling away. Everyone grabs
piles of meat and veggies and throws them into the communal pot to cook.
Great food! Dinner was followed by an evening at a Karaoke bar, but the
less said about that, the better! (I should know better than to hang with
the Chiefs…) I also hit up a couple of different stands for chicken
rice, which is pretty much Singapore’s
signature dish. I closed out the evening hanging out with the CO, who is
less willing to eat street food, at a nice Spanish restaurant overlooking the
water on Clarke Quay. I love the contrast between the blue of the evening
and the red of the restaurant.
Finally, for me at least, no Singapore trip would be complete
without an evening in Little India. Our visit this time around coincided
with Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, which means I got some religion and celebration
along with my vegetarian dinner (I always eat at the Jain places there because
they’re amazing.) I did some shopping in a tented market place and
thoroughly enjoyed the differences between modern Singapore and the crush of humanity
in Little India.
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