The Johnsons' Journal

On our way back to the States from Australia, we made a stop in Singapore which was a city we had wanted to check out and it just so happened to work out on this route since it’s a international hub.

We caught a red-eye out of Perth which landed in Singapore at 5:30am. Neither of us slept very well on the plane (Thanks Jetstar for making such comfortable seats) so we were pretty well exhausted by the time we arrived.  Luckily this airport doesn’t sleep either, so we arrived to shops, cafes and all sorts of things open and waiting for us. We jumped in line with a few people who looked like locals and got what Courtney told me is a traditional style breakfast of Kaya Toast and Kopi, or coffee. Kaya Toast is basically toast with a local spread called Kaya which is a mix of eggs, sugar and coconut milk flavored with pandan. The way they serve coffee is filtered and quite strong, but it is mixed with condensed milk to sweeten it. I could get used to this.

We eventually made our way to our hostel and since we arrived so early in the day it was too soon to check-in to our room so we just showered, stored our bags and took a quick nap before heading out to explore Chinatown, which was the area we stayed in.

Singapore has a quite diverse population but mainly is made up of Malaysian, Indian and Chinese. Due to this diversity there were several temples of different faiths in our area. That morning we went through a Hindu and Buddhist temple. Thare hindu temples were adorned with intricate carved statues above the entrance.

Sri Mariamman Temple

The buddhist temple was filled with apparently 1000 buddha statues.

One thousand Buddha’s in the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

For lunch we went to a hawkers market which is a collection of stalls serving a variety of foods and drinks. We had a local dish simply called chicken rice, which was poached whole chicken served with rice and a sweet sauce. For SGD$4, the lunch we shared was pretty cheap but very tasty.

Over the next couple days we explored more of Singapore and even got out of the city to see one of the top attractions in Singapore which is the Night Safari at the Zoo, then at 2am, headed to the airport for our multiple leg journey home to California.

Streets of Chinatown

Singapore Skyline

Marina Sands Hotel

No durians in the train station, please

Lions at the Night Safari

Rino