Mike Jutan's World: Singapore/Malaysia Day 12: Chinatown at Night

December 2, 2010
Singapore Day 12: Chinatown at Night

And off to work! Matt and I started the day getting a presentation ready for a talk in the evening. It was quite a busy day so we just headed down to the Hawker Center in the basement of the building for the fancier Indian Food place there (it was very good!) Today we brought out the Canada Flag pins again! Haha everyone liked them and we're getting great feedback and making lots of new friends. Awesome times.

Tim Nash (my high school friend from Canada) got me in contact with his friend Claire in Singapore so we may plan to get together tomorrow night. After the day at work, Matt and I had a quick dinner at Harry's Pub downstairs - a really excellent burger and fries!! So Britishy. It was very tasty.

Matt and I then presented with Tommy and Aurelien to the Singapore Python User's Group. It was a very exciting event and a great energy in the room. There were a lot of teachers in the room as well as business leaders and educators, and it was great to be a part of the talk. I chatted with some folks afterwards and there was a Canadian guy from Hamilton who was very nice. We discussed the double-handed business card exchange and we did a few. It was awesome! The very kind organizer of the event, Beng Keat, gave us all PyCon Asia-Pacific Singapore polo shirts!! I love it!!! Matt and I will wear them tomorrow for class. :)

To celebrate our talk, we were so excited that we couldn't just go back to the hotel. So we headed to Chinatown to take photos and explore. Many stalls were closing when we were there, but we'll definitely have to come back later to check it out. We saw the Buddha's Tooth Relic Temple which I really wanted to see, it was beautiful. There was some amazing architecture at the Hindu Temple too, and a Singapore sign in Sanskrit (I think?) Very cool. We then sat down for a 2nd dinner, and ordered way more food than we should have. It was such an exciting evening that I forgot we'd already had dinner! We got some Tiger Beer, Tofu, Fried Rice, Beef and Greens in Vinegar!! Crazy. We only got through some of it but it sure was fun. Then we headed back to the hotel and crashed after a long and very exciting day.

The first photo of many "No Durians" warning signs

Haha, I like how there is no fine amount posted. It's probably like a million bucks.

"Kindness - Bring it on!"

Leila and Jess excited for another day of work!

I loved the station names on the subway. Half are somewhat tough to pronounce correctly and could be Tamil, Malay, I am not sure. The other half are *very* British: "Somerset", "Orchard", "Lavender", "Commonwealth"... awesome.