Mike Jutan's World: Singapore/Malaysia Day 13: TGIF

December 3, 2010
Singapore Day 13: TGIF - Chinatown and Arab St

TGIF!! Today when we went to the usual Kopi lady at the front of the building, we asked for Teh instead and it was awesome. This has been a very busy week but so motivating and excellent. We headed to the IBM Cafeteria for lunch and got a samosa and Chinese food, it was very good. Afterwards we headed to the Ice Tea Tarik place and I got an "Iced Tea Tarik Spider" (kindof like an unmixed milkshake!) and Matt got an "Iced Milo Spider". They were awesome. There is also something called an "Iced Tea Tarik Godzilla" which is the same but with Ice Cream I think. It is fun to try all of these new things!

After we finished up at work, we met up with Jess and Seema. We were going to go to the Quays for Dim Sum but that is pretty much the hardest meal ever to eat of you're Jewish cause it's like 50% pork and 50% seafood. Blergh. So we went to Chinatown instead for some Vietnamese food. This was really exciting as I wanted to spend some more time there the night before but most shops had already closed.

We met up with Tim's friend Claire, and also some of her friends, Jonathan and Michelle. Everyone was super nice. We toured around the Chinatown markets, and within about 10 seconds something really caught my eye - an AMAZING hanging Lion Dance Marionette. I knew instantly I'd need to get one for Ans, and actually I ended up buying one for myself too because they were so awesome.

Then we took off to the dinner place and I got a beef and rice combo, with a longan juice and a passionfruit juice. I had a great time at dinner chatting with everyone and getting to know them. From dinner we went back to Bugis, and then to a beancurd place. We got "Silken Tofu" which was interesting, and a Churro-like fried dough which was great. We also tried the Egg Tarts which rocked too.

After that we headed to Arab St., the main hangout area near Bugis. We actually ran into some of Claire's friends there who she knew from a conference at a Sheesha Bar/Mediterranean food place outside. It was a really nice vibe there and a great, relaxed, late night food atmosphere. Amazing! We ordered a Mezes plate of hummus, baba ghanoush, pita and olives, and some of that really good Moroccan Mint Tea. Freakin' amazing!! We chilled out there for a while and it was a really excellent time. I chatted a lot with Claire's friends who we ran into and they were incredible - the one guy was born in India and I believe went to school in England, as he had a very posh accent. The girl there was born in Serbia and her parents are diplomats, so she moved around between different countries every 5 years or so. It was immensely interesting to talk with them and their lives and childhoods were just so much different than mine. They were both very well educated and seemed ultra-worldly, too. There really are some great people that you can meet while traveling!

Yeah Friday night!!!!!!!! This was probably the best evening so far of the trip. I had such a great time and it was so cool to meet all of those interesting people from all over the world.

Matt and Me and Yoda

Sign at work

Excellent Nonya desserts from Nigel!

Haha, "Porl" Chop

Lots of unusual smoothies - Tomato, Durian?!

Tasty juice, I got Longan

More exciting things on the menu

Passionfruit Juice

Enjoying dinner together in Chinatown!

As soon as I saw these Lion Dancing Marionettes, I knew I was going to get one for Ans... and I ended up getting myself one too cause they are totally awesome.