Exploring the beautiful country of Singapore!

Hi Steemians! I am so excited to share with you a new travel post, this time of our amazing time in Singapore! I didn't expect to fall in love with this place as much as we did, but it was just beautiful. I hope you enjoy the post!

The firs thing we noticed about this amazing place was the architecture. Even from the short drive from the airport to our hotel we couldn't help but stare out of the windows at the amazing buildings. And what we loved to see was all the efforts they had gone to to make them "green" ! This amazing one below shows how clearly they are trying to bring back nature to this new city. And it makes so much sense, I really wish more countries would try and do the same. It definitely gave us an amazing first glimpse of this city!

Our hotel was in such a good spot, Clarke Quay, apparently the food district, which we more than happy with! It had an amazing outdoor pool which was really very welcome in the humidity and also @skiesandsports was happy as he could continue his training while we were away! We really tried not to let the jet lag get to us, but the 14 hour flight was SO long and all I wanted to do was go to sleep! My body needed to rest ! So we got a few hours sleep.

Hawker Center

After a well needed nap we headed straight out to go explore and get some food. We had heard so many good things about the Hawker centers so knew that was where we need to go first!

They were full of amazing food stalls and the smells coming from them were amazing! Singapore is really really keen on hygiene, so whilst you might look at some of these photographs and think they weren't the cleanest of places, food poisoning is almost unheard of across the whole of Singapore! Even chewing gum is banned from the country to avoid the mess on the pavements, and honestly it was so amazing to see clean streets, it made me realise how much of a difference it makes! We couldn't wait to get some chicken and rice which had been recommended to us by the taxi driver!

It wasn't just chicken and rice and savory food that was on offer, it was amazing desserts! The colours looked so tempting we just had no idea what was in them! Distressing to see a lot of them named after our dog too haha, so it meant we really couldn't try any of those or I don't think she would have been that impressed!!

There were also lots of different types of fruit and vegetables, including the infamous Durian fruit. I find it hard to believe that some people find the aroma of these fruits pleasant, but that just goes to show the difference in taste buds people have! It has been described as smelling like raw sewage and even sick, the smell can linger for days, needless to say we didn't try any! They might smell and taste awful but they look quite amazing!

I might not of tried the Durian fruit but I did try this super cute little dessert! I am not entirely sure what it was called but it tasted amazing and it looked good too!

Clarke Quay & Riverside

We didn't want to exhaust ourselves on the first day so we thought a gentle day of exploring would be best whilst we tried to get used to the boiling heat and jet lag! And also the crazy rain showers that makes Singapore famous, it's a rainforest climate and it was amazing to see so much water fall from the sky whilst still being really really warm! We started to explore the area around our hotel so as to not stray too far! Singapore was proving very good for street photography too!

Clarke Quay was where we were exploring and where our hotel was, it is a historical part of Singapore as the river has been the center of trade in Singpaore all the way back since 1819. It became really polluted from all the cargo ships going up and down over years and later the government decided to move it somewhere else and this river is now used for tourist boats and locals. Now the area is known for its amazing restaurants including one where we went to a lot of the days for breakfast as they made sous-vide eggs, if you haven't tried them they are like poached eggs but have been cooked at the exact temperature for a certain amount of time, they are quite gelatinous and tasted amazing!

Here are the amazing sous-vide eggs we had!

We came across this amazing bridge named Alkaff Bridge also known as the Singapore Art Bridge. It was designed by the female artist Pacita Abad. It is a pedestrian bridge and it was so colourful, they used 52 different colours in total! It apparently resembles an old boat that used to be used on this river. It was great to see some art combined into the landscape!

We wanted to get a good view of the city so we went all the way to the top of a penthouse to get this stunning view and oh my gosh was it amazing! What was incredible was seeing all the cargo ships out to see, I had no idea there were so many! It was also surreal to look down on the Marina Bay Sands hotel!!

Nikki Adrian Day 2 Singapore - Sansom Photography-606.jpg

The light was amazing everywhere we looked there were amazing pockets of light to photograph. The architecture was so inspiring too! We walked around a few of the restaurants to see where would be good to come back from dinner and walked a new way back to the hotel to see what we could find on the way back!

We had loved exploring our local area and looked forward to another day of adventure tomorrow!

China Town

We knew we wanted to go to China town and were excited to see what we could find! We decided to walk there from our hotel as we thought we would see more of the city like this and knew it wasn't too far! The scenery on the way was breathtaking! This photo below that @skiesandsports took shows you clearly how much they are trying to bring nature back to the city!

As we made our way to China town we came across another hawker center and some stalls selling amazing things! It was all so interesting. It so amazing to explore somewhere on the Eastern hemisphere, we have always gone on holiday in Europe or America so Singapore was a whole new world, and we were loving every bit of it! Everyone was so welcoming!

Lots of little coins were on sale too, even one for our year, year of the snake!

Before we got to China town we went into one of the many shopping malls in Singapore! It was HUGE and very very busy too! It looked like there were hundreds of floors to it!

Now I love bunnies, and have 2 myself so I was rather distressed to see this sign!! Haha obviously not actually bunnies but still!

And finally we made it to China Town! It was bustling with activity and looked like it was where lots of tourists were going! Large areas of China town have been claimed as heritage sites and declared very significant to Singapore's history. The first Chinese inhabitants created a community in roughly 1330 here in Singapore. China town was once home to underground activities such as brothels until as late as 1961, since then it has been transformed into the amazing shopping experience it is today.

The architecture was so varied here and not classified as one kind. All the streets were decorated with amazing lanterns and ornaments, it was so colourful, everywhere you looked there was something to see and take photographs of!

We wanted to get some kind of memento of our trip to China town and we saw a lady who was carving chopsticks with peoples names in Chinese and English and we thought that would be the perfect thing for us to remember our time here!

Time for some food! And we couldn't go to Singapore without trying the famous chili crab. It wasn't quite what I imagined but it was SO delicious, and incredibly messy! I was so glad they gave me gloves to wear, it meant that I didn't have to worry about the mess haha! It was like a crab soup, so all the meat had been taken out of the crab and mixed in with the amazing chili sauce, I could eat some more right now!

Bhuddha Tooth Relic Temple

Chris and I are really into Buddhism, we love all the meanings behind it and to live happily is something to admire, so we were excited to go to the amazing Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. We have been to smaller temples before but this one was something else, even from the front door entrance we knew it was going to be impressive. The temple apparently cost $62 million, and when we were walking around it's not hard to see why, everything was beautifully decorated in gold details and the Buddha ornaments and sculptures were stunning, some over 30 foot tall.

As soon as you entered you are greeted with this amazing view of Buddha's and candles. It was such a relaxing experience walking into this amazing room. The atmosphere was so calm and tranquil.

All the walls were ornately decorated with small and tiny Buddha's, the light was really soft and subtle which just added to the lovely atmosphere.

No photos were allowed on the 4th floor were the relic of Buddha's tooth lay behind a huge glass panel on a beautifully decorated display. Around the room were some cushions for meditation and as we quite like to meditate we thought how amazing it would be to meditate in this amazing temple. After 10 minutes or so into the meditation it was the most relaxed I had been all year, all the stress of travel and work just drifted away, it was like I was floating. We woke up completely refreshed.

The top rooftop garden was amazing too, inside a 10,000 Buddha Pavilion, yes 10,000 there was an enormous prayer wheel which we enjoyed turning and spinning. It was almost surreal to see that many little Buddha's, each one had been beautifully carved and labelled, it must have taken so long, but the effect of them all as you walk around is amazing.

<center@skiesandsports got this photo of my spinning the prayer wheel and I just love it, I love how you can see some of the patterns on the wheel and my silhouette in the door way, it brings back the feeling of when I was there.

Although not the best place to get a photo right in front of a coca cola machine it still makes me smile how happy I was to get this photo!

It was such a great day exploring China town and we left back to our hotel feeling really moved from our time at the temple. Everyone we came across was so friendly and helpful and the cleanliness of this country kept impressing us! I can't wait to share more from our time in Singapore really soon!

- Verity x
Photography by me and @skiesandsports and copyrighted to us.
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