Fun Singapore fact of the day: Singapore is one of three city-states left in the world. The other two are Monaco and Vatican City. The more you know!
I'm finally here in Singapore!!
And let me tell you. It. Is. Hot.
But that didn't stop us from getting to explore some amazing outdoor (and indoor) sights. Today we mainly focused on exploring the ArtScience Museum, and their interactive exhibits. One was about Alice in Wonderland and its evolution since it was first written, and the second was about the interconnectivity of art in its space. Basically it was a fun playground of interactive videos and art pieces. My personal favorite part of the museum was getting to draw cutout animals, scan them into a machine, and have them pop to life on the floor where they move around the space and interact with each other. Wonderland was also an interesting exhibit. It had a ton of old photos, videos, posters and concept art of many different iterations of the book. There was even a still from the Disney animated movie that was signed by Walt himself!
We also explored the most expensive mall I have ever seen. There was Dior, Luis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Ferrari, Gucci, etc., and all of them had a kids store dedicated to one side of the mall.
My favorite part of the day was probably after the exploration, when we got to eat at our first Hawker Station! For those who don't know, Hawker stations are incredibly common and popular in Singapore; they are basically giant food courts with many family-run food stands. The food in Singapore is incredibly diverse (in nature due to the diverse nationalities that live here), and thus create a really unique food culture. The dishes range from Thai, Korean, Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian, Japanese, Chinese, among a few others. If you want to learn more about Hawker Stations, I highly recommend watching the Singapore episode of Street Food on Netflix! Today I had a popular dish in Singapore, which is chicken rice.
Finally, we got to explore an old temple. We weren't able to take pictures there, but it was really neat to see a traditional Confucian temple surrounded by some of the biggest skyscrapers I had ever seen.
While we didn't get to do too much outside besides see a really amazing view of the skyline, I am looking forward to Saturday where we will have a jungle bike tour! Definitely will be one of the highlights of the whole trip for me!
I can't wait to share with everyone what else I get up to while I'm here. If every day is going to be like today, this trip will be unforgettable to say the least!
-Ryan