Singapore Botanical Garden and Intro to Hawker Food Culture

The next day, a Wednesday, we made plans to meet up with David's undergrad friend, Dian, at the Singapore Botanical Gardens. Dian lives in Germany, but happened to be visiting her family while we were in town. This was a great opportunity to catch up with a friend we haven't seen in-person in about 10 years. 

We started the morning off by hopping on a bus to Atlas Coffee, right near the gardens.  The trip actually involved a transfer of buses... something we would never consider doing in Atlanta. Singapore has an amazing transit system and this was super easy. You can pay for transit (trains or busses) by just tapping a credit card while boarding/moving through turnstiles for the train. Each trip included transfers and was around $0.80. Super easy. To beat the heat, Dian wanted to meet us pretty early, around 8:30am.

We really enjoyed Atlas Coffee. It's a bright and airy space. Paul got iced coffee and we had a few breakfast snacks to share. Dian ended up meeting us here, and we chatted a bit before strolling off to see the gardens. The Singapore Botanical Gardens were founded in 1859, are on the UNESCO list and cover over 200 acres. We strolled through a few different sections like the Herbs and Spice Garden (where we saw pandan - a plant/seasoning that we ate a lot in deserts), the Evolution Garden, and the Rain Forest before making our way to the National Orchid Garden (the highlight of the site).

Buses in Singapore were great! This is by far the least crowded bus of our trip since it was early in the morning.

Cold-brewed coffee at Atlas near the Botanical Gardens.

Paul was pleased with his Atlas coffeeshop experience.

Cool root structure on a tree.

A unique looking tree.

David and Dian on the tropical forest boardwalk.

The National Orchid Garden is a highlight of the Singapore Botanical Gardens.

The garden names special orchid varietals after visiting dignitaries from across the world.

Pitcher plants are super cool.

Part of the orchid garden is in a greenhouse, and kept at a cool temperature for the mountain varietals 

David & Dian in the orchid garden.

Roots for days!

There were signs to be on the lookout for river otters here, and in many places around Singapore...but we never saw any. 😞

After spending 2-3 hours at the gardens, we walked across the street to the Adam Food Centre, a "hawker centre." Hawker centres were a big part of our time in Singapore and Malaysia. These are essentially street food courts. Generally, these were open air but with a roof, with hand washing stations, bathrooms and centralized tray/utensil returns for all the venders. Trays and utensils are differentiated between halal and non-halal, so its important to pay attention to what you ate and to return to the correct location. 

Since we were with Dian, she helped explain this all to us, and was helpful for the rest of our time in southeast Asia. The other benefit of being with Dian is she knew exactly what was good and what we should try. We ended up ordering about twice the food we needed, but she wanted us to try a little of everything. We had some nasi lemak (rice and fried chicken with sambal (a spicy sauce), a fried egg, dried anchovies and peanuts), steamed fish cake, carrot cake (don't be fooled, here its a savory radish dish), pork noodles from a coincidentally Michelin bib gourmand noodle shop, fried oysters, and sugar cane juice with lime. Fruit juices are everywhere in Singapore and Paul became a big fan of fresh calamansi lime drinks.

Most of the stalls look like this. Small, few item vendors. But across the entire hawker center there are usually dozens of options!

Paul was not disappointed with the selection. Not pictured, the pork noodle soup!

After lunch, Dian had a couple more hours before she had to get back to work (she was working on German time while visiting family in Singapore so was starting around 3pm). We decided it would be interesting to go to a less touristy part of town, so we visited the Clementi neighborhood. This was about a 20 minute bus ride from the Adams Food Centre area. The ride was really interesting and we got to see some nice areas of Singapore in a lower density party of town. There were townhouses and some smaller gated communities.

We hoped off the bus at the Clementi mall, which was a mix of indoor and outdoor spaces. Dian pointed out some random and interesting things about this neighborhood and the customs and items we saw. There were lots of fresh food venders selling produce and people were going about their day shopping and getting items they'd need to make dinner that evening. After strolling for a while, we stopped in the mall to grab some drinks before heading to the bus stop and saying goodbye to Dian in a semi-tearful departure. We owe Dian a trip to Hamburg, Germany soon!

This is what expensive private houses look like in Singapore.

Clementi Mall hawker centre area.

Yet another hawker centre! These were everywhere.

Paul's first, but not last, calamansi lime drink of the trip.

We took another bus to our next stop, Har Paw Villa. This is a bizarre series of outdoor dioramas depicting scenes from Chinese literature, folklore, legends, history, reflecting Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Oddly, there's also a museum about hell. It's really a bizarre sight, and a good stop if you're into weird things. It was mid afternoon by this time and quite hot, so we enjoyed the Hell Museum's ironically cold AC.

The entrance gate to Har Paw Villa.

A diorama of... underwater holy wars?

Even the parking lot is decorated.

Paul with a dragon!

This is a totally normal-looking goat statue. The person that made this has definitely seen a goat before.

Good David.

Bad David... which do you prefer?

Nothing to see here, just a guy getting sawed in half in the Hell Museum.

Interesting marketing campaign for electric vehicles!

We took another bus to the Asian civilizations museum, which was close to our hotel. It was a hot day and we'd been walking around outside a lot, so we started with a cold drink and snacks in the museum café. The museum was great, with a wide variety of exhibits, and a special exhibition on the Manila Galleon (a Spanish trading ships that linked New Spain (Mexico) with its Asian territories, collectively known as the Spanish East Indies, across the Pacific Ocean). One of our favorite parts of this museum was an art installation showing food origins (from Mexico to Asia and vice versa).

Crossing the bridge to the museum. We never tired of this view!

David with museum café satay. Pretty yummy!

A model ship on "waves" of pottery found in a shipwreck.

Foods in ships crossing the Pacific.

A cool mask.

Part of the Manila Galleon exhibition.

After visiting the museum, we crossed the pedestrian bridge back to our super conveniently-located hotel, and freshened up before walking to the Elephant Room for dinner. This place was recommended by the bartender at Sugo the night before as an innovative place with good cocktails. Still full from a big lunch and the satay at the museum, we had a light dinner with a nice eggplant dish and some poppadum. The cocktails were mild but had interesting flavors and were very pretty. 

After dinner we made a stop for ice cream at a place called Aviary, then walked back to the hotel to wrap up what was a very jam-packed exciting day of gardens, food, neighborhoods and museums. Our walk back took us through some very lively neighborhoods with people eating and drinking al fresco enjoying the evening's cooler weather. Singapore is nothing if not bustling.

There are a lot of cute streets on the south side of downtown.

Dinner time.

Why yes, I do want some herbs clothes-pinned to my drink.

This drink had an egg-dusted cracker on top.

Ice cream time. It was fine.

Some more cool architecture.

Singapore - The Garden City

The second stop on our 2024 Asia trip was Singapore. David has had a string of Singaporean friends from his time at Georgia Tech and with his soccer team in Atlanta, so he was excited to check out their home. We were also able to get great recommendations on things to do, see and eat from those friends. Special shout-out and thanks to Dian and Nelson!

One concern about traveling this close to the equator (Singapore is at 1.3° north) is the heat. Mixed with a coastal location and high humidity, visiting Singapore can be a little intimidating. We planned this trip to Asia in late February to coincide with the "less humid" time of year (just "oppressive" and not "miserable" humidity according to WeatherSpark). Overall, we're happy to report that the heat was not really a problem. It felt like a hot Georgia summer day. Even with the heat, we were often bouncing in and out of climate controlled locations and tended to avoid walking a lot at the hottest part of the day. This was made all the easier considering how good of a transit system Singapore has.

After the 6 hour flight from Seoul, we arrived at Changi airport in the afternoon. Immigration and customs was an extraordinarily easy process - it was automated and took about 30 seconds. Our bags were literally the first to come out on the conveyor belt. We made sure to stop by the impressive "jewel" waterfall before leaving the airport. We can see why this is considered the best airport on earth. It's very pretty!

We took the train into the city, which was fast, easy, and efficient. Our hotel, the Fullerton Hotel, is in the old British colonial post office building, and has an impressive atrium and fantastic location. It was still decorated for lunar new year, which was nice.

Yes, this is inside the airport.

This was our view of a rainy Singapore coming in for a landing.

Our first view stepping out of the subway station.

Our hotel room was pretty swanky. Singapore was by far the most expensive city we visited this trip.

By the time we checked-in, it was late afternoon... time for a cocktail! We noticed that Jigger and Pony, one of the top rated cocktail bars on earth, had a bar seating reservation available for opening time at 6pm. Lucky us! We took the train to the bar - it's located not far from our hotel in a very pleasant neighborhood on the south side of downtown that had a lot of 2 to 3 story buildings on narrow streets with lots of restaurants. The bar was well designed and not terribly expensive (since the dollar is strong right now), and we had some nice (but relatively weak) drinks. We left unsure why it's rated so highly, which became a common refrain from two Americans drinking their way around four Asian cities this trip.

From there we walked a short distance away to Sugo, another cocktail bar that we liked a lot more - in fact it might have been our favorite bar of the trip. It had a more relaxed atmosphere and great cocktails. The bartender had an almost American accent - he told us he grew up in Singapore but has American family, including a brother who owns a distillery in Leesburg VA. The bartenders take turns coming up with the weekly menu. I think this type of creative process is why we liked Sugo more than the more highly regarded but stuffy Jigger and Pony.

The river outside our hotel, with rain clouds.

A cool building in downtown.

A tomato-based cocktail at Jigger and Pony.

The neat architecture of the neighborhood.

It was a very pleasant area to walk around.

Lots of flowers in bloom - and lots of AC units.

This is the kind of tongue-in-cheek stuff that made Sugo special.

Golden kiwi cocktail at Sugo.

From Sugo we began meandering back toward our hotel, and there were plenty of things to look at. We happened past the Buddha tooth relic temple, which had lots of lanterns for lunar new year, and also walked past the Sri Mariamman temple. The whole area had dragon lights above the streets. We stopped in a small indoor food area (very common in Singapore) and had Thai Kha for dinner. It hit the spot, and Paul had a lemongrass drink which was nice. We continued north to the hotel via Clarke Quay. This is a very busy tourist restaurant area along the water. It was nice and very lively, but there were too many annoying restaurant staff trying to get people to eat in their restaurants. The weather was lovely - warm but breezy. We made it back to our hotel, wrapping up our first partial day in Singapore.

The Buddha tooth relic temple was quite impressive.

David with year of the dragon lanterns.

Rows of lanterns.

Sri Mariamman temple is Hindu, and looks completely different.

Dragon decorations throughout the neighborhood.

Another cute little display.

A huge dragon lantern at one of the intersections.

Yummy Thai food for dinner!

Singapore really comes alive at night.

The area around our hotel was amazing.

That's our hotel on the left.

The entrance of our hotel.

The atrium.

Seoul - Food & Eternal Cloudiness of the Jetlagged Mind

Continuing our time in Seoul, on Monday morning Paul woke up early and got Angel-in-us coffee. After getting up and around, we took the train to Seongsu dong. We had heard this was a fun and youthful "up and coming" neighborhood to explore. Unfortunately, we found that nothing opens early in Seoul. There are a million cafes but many don't open until 11am or even early afternoon.  Not a good match for jetlag! We did find a highly rated cafe, Onion, that opened early enough so we made that our first stop. We had drinks and pastries in a neat converted building. It was concrete and brick minimalism, with interesting nooks and crannies to sit in. There was some outdoor space as well, but it was a rainy, dreary morning so we stayed indoors. Paul's vanilla bean latte was good and not too sweet.

David enjoying some morning snacks at Onion.

Onion grounds in an old industrial space.

After leaving Onion, we walked around the neighborhood a bit. We might not have been in the right area, or maybe it was too early, but it wasn't super exciting. Seemed like a quiet residential neighborhood. We made our way to the river, where it was incredibly foggy. We walked along the riverfront path, at times unable to even see across the river. The path was quiet on a chilly rainy morning, but is a great outdoor amenity for the city.

We turned back into the neighborhood, and went to a shopping area called Common Ground. It had just opened, so it was quiet, and it looked like maybe they were filming something in the courtyard. It's a neat space, with stacked shipping containers with stores and restaurants. We hung out for a bit before setting out to look for lunch.

The Han River shrouded in fog.

Lots of the Han River has bike/ped trails and parks.

There are a lot of markets in Korea. These mostly are for groceries and random household supplies.

Shipping container shops at Common Ground.

We found a nearby street that appeared to be a Chinatown area. It was lively, with lots going on. We had lunch at Songhua Shanxi Cut Noodles (송화산시도삭면). It was a small and popular restaurant, so we had about a 15 minute wait to be seated. The food was great, especially the noodles and soup dumplings. We also saw a direct example of Korea's plastic surgery culture, as a young (high school age?) woman at the table next to us had clearly had a very recent "coming of age" nose job.

After lunch we took the train to Dongdaemun design plaza. It's a neat futuristic building, part gathering space, part conference center, part tourist attraction, but it's not really clear what to do there. After walking around the long white space-age hallways and part of the roof, we set off walking toward Gwangjang market. It was drizzling again (our time in Korea was quite rainy), so it was nice to tuck inside the covered market. It's a touristy food market, and was quite crowded. We walked around the market for a bit but didn't get anything, before heading back to the subway.

The line to eat at Songhua Shanxi Cut Noodles.

Paul with his noodle soup!

Dongdaemun Design Plaza. 

Hechi is the mascot of Seoul. He's had a very "Cartoon Network" redesign since 10 years ago.

Just ginormous Hechi things!

Gwangjang Market near the city center.

We took the train to Insadong, the pleasant neighborhood just north of out Hotel. We were in the mood for a little snack and David had been craving patbingsu (shaved ice dessert) and we found some at a place with the very long name of Damjangyeope Gukhwaccot Annyeong Insadong, which had an equally long Korean name referring to the flowers on the wall outside the store (담장옆에국화꽃CCOT 안녕인사동점). From there we walked back to our hotel and relaxed while trying to wait out the rain. Finally we went for dinner, walking to the south through the Myeongdong pedestrian area to dinner at kkanbu chicken myeongdong (깐부치킨 명동점). Myeongdong is interesting because it has a lot of foreign tourists. We saw a lot of Japanese people, and some white people. It's a nice urban environment and quite lively.

Bingsu and other Korean desserts.

Last meal in Seoul; KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) and some tteokbokki!

The next morning we woke up super early (4:45am) and took a taxi to the airport. While almost everywhere in Seoul took credit cards (even American Express), we had pulled out some Korean won on the first day from an ATM, and had 55,000 won (about $41) left. The taxi came out to 54,500 won. Perfect planning! We had a pastry at Paris Baguette at the airport before boarding our flight to Singapore.

That wrapped up the first stage of our trip. We'd been to Seoul before (David had been twice before this trip), and noticed a few changes. We saw very, very few people smoking, and only a few people vaping. This is a nice change from a decade ago when it seemed like more people (especially older people) smoked cigarettes in public. One thing we did see a big increase of was people staring at their phones. While this is of course common in the US too, in Seoul it has been taken to a whole new level. Essentially 100% of people on the subway are looking at their phone, and many people when walking down the street. At some busier intersections the sidewalks have lights embedded into them that turn red and green, so people who are staring at their phones don't walk straight into the path of a car.

One other thing we noticed was more improvements in urban planning, but it's still a bit of a mix. Most of Seoul is very walkable and of course transit-friendly, but there are some extremely wide roads, including right outside our hotel. We utilized the bus system a lot more than our last trip - most buses essentially operated as bus rapid transit (BRT) with lanes completely separated from cars. We were excited to check out the city planning of our next stop, Singapore.

I Love Konglish 2.0

Once again we present to you a handcrafted selection of Korean-English (Konglish) from our recent trip to Seoul. Konglish makes us smile and we hope you will smile too. If you can't get enough, check out our last Konglish post from 2013.

I could think of a number that would make this more scandalous.

Fact. This is never that. But is that ever this? These are the questions the people want the answers to!

It's giving 1950s American south for me.

I think this is the name of a music bar (or maybe karaoke place). It's simple and fantastic marketing!

I think the place is named "Another Awesome" but the sale sign makes this a complete sentence!

It's important to "stay youth forever with your dreams" indeed.

The subtitle for Beok is "old future odd future." So, mission accomplished.

I can imagine the jingle for this is something like "🎵Got bad breath well don't delay! Put Poops in your mouth and have a great day!🎵"

But do we really thank oat enough? Makes you wonder.

Hechi is so happy, just like us when we visit Seoul!