Singapore: Day 5

On Wednesday, I woke up pretty late again (but then again I slept at 4 AM.) I was finishing up my application for Reach the World, which is a program that pairs up volunteer world travelers with young students and teachers. Fingers crossed that I will be selected!! In the early afternoon, I went to Orchard Road with a couple of friends. Orchard Road is a popular shopping district with many high-end shops; it is a rather confusing complex of malls, and will definitely take several days to explore the entirety of it. I have two months, and Wednesday is the first! At the mall, we stopped by Daiso for some supplies. It was interesting to find Daiso in Singapore and the $1.50 cost that we so often associated with Daiso is $2 in Singapore. The Daiso here is also much larger and includes many more items, such as a larger variety of snacks and fruity scents for the room.

After visiting Daiso, we stopped by the food court for brunch. I did not have breakfast, so I was starving by this time. I ordered soya chicken rice from Guan Chee Hong Kong Roast. Chicken and eggs are very popular here because Singapore is limited in land and can not raise sheep, cows, and other forms of meat. However, chickens are easy to raise so many Singaporean dishes contain chicken and egg. I also noticed that portions are much smaller here... which brings up the question of what is considered a "normal" portion and is the U.S. just characterized by larger than necessary portions of food. Definitely something I will figure out during my stay here!

After our meal, we split ways. Some of us went back to PGPR, while Kate, Annette and I stayed to do a bit more shopping. Annette brought us to a chocolate shop called Royce chocolate, and it was best tasting chocolate I've ever had! Apparently, it is a Japanese brand of chocolate and it is quite expensive in the U.S. It is cheaper here in Singapore (about $12-15 SGD per box), so I will definitely be buying several boxes to bring back home as souvenirs. Besides the chocolate, there were other Japanese commodities. We stopped by a couple of Japanese stores, such as Mitju for shoes and Lowrys Farm for clothes. The clothes and shoes were undeniably cute, and I was tempted to buy some of the items. However, we had to leave soon because we had an event to attend at Raffles Place. The AIC reserved 1-Altitiude, a bar located on the 62-64 levels of One Raffles Place and characterized by a majestic view of the city, and ordered complementary drinks for us. The drinking age in Singapore is 18 years old, so I ordered the the Singapore Sling, the "national cocktail" of Singapore. Because the bar was located at the very top of the building, we had the perfect night view overlooking the city. Here are some shots from the night:

Photo without flash

Laney, Emily and I with our Singapore Slings

Afterwards, a group of us (Annette, Kate, Michael, and I) went to grab dinner. We wandered around Raffles Place and Clarke Quay but could not find any restaurants that were still open and not overpriced! As a last resort, we took the MRT to Orchard Road again in search of food. By this point, we were starving and I could no longer function properly. After wandering Orchard Road for abit, we finally found a restaurant called Bao Today. I ordered the beef brisket noodle, and we quickly devoured our food. By the time we finished, we had missed the last MRT (the MRT stops at midnight), so we caught a taxi home and finally went to sleep after a long day.