As I said before, Singapore is truly a melting pot of ethnic culture. You can pretty much find an ethnic mix of food, people, shops everywhere you go. Then of course just like most big diverse cities, Singapore has its little ethnic districts. Today we toured Chinatown. It was probably the cleaniest chinatown I have ever seen - which sort of goes along with the cleanliness of Singapore in general. Not a piece of garbage on the street, not even cigarette butts or a lone banana peel. Chinatown spans several blocks, and the heart is amidst small streets and alleyways lined with little shops and stalls, many for pedestrians only, much like you would see in other Chinatowns. Here you can find the typical Chinese souvenirs and nick nacks, from clothings and hats, souvenir key chains, little buddhas and wooden scultupres, plates and ornaments, shops dedicated to high end chopsticks, tea shops, arts shops and what not. In another street you may find a bunch of "medical halls", which are essentially pharmacies specializing in traditional chinese medicines. From the casual little corner shop, to the more high end store catering to all your ailments and needs from an upset stomach and aches and pains, to virility and side effects of chemotherapy. The ingredients include everything from herbs and plants, to popular products like "birds nest extract" which is composed of the saliva of a some bird. In other baskets you see dried mushrooms, and dehydrated creatures from the seas, and some dried products of either plant or animal origin which I could only guess their origin! I myself picked up some herbally medicated patches for my back pain, and some eastern medications for upset stomachs (just in case vietnam treats me poorly...)
Rounding the corner of the main road we saw a row of stalls and shops specializing in dried meats. Sort of like a chinese beef jerkey. Made in thin slabs of dried meats from pork to chicken to beef to miscallaneous. It was actually quite good, I picked up a packet of the beef jerky for myself! Then of course there was the Chinatown "food street" .. Ridden with rows of shops specializing in various Chinese cuisines. Of course you can find Chinese cuisine all over Singapore and Hawker markets, but it definitely offered up some specialities and a plethora of tasty options at your fingertips. With full displays of roasted ducks and chickens and ribs and other meat products hanging in those glass windows with the hot lamps, sweating off the oil from their glazed skins, just waiting to be devoured by the next hungry customer. As we walked buying some other nick nacks, pillow covers, and some green tea, the rain started pouring down - as it always does for a few hours every day, in full monsoon form. We ducked into a covered shop, sipped on some bubble tea, and waited for the showers to pass, as we moved on to explore the next neighborhood in Singapore....
singapore is like a massive chinatown, innit?
Posted by: JJBaybee | December 28, 2011 at 07:35 AM