Hitting the streets

Got to the Pan Pacific Singapore at 6 am, napped and then headed out into the heat. First stop was Chinatown area – Buddhist and Chinese Temples and learning about the history of the Chinese in Singapore in the China Heritage Center. People have been desperate to migrate to lands of opportunity throughout history, only to discover upon arrival that things aren’t quite as rosy as they’ve hoped. Back-breaking work just to survive and crammed 4 or 6 to a room for a brief, suffocating night’s sleep before waking up to do it all over again. You can cut and paste that story into so many eras on so many continents. But I digress….Many of you will recognize the first picture as one I have taken in every Chinatown in the world – dim sum!! Not nearly as good as all the little stalls in the open air market in the Chinatown complex looked. Bottom floor is the “wet market”, named for the fact that they hose down the floors every night. Fresh produce, eggs, poultry and some wicked seafood stalls. They don’t just sell fish, they sell fish in parts, in bowls and the heads seem to be particularly popular. Can you recognize what they’re selling for $3 (singapore dollars) each in the cage? They also had yellow eels and turtles in aquariums for sale. The main floor was crammed with booths selling all types of dry goods and I could hardly stand the fact that I went to the top floor AFTER eating lunch. There must have been 100 little stalls, each about 8 feet wide, selling food. Dumplings, noodles bowls (and local specialty – fish dumpling soup), fresh juice made sweetened with fresh sugar cane, fish head roasted with black beans, pig intestines, duck, tou fu, etc etc. One of these pictures shows a little old lady preparing duck for a waiting customer. Just one after the other after the other and people crowded around picnic tables everywhere just slurping it all up. Definitely want to go back there and deal with the dilemma of which one (or three) to sample?