Eat, shop, sweat.

Here comes the Singapore report.

The food

I could write page after page about how great is to eat in Singapore.
They got all kinds of food in there, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese, Malay... you name it!

My biggest suggestion is that you skip fancy restaurants (and nasty hotel breakfasts) and go instead to the hawker centers. You will find all the locals there eating cheap yet excellent food.

...or just taking a nap

One of my favorite hawker centers, was Kopitiam. It has a really good selection of food stalls plus has got air-con (which you quickly learn to appreciate when it is 40ºC outside).

The greatest way to start the day was with a fish ball soup and a kiwi smoothy, the best breakfast ever. I could seriously eat that every morning for the rest of my life.

If you want an equally cheap/delicious option, go for the street food, it is always a winner.
There are pretty nice places around China Town.

If you ask me what is the absolute must-try in Singapore, I have to say the Chinese Burger.
I agree that coming from a vegetarian sounds a bit weird, but believe me, I know it from trusted sources. You cannot leave Singapore without trying it out. Really.

Get one of these beauties just outside the China Town metro station.
Simply follow the smell or look for this lady with yellow shirt and a pink Hello Kitty apron.

Still hungry? Pay a visit to Little India.
We went into a restaurant (one of the few times that we actually entered a restaurant in Singapore) that was fully packed with locals, and that's always a good sign. 
We got our curry served on a banana leaf, looks a bit messy but it was excellent!

I actually ate everything on that plate with my fingers (except the plastic pots), like a proper Indian lady. It was not as easy as you might think, but at least it was fun to try.


The people 
People was very friendly and even if I had some trouble understanding Singlish we had no problem getting around... you should never underestimate the hidden power of a smile.

The heat and its consequences
It is hot in there, very hot. You need to go inside an air-conditioned place every once in a while, otherwise you are in serious danger of melting down.

We stumbled upon a couple of nice shopping centers while we were looking for some place to cool down (I know I said I would never ever put my feet again inside one of those but I seriously needed some minutes of air-con):

One was called The Cathay, near the School of Arts, which actually had some nice stores with clothes made by Singaporean young designers.

The other one was Bugis Junction which also had some non-mainstream clothing, specially Japanese and Korean Fashion and a super cute gift store.

pretty happy with my newly bought shirt and shoes.

The colors

If someone would force me to choose a religion, I will definitely pick Hinduism.
Just for the single reason that the Hindu temples are the most colorful places I have ever seen.

I'm usually not so interested about visiting churches and temples, but I could not resist to enter to this one, it looked pretty funny already from outside.

Immediately after entering, I would find myself smiling - the joy I felt was amplified by the fact that my feet were so happy to be shoe-less for a little while (when entering the temple you are required to take off your shoes, thanks God!). 

Someone was chanting on the background, you could also hear bells. There was the sweet smell of the incense mixed with the scent of fresh fruits and flowers from the offerings.

I really got the feeling that I could just sit down, cross my legs, and stay there forever.

I wish that European churches would have just half of the colors than this temple had! (Any guerrilla art movement out there that wants to put it in their to-do list??)

The massages
If you go there you should definitely get a reflexology foot massage.
But listen, it's not going to be a relaxing experience: it hurts like hell!
However, your feet will feel so happy afterwards so I think it is totally worth it. 
We went to Feet Heaven, where you can get a 45 min. foot reflexology and a cup of green tea for 17€.

And here is the mandatory cat picture that puts an end to any long post.
I know that it seems that this has nothing to do with massages nor Singapore. But this is, in fact, a Singaporean cat and we saw him at some point before (or after) the foot massage.
So, there you go! Have a nice week!