Joey and I were expecting accomodation in Singapore to be ridiculously expensive so we used our trusty couchsurfing.org account and set up a couch surfing date with a guy named Ren. Getting to the MTR station where we were going to meet him was easy peasy. Transportation in Singapore is something you could in a coma. It's that easy.
Our host, Ren, took us to his place where we dropped off our bags. After we got a bit settled he took us to a couple of local hangout spots in Singapore. It was a Saturday night after all. We decided to hang out total backpacker style. Go to the corner store and buy your beer there and then find somewhere nice to drink. There were tons of young Singaporeans and backpackers in the Clarke Quay party zone. Many were dressed to the nines and the smell of expensive perfume hung in the air. I was content wearing my grubby lululemon's and a tiger beer in hand, while sitting on a bridge. Joey and I like to keep it classy. People watching was fun enough for us anyways.
We walked around the club area and saw quite a few interesting bars. There was one that was hospital themed where the seating area looked like a waiting room and some of the chairs were wheelchairs. The coolest thing was that your drink could come in an IV with it's very own stand. Absolute pure genius. There was also a Burger King bar. If I liked Burger King that would have impressed me. There were lots of other bars, but most of them were just your typical fancy pants ones.
The next day, all three of us checked out Little India. We walked around and took in the sights of beautiful saree's, fresh vegetable and fruits stand, and the scents of curries and incense wafted in the air. Joey and I were craving Indian food. (Not unusual for us) so we went to a vegetarian restaurant for some thali's. For those of you who don't know what a thali is, it's either bread, rice (biryani) or both, with tons of curries, sauces, and chutneys. It's an array of delicious things. They are very filling, and some places also do unlimited refills. Its a cheap way to get ridiculously stuffed.
Later that day, Ren had to go to work, so Joey and I braved Orchard street. We (well, really it was me) had to exercise self control not to buy all the cool things for sale in the many malls on this road. We searched far and wide for the Lonely Planet Indonesia guide but came home with nothing.
Later that night we met up with Ren again and a few of his friends to check out the Mosaic music festival. Ren wanted to see the Philippino band that was playing. I don't know what it is about Singaporeans but they are absolutely the worst audience for music festivals, especially hiphop or any music you can dance to. First off, everyone was sitting. No one was dancing. In a sea of over 200 people, there was maybe 5 people nodding their heads or moving slightly. Another 100 were watching the show through their camera as they took video. The others sat in silence. Joey and I couldn't believe it, so we tried to compensate for their meekness with hooting and hollering. You could tell the artists on stage were quite frustrated with their comatose audience. I felt embarrassed for Singaporeans. This was a very bad representation of their coolness/liveliness. After that luke warm experience, we headed home because we were all tired.
Joey and I had to wake up early to continue our quest for the Indonesia book. Our day was quite uneventful. It involved the MTR and a bazillion malls. Finally we found our book and it was about time to meet Ren for dinner. We met him at city hall and walked to an outdoor market with every food you could possibly imagine. It was awesome. We were really thankful to be with someone who knew a little about the city. Ren is from Manila and only moved to Singapore a couple of months ago. We enjoyed seeing the inside scoop of Singapore despite there not being much. Overall both of us found Singapore to be a very boring city because we didn't have money to buy monetary goods. We were glad to be leaving this morning to somewhere more adventurous. Like Sumatra.
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