on mike's 2nd day, we went to chinatown so he could see what's there and take some pictures. i've been there before to shop for our prenup dresses. :) it's pretty much the same as all the other chinatowns - hehe i've only seen manila and NY - but it's worth visiting :)
i went there wearing this lovely pair of comfy shoes, given by my mother-in-law from the shopping haven, divisoria. it's hot pink, as you could see, and i got a lot of stares wearing it (maybe i'm just paranoid), but i really, really, really love it!
first things that caught my attention were these oriental-inspired slippers. we started this slippers/shoes-off scheme at the house and i'm loving it. kuya isn't. so to compromise, he will keep all shoes off the floor but he's looking for a nice pambahay tsinelas. i sent them the pic and asked if he liked it. he didn't. k fine. thanks.
next stop was the chinatown heritage center. it was rather funny how we bumped into this museum. we were just looking around when a man approached us and asked if we wanted to go and see the museum for 10SGD. napakadali naming kausap. we said yes and went in :p it was time well spent anyway. we were able to see a slice of the history of singapore.
the following are pictures taken from the museum. pretty interesting :)
we learned that by the 1920s, opium was sold OTC. wow! here's an old man who seemed so lulong. goosebumps! when i was living in the humble barangay of sto. nino, everybody knew drugs were rampant but i never saw someone actually doing it. might be a scary sight.
not only drugs but brothels were also rampant and there was a time when stds were so widespread! here is a how a typical brothel looked like. goosebumps ulit!
i think this is my favorite quote in the museum. this was one of the early migrant workers. i think we're talking about early 1900s here. the caption says, "When we first came here, we thought about making some money and going home. Then, after some time here, we wanted to work a little longer and a little longer after that. We forgot about going home altogether." i feel a lot of the filipinos here could relate.
here is a board showcasing the origin of the chinese family names. when you turn the blocks, it shows some more information about the family name. hihihi they look an awful lot like mahjong to me. :)
i love these windows that also doubled as blinds. i think i wouldn't want something like this when i get my own home as it doesn't let too much sunlight in but it's just a fascinating thing, the way you can peep without actually opening the windows. i played with it for a while.
i call this my reverse version. when you stand at the bottom of the stairs, you could see a timeline of the history of singapore. there's a chronological order of years and what happened on that particular year. well, i wasn't that much interested on the year ekek so i just took a picture from the top of the stairs :) what did i attain? nothing. hihihi.
ah, this one's nice too. this is how hawkers looked back then! if i remember correctly, the first hawkers were a wide array of street food on wheels which were rather unhygienic and for the less privileged classes. now, when i hear hawker, i think of inexpensive, yummy, authentic foodie! think of lau pa sat!
spell yummy! hawker food!
dragon dance! it was funny how this dragon "mechanically" danced. it was so stiff and as in literal na may mga kanto ang damoves nya!
hmm, operas were also sikat back then. when i saw this part, i remember HS: ibong adarna, florante at laura, and how we were so gaga over earl ignacio. sheesh. where is he now?
nice structure :)
and this is my 2nd favorite quote. the migrant workers lived in shophouses, which were shops where they get their means of living and at the same time their homes too. imagine crammed rooms with work areas and sleeping areas. there were common toilets. and toilets = buckets. what do you do when a bucket gets full? you empty it. i wouldn't want to be a bucket collector. please, no. thought bubble... if a bucket collector spilled the pupu and the wiwi on the floor of the house, who would clean the mess and how long will the stench remain? :-S
the common kitchen of a shophouse. i wasn't shocked. we could see similar scenes in manila. :(
and this is a sample of the crammed shophouse. this is a typical setup during the dark years of sg. sad to say, we still have this same setup back home.
probably one of the bigger shops. this is a tailor house. aha, only the rich can afford to have tailor-made suits back then. sosyal ka kung nagpapatahi ka ng damit! now, it's the other way around. you find a style that you like and you go to your suking mananahi to have your dress cloned.
an old school sewing machine. awww. we have this in our paranaque house! lola, i miss you!
i realize i don't have a picture of the diorama of a shophouse. it was so realistic! sayang.
so that's it for the heritage center. we went out and explored the other streets of chinatown.
here's the hindu temple:
and what's inside:
and what you have to leave behind before you go in:
we wanted to go in but we were wearing shorts and we weren't sure if you are allowed to go in if you're in shorts. we didn't ask.
yet another temple, the chinese temple. i was able to see what's inside during the time mami and wawin visited us a few months ago. quite interesting.
there's a time to walk.
and a time to eat.
chow time at maxwell hawker center!
crispy noodles yum
chicken rice semi-yum because it's fried. i like the roasted or steamed style better.
pineapple juice was a little bit weird but yum just the same. mikey liked it too. he said the juice base was sugarcane and they just put pineapple tidbits. i can't recognize the sugarcane taste though.
that concludes the chinatown adventure.
dear mikey,
i'm so looking forward to spending more and more days of going here and there with you. let's visit every nook and corner! we'll go places as long as our feet can carry us. and if the time comes that my feet can't, carry me, will you? haha donya?!
love,
me
