Analyses trait Day 1

The first cultural destination of the day was Chinatown.

Just looking around, there were so many irresistible shops to to go through :P

But Chinatown in Singapore was not what I sort of expected. It was spectacular and still had the lucky colours of red and gold throughout the street, the classic Chinese lanterns and Kanji adorning the street and pillars along with the nostalgic scents of Chinese cuisine or the burning in-scents from the Chinese Temples around. But it was the how the culture had integrated itself into this westernised or European influenced area, which was evident from the architecture of the buildings above and around with the art nouveau designs on the external areas of the buildings.    

As for Arab street, I never really got a chance to check the place out since the my class somehow lost me....><

But it was supposedly located behind a big mosc, which was located somewhere behind The Sultan Hotel.

I looked at some pics though taken by a friend and it appears to have the same western/European architectural influence but the difference of that compared to Chinatown was that there were a lot of vibrant colours with outstanding patterns/shapes and of gold. Even the buildings were colourful. The patterns were floral and geometric as well, with a, I think, 6 pointed star as features for both symbolism and design.

The reason I have not placed any photos though is that I would prefer to have taken the pictures myself, meaning I could have had a better experience and analysis of the area if I was actually there.

Though, not even knowing, I probably would sound quite racist with this remark, but I really dislike and dislike the smell of curry and certain spices so in some ways I'm a bit glad I wasn't there.....><

Day 1 - Chinatown & Arab St

We started the day off with breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Then headed to Lavender station to purchase our travel cards. It took a little while but everyone got on in the end. We caught the MRT to our first destination, which was Singapore Chinatown. We were given a tour guide by a friend of both tutors and as we got out of the station, we all pulled out our cameras and began shooting away at anything we saw that could be of reference.

First sight after getting out of MRT station

Such colourful buildings

Colourful chopsticks

Not sure what temple this belonged too but it had a gorgeous entrance

And giant calligraphy brushes 

Oh gosh, everything looked soooo good and even tempting for shopping. I was even amazed that they had these '3 for $10' shops, which was even more tempting.

So tempting to shop!!

She guided us around telling us abit about the area and some of the stuff that was being sold at some of the shops, which i didn't really take any pics of as the items were used for giving to the dead. These items were like paper money or paper items, which would be burned and those items would be sent to the afterlife for the deceased to use. A little fact that my mom told me was that these items aren't really good because it would be keeping the deceased in the afterlife rather than giving them a chance to be reborn. 

Mid way through, we all headed to the Chinatown Complex for some drinks, which we were all kindly shouted some sugarcane juice from Lisa, our tutor! As we waited, the customer before us, was carrying some drinks in an interesting way.

  

We visited some Chinese medicine stores too, where there were so many interesting packaging design ideas.

Another thing she showed us were the apartment complexes and it was interesting to know how the housing purchasing was made and how they hung the laundry out too XD 

We even went up to the top floor of one of the apartments and gosh, the view was breathtaking. 

So many skyscrapers

We then also visited the Chinatown tourist and info center. The souvenirs were interesting and I even bought one, a bag with a beautiful print design on it.

The bag design was so pretty XD

Around 2, I think, we headed back to our accommodation to rest for a bit since it was a hot day. Afterwards, we all headed out to Bugis to purchase sim cards. Then onwards back to our accommodation, where Arab street was located close by.....except I missed out since I was somewhat forgotten....back at Bugis Junction. So i decided to head back by my self and in the evening, headed back out to Bugis for dinner with some classmates.