This morning we had the taxi drop us off at the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple in Little India. The temple was built in 1881, and like the Hindu temple we had seen yesterday, the exterior was covered in intricate carvings that are painted in bright colors. The doors to the temple were shut, so we assumed it was closed and didn’t try to go inside.

We decided to have lunch at a restaurant right next to the temple. Eric and Omar stuck with known favorites. Omar got chicken tikka masala and egg paratha with curry sauce. Eric got fish tikka masala with butter paratha. Naan bread is like a pita bread and paratha bread (also called canai) is a moister, chewier version of naan. The egg one had a fried egg cooked into it and the butter one was oozing with melted butter. Christi was adventurous and tried something new, chicken kottu paratha. She was expecting paratha bread with some chicken baked into the middle. It turned out to be shredded chicken pan fried with pieces of paratha, onions, and other seasonings. It was absolutely delicious.

The heart of little India is another area where there are few tall towers, made up mostly of the two story row houses, but the outer lying areas have huge residential looking towers. After wandering around the shops for a bit, we headed south to Bugis Street.

Bugis Street was once the red light district of Singapore. The government has cleaned it up, and today it is a nice square closed to vehicle traffic that houses a couple historic houses of worship, a huge shopping center, and some buildings that look like they may be office space. The square is lively and colorful. There are the same red, round lantern strung along the tops of the street lights that we saw in Chinatown. There are lots of pedestrians and street vendors selling things like flowers and ice cream, and, of course, the walkway is lined with trees. Eric stopped for an ice cream from a little cart. Flavor choices included sweet corn, durian (a fruit), honeydew and yam, but he passed on the exotic flavors and went with raspberry.

We went inside the Buddhist temple, Kuan Im Thong Hood Cho. They are renovating the exterior, so the outside was covered in scaffolding, but there was one corner left uncovered, which is in the photo below. The Buddhist temple we went to yesterday had a few people worshipping in it. This temple was absolutely jam packed with people on the floor, praying and throwing small red chili pepper shaped things on the ground. We are curious as to what the red things are. Like the temple we saw yesterday, the entrance leads into an open courtyard area with a huge altar in the middle. Also like the temple yesterday, it is decorated in primarily red and gold. The Hindu temples in Bali look more like the Buddhist temples here in Singapore than the Hindu temples.

The Hindu temple, Sri Krishnan, is literally right next door. It is also undergoing a facelift. The front entrance is flanked by statues on both sides, and we got a good shot of one of the statues and part of the entranceway. As our luck has been with Hindu temples today, it was closed. It looks like an upscale version of the other temples we had seen.

From the temple, we moved on to Parco Bugis Junction Shopping Mall. The shopping center is more like a swap meet environment than a mall. It is two adjoining three story buildings modeled after the “pernanakan” style houses that are popular in Singapore. We would have called them colonial style had we not been told otherwise. Both buildings are jam packed with vendors in tiny stalls selling everything from clothes to produce to prepared foods. The walkways are very narrow and it there are tons of shoppers. We wandered around there for a bit, checking out the assortment of products.

There were more sites we could have gone to check out, such as colonial era churches. But, we felt like we had seen enough to give us a good feel for the city. Omar agreed, saying we had seen just about all the highlights. Omar suggested that we fly to Hong Kong in the morning for a quick 2 day trip. Since he is a flight attendant, he could get us cheap tickets. He has also been to Hong Kong numerous times and says Hong Kong is much more fun than Singapore. Eric and Christi thought it was a great idea, so we headed back to Kosmos, booked a flight and then watched a movie and relaxed.