03/01/10 - Singapore - Chinatown‏

This morning we were to meet Jackson at one of his favourite restaurants in Chinatown. Wade got a last minute emergency job from work, so he had to stay back at his place while Athene, Jackson and I had a late breakfast. Walking through the Chinatown markets, they had most knick knacks you could think of. I think I got propositioned for just about every good under the sun and when I walked into a camera shop to see how their tiny tripods are, I barely made it out of there intact, aggressive as the sales guy was.

With a tinkle in their eyes, they then took me to an eatery to sample a 'Durian' some sort of fruit that apparently has a powerful stench and taste that lingers. I ate mine pureed with a thin crispy pancake wrapped around it. Much to their disappointment I didn't wretch and it sorta of tasted like a not ripe banana I would say. Apparently the raw fruit is more potent, but I'll save that for another day.

I tagged along as they went to the local toy and figurine markets, set up in a mall that was partially closed on the Sunday. I've seen similar stuff in shops around Singapore as well as in Brisbane back home, there was just more of it here, plus vintage stuff as well. Quite a few not-safe-for-kids ones that I had a giggle at and after a hour or two there, I split up to explore Chinatown on my own.

I just went up a main street, taking photos of things where I came to the Maxwell Food Centre, which if you wanted to simplify it, was a pre-war shed covering many, many little food outlets.

Opposite that was the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum.

The temple is a massive, fairly new temple structure. It features multiple floors that include a sky garden, souvenir and religious shop, museum, the room where they store the gold tooth and the bottom floors, which I believe are the main prayer areas. The place is richly decorated with tapestries, hundreds of thousands of buddha's and any ornate fittings. It's completely open to the public as well, with some place you go shoeless and no cameras aloud. Just outside was a large cauldron full of sand that the local faithful and the less faithful tourist could light one of those scented sticks and place in the cauldron. Inside, the main prayer area featured huge statues that displayed various people and facets of Buddhism and the both sides of the rooms where lined with 100 individually hand crafted Buddhas. Behind and above the main statues were tapestries of mainly chinese styled dragons.

I took the elevator to the very top floor, which has open air gardens, the walls around you have 10,000 mini Bhuddha's, whose place on the wall I think you or your company can purchase for a year for good luck. At the centre of the gardens was the Vairocana Buddha Prayer Wheel, housed inside the Ten Thousand Bhuddhas Pavilion. This is a massive drum that has scripture on it, you can rotate it, or if you were the kids, just grab on and run round and round.

From the text there: 'Cylindrical in shape, it is a religious artefact commonly used by Chinese Buddhists. The rim is embossed with esoteric Vairocana Mantra. A piece of scripture is placed inside. Every turn of the wheel is a convenient way to recite the sutra.'

After walking around the gardens taking a few more pictures I headed down to the floor below. This floor contained the Tooth Relic, of which I was unable to photograph anything in this room, helpful descriptions included.

So I've taken the following from http://www.btrts.org.sg/ : 'The Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic Chamber will be the repository of the Sacred Buddha Tooth. The gold Sacred Buddha’s Tooth Relic Stupa is the center of focus in this magnificent room. There will also be a gold canopy above this Stupa and the floor will be lined in gold tiles produced through a special process, by Shanghai Kangyu.'

I was lucky enough to be able to view the tooth, which like the room and fittings around it, is solid gold.

The third floor housed the shop, with various artefacts and the history of the construction of the temple on the surrounding walls.

Heading down to the second floor I came to the museum where I've learnt quite a bit about Buddhism from walking and reading through out it. I pretty much took a photo of every single text describing the original Buddhas steps through out his life. For one, apparently the original Buddha was quite a thin man, and it's the chinese styled fat, round happy Buddha that we see these days. Though I think that also counts as a correct Buddha, will have to go through my photos again perhaps.

I came out back on the ground floor, where a full ceremony with monks, chants and prayer was in full effect. I found a corner to keep out of the way in and watched it for a while.

After finally feeling a bit like an interloper, I headed out back into Chinatown proper to finally end up back in the Chinatown MRT. I popped out at the closest station near to Suntec City Mall, where I was going to walk to get some final bits I needed for my trip. On the way I walked past Singapore's version of the 'Batman Building' (anything talk, dark and gothic is to be named as so, you know one when you see it) which was rather cool and the 'Batman Building' of Brisbane has some serious competition in my mind.

I arrived at the mall some time later, passed a large construction site and even found the base station for one of the larger local tour groups of Singapore, that will be handy to get to next time I am here.

Picked up a sleeping bag from Suntec City Mall, helped out a Singaporean family who's daughter was going to Denmark choose one, then just wandered about the mall looking around for anything else I might need.

Pro tip, all Singapore shoe places top out in size 12. I guess I could have ordered something in, but ah well.

The Mall is right next to the Fountain of Wealth, which according to them, is the largest fountain in the world. When I arrived there, I saw the tail end of one of the light and laser shows they have. Basically a huge fan of water they can laser write on, in my case, I saw birthday greetings.

I walked out of there, past the Singapore Parliament to the place where I watched the New Years celebrations from. Now deserted, I took a picture anyways. I continued on to the viewing platform of the Merlion on the bay and got a few night shots of it, and various buildings around the bay. Got back into the Subway and headed back to Wade's for the night.