Chinatown and Clarke Quay

by Christian
for Wednesday, July 24th

We started the day after lunch by heading to Chinatown. When we got there, there were a lot of little gift shops along the road. The second one we looked at had fans that I wanted to buy with my souvenir money ($5 for the entire trip!) Chinatown had lots of stores, places to eat and people.

Chinatown in Singapore

After looking at the stores for a few minutes, we went to the Chinatown Cultural Center. It was like a museum with audio guides. The Cultural Center was about life in Chinatown for all the Chinese immigrants to Singapore around the 1950s. Many different families lived on the second floor of the shophouses in these little cubicles or rooms. Each family got one room. At the end of the hall was a very small shared kitchen and bathroom. You might wonder how they flushed their toilet. They didn't! They just had buckets under a hole in a small cement platform. At night, men would come around and collect all the buckets, sliding them each into their own cabinet on a truck. I can't imagine how smelly it would be to have that coming by your house!

a family of eight lived in this cubicle in the 1950s

When we finished the museum, I bought the fan. Next we went to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum. It was air conditioned which made me happy. It was really neat. It has a lot of gold in it. It's called the Tooth Relic Temple because it has a piece of a tooth in it - but not everyone believes it's Buddha's tooth though. The tooth had a lot of gold on it. It was on the 4th floor of the building. Before we saw the tooth, we went up to the rooftop garden. 

in front of the Buddhist Tooth Relic Temple 

the temple from the outside

Next we walked to Clarke Quay (you pronounce quay like "key"). Quays are built up areas with buildings and restaurants along the Singapore River. We ate at one of the restaurants. Rachel and Dad met us there. When Dad texted and asked Rachel where the restaurant was, she wrote back, "by the river." My dad's Grab driver told him, "All the restaurants are by the river." I thought that was funny.

eating Vietnamese food at Clark Quay along the Singapore River with the "bum boats" in the background

After dinner, we went on a boat ride on a boat called a bum boat - which is the old traditional boats in that area. We went down the Singapore River and into the Marina Bay. We saw the Merlion - a giant statue of a lion with a mermaid tail. It is the symbol of Singapore because Singapore is known as the Lion City.

the famous Merlion - the symbol of the Lion City