Colonial District

After visiting the Chinese and Japanese gardens on Thursday I decided to venture off on my own and explore the colonial district! My first stop was CHIJMES, a Christian monastery turned orphanage turned building for restaurant and bars (ironic, I know). The Cathedral was beautiful, but I could not go too far inside. I took a quick look around the restaurants in the church complex, looking for a snack. There were many options; it looked like it would be a lively spot closer to dinner time or at night. However, the eateries looked a bit nicer than what I was looking for, so I headed out in search of something else. 

The Cathedral at CHIJMES

My next stop was the Singapore Art Museum, or SAM. The museum was small (I gather that the main art museum in Singapore, the National Gallery, is under renovation) but its collection was great! The size was actually perfect for me, because I didn’t have to devote too much of my day to the museum, but was still very happy with what I saw. There was a lot of modern Asian art, and some more traditional pieces.  

An exhibit in the Singapore Art Museum. This Giant
Inflatable Bunny was positioned in the front of the
museum, and an exhibit showed it positioned in various
places all over Singapore!

An exhibit in the Singapore Art Museum

After a stop at the Coffee Bean for a quick latte and snack (The Coffee Bean is the main coffee chain in Singapore. Although there are Starbucks’, the Coffee Bean is more popular), I set off to find Fort Canning Park. Fort Canning Park is where Sir Stanford Raffles first built his home in Singapore. During WWII, it was converted to a Fort. It took me a little while, and I ended up walking in circles. I almost gave up, but I finally found the entrance to the park, which happened to be an enormous 9 story staircase straight up a hill. My legs were DYING! The whole way up I was thinking “why am I doing this? It’s just a park, it can’t be worth all of this trouble”. Luckily, it absolutely was. The view from the top of the hill was spectacular! I was looking through a flag-shrine type thing through the Singapore Skyline straight to Marina Bay Sands! 

The view from 'Raffles House' (which is not actually
Sir Stanford Raffles' house) at Fort Canning Park

The rest of the park was beautiful. I could definitely see myself spending time there if I had more time in Singapore. One side overlooked Clarke Quay, there was a big old colonial building with piano music drifting out of one of the windows, and plenty of large grassy areas and gardens. I even saw an old Chinese man practicing Tai Chi (or some other form of Martial Arts?).  Afterwards I was going to go look at some of the old colonial buildings, but I decided I could see enough colonial history in America. When in Asia, see Asian things! So I decided to take another trip to Chinatown. Check out my next post for my temple adventures.