Singapore – Day 2

May 29, 2024

This was my first real day in Singapore, and I was SO excited. Today was a very special day because it was the first day I was to meet up with my very best friends I had met at Stanford the previous summer. William and Gaurav. These two people mean a whole lot to me. I can’t explain the feeling much in words, but I’ve never felt more in place than in these two people’s presence. William is from China originally, but he moved to Singapore around 12 years ago. He’s trying to gain his green card, which means he spends most his Holidays in the U.S. Gaurav is American, but he’s lived in the U.S., Dubai, somewhere else, and now Singapore. He’s two months younger than me, but is attending UPenn. Between these two friends, there is a collective sense of detachment from identity. It seems we think quite similarly as well. It really is quite refreshing being around them again, and I’m so grateful for their friendship.

The night before, we decided to meet at Williams house at 8am. I took the MRT (Singapore’s version of the subway) and it was SO VERY easy to navigate. Singapore’s public transportation is so navigable and user-friendly.

Once I got to William’s we sat and caught up for a few hours. If you didn’t believe how good of friends William and Gaurav were before, you will when you hear that they planned an entire day of jam-packed activities.

The first stop was initially a trampoline park called Bounce, but the time we arrived only kids under 10 were playing so we were told to come back later. No worries. We walked around the district we were in: Orchard – known as Singapore’s shopping district. There were SEVEN different malls all connected. It was so confusing.

There we tried a few must have street foods:

Pandan Cake (10/10) – this is a green sponge cake. It is light and airy. I never knew cakes could even be refreshing, but this takes the cake (hahaha does this pun work?). Consuming this cake is the eating equivalent of drinking an ice cold drink on a hot summers day. I believe panda is a leaf, which is why it gets its green color?

Curry Puff (6.5/10) – pretty good. This is basically an empanada with a curry filling inside. It was fairly good, a little sweet. I think it’s a nice snack.

Kaya Toast (10/10) – THIS WAS SOO GOOD. I got it twice at a chain restaurant called ToastBox. Kaya, from my understanding, is a coconut jam that you spread on your toast. Kind of like Nutella, but better, and made from coconuts. It was served with a slab of butter in between the Kaya jam, that was spread on each side of the toast, forming a delicate, Kaya sandwich. SO GOOD. My mouth is watering right now thinking about it.

After trying these iconic foods, it was time to have lunch. We went to Seoul Restaurant, which was a Korean BBQ place. It was very nice. I think it was $45 per person, all you can eat. Here’s most of what we ordered:

Marinated Pork (9.5/10) – hands down the best meat there. Soo good. It was marinated in a sweet sauce, which made the meat not even needing any seasoning afterwards.

Pork Belly (7/10) – it was quite good when you ate it with sauce. You could add chili sauce to it to make it a little sweet, or you could add the salt, pepper and oil mixture to accentuate its saltiness, OR you could put it in the vinaigrette which added flavor but was not too heavy.

Tteokbokki (9/10) – these were rice cakes that were lathered in a spicy and tangy sauce. These were very nice. Flavor wasn’t too strong and the chewy texture was just perfect to combat the texture of the meat.

Scallion Cake (7.5/10) – pretty standard. They were nice. My mom it makes better though.

Kimchi (9/10) – just lovely to have as a side. It was nice and cold which made it very nice to eat with the freshly cooked meat.

Green tea (8/10) – this was pretty good for tea. It had a nice, almost woody, taste. I don’t usually like tea, but this was pretty nice.

After absolutely stuffing ourselves, we went back to the trampoline park for an hour. It was quite fun. We did the obstacle course and spent most of our time beating little kids in dodge ball.

By the time we finished with BOUNCE, it was 3pm. At 3:30, we ran to another mall to play the floor is lava. It was super fun! It was only a 20 minute excursion but we were coming up with strategies.

Then after that, we decided to go to an escape room. We had some time to kill so we got some bubble tea. I had honey lemon yuzu and plum juice (6.5/10), quite refreshing. I really wanted Kaya toast again, so we found a ToastBox, and this time I ordered:

Kaya toast (10/10) – you know how I feel about Kaya toast.

Ice Oat Milk Coffee (7/10) – not too sweet. Better than StarBucks to be honest.

Milo Dinosaur (10/10) – this was SOO good. It’s basically just an iced chocolate milk with a bunch of powder on top. Very yummy and very refreshing. However, ToastBox is doing this thing where they are removing their straws, and it was actually quite hard to drink without a straw. So for that I’m changing it to a (9.75/10).

Soft Boiled Eggs (8.9/10: in terms for how eggs are made) – these were quite good! I think you eat them with soy sauce and white pepper. You then have to slurp it in one bite. It was very good! It was a little hot, so be careful for that but it was really nice!

We also went to McDonald’s and had the McSpicy (9/10). I was amazed!! ITS LIKE A MCCHICKEN, BUT IT USES REAL CHICKEN. And the spice is the perfect level. It’s infused with the chicken breast and it hits you after you enjoy the flavor. Amazing bang for your buck. $6.50 singapore dollars which is like $4.81 USD. AMAZING.

After these tries, it was time to go to the escape room we had booked, but uh-oh. We took too long eating, so we were actually behind schedule now.

On our way there we were all running, and ran across the street. William and Gaurav made it just in time, and I would have too. But in the middle of the street, suddenly, my empty plastic water bottle fell out of my backpack. CRAP. To be honest, maybe in the U.S. I would’ve kept on running. Maybe. I don’t really like littering, so actually maybe not. But I still had the opportunity. But in Singapore? There was NO way I would litter. So unfortunately I picked up the water bottle and went back to the sidewalk, waiting for the light. Then a stranger said “be careful next time!”, which really threw me off, but he was right 😦

Anyways, after that we entered the escape room. It was train to Busan themed and it had live actors! And by live actors, it was just some guy who was only on his 3rd day.

In the middle of the game, we had gotten to a point where we unlocked the second to last room. At the time we didn’t know there was only one live actor, so it was actually super scary. Anyways, when we unlocked the door, the guy came in with a mask on. The point of him chasing us was so we would RUN into the coal room (the newly unlocked room), and he would then lock us in. However, that was not how it played out. One thing we learned ourselves about today is we are not the ones that should be in an apocalypse. We had neither fight OR flight. Instead of running into the coal room like we were SUPPOSED TO, we sat down and cowered until the guy had to say in a very soft whisper, “No guys, you have to run into there”, and pointed us into the right direction.

After that, the escape room was quite fun! We completed it with 17:29 to spare, and were laughing about that incident. The worker was also very nice. He’s the rightmost guy in the photo.

After the escape room, we decided to go back to William’s where we all showered.

We then rested a bit and played a card game Coup. It was SO fun. After a little bit, we went to this Taiwanese kitchen where I had the BEST pork belly rice in my life. Oh my goodness was it good.

After, we walked back to William’s house, played some FIFA 2024, and eventually went back to our homes. At this time I was exhausted, so I started this blog up, and went straight to sleep.