Welcome back to part two of The Original Singapore Walks. This time I will show you around the eccentric Clarke Quay Singapore River area. Kevin joined me on this walk which took place on a Saturday evening.
There were only about five people in this tour group, and Kevin was the only guy. One woman was from Chicago, one from Australia and another from Italy. There are many restaurants along both sides of the river, which is called the pedestrian mall. The tour guide said that some of the best chili crab can be found in one of the restaurants here. We took note of that for later. There are seafood restaurants, ethnic restaurants, brew pubs, and lots of night clubs.
The Singapore River used to be very polluted when it was used primarily as a trade route filled with boats transporting goods to warehouses. Some people used to live in tiny spaces under the bridges making their living fishing. One old man in particular was called the Guardian of the River, who lived under one of the bridges for many years. City planners had a vision to change the Clarke Quay river area for good. They cleaned up the river and relocated some tenants to a different area of the city. Historical buildings were restored and moored Chinese junks (tongkang boats) were refurbished into floating restaurants and nightclubs. Now, river taxis such as bumboats, float up and down the river providing relaxing and interesting tours of the Clarke Quay area. Kevin and I have not done this yet, and were told that the best time to ride one is at night.
The building in the background of the picture below is so unusual and unique to Singapore. This is the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. This building complex has a hotel, large shopping mall, skating rink, casino, art/science museum, convention center, grand theatre, and a skypark on the very top of the building which looks like a ship. When I first saw this building I thought it looked like there was a great flood in Singapore and a ship beached itself on the top of three buildings, and then the waters receded to expose the spectacle. That's definitely not the case. This building was designed by a great visionary.
We walked by some intriguing restaurants that Kevin and I will be returning for dinner sometime. Two restaurants in particular that caught our eyes was a Chinese restaurant called Indochine, and a Moroccan lounge called Marrakesh. As a group, we stopped in Marrakesh and had drinks while listening to our tour guide talk about the history and current happenings of the area. I had a Moroccan mint tea on ice that was so refreshing. They normally serve it hot, but I wanted it cold. It's not traditional ordering tea on ice, but I loved it. Kevin had a green drink that I don't remember the name of. It was sweet and very green!
We stopped into a pewter museum and gallery called Royal Selangor that specializes in handcrafted pewter and tin. Pewter was originally used as currency. People would trade pewter figurines, such as animals in exchange for goods. Later, the figurines were replaced with pewter coins. Pewter was made into coin "trees", and someone would snap off a coin to be used as currency. When all the coins were used up and just the outline of the tree remained, it would be melted down to make more coins. We watched pewtersmithing demonstrations that showed pewter being poured into coin tree shaped molds, and cups being hammered into textured patterns.
At the conclusion of our tour, we took our little souvenir coins that were given to everyone in the group, and headed to one of the restaurants to sample some yummy food that enticed us earlier. I might head back to Royal Selangor sometime soon to try my hand in making my own pewter bowl at the School of Hard Knocks. I can take home a hand made piece of history, plus it would be fun to make a little noise. :-)
