I saw monkeys!

It's only 7 p.m. and so far it's been a busy and a great day! Instead of hitting the gym, I kicked the day off with a brisk morning walk and this time I decided to take my camera so I could do a little sightseeing along the way.

A few weeks ago I posted a professional photo of the Merlion Statue (Singapore is the Lion City). Today I walked along the marina again and got my photo beside it this time.


The Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay are two prickly, hedgehog-like structures Singapore wishes would be as distinctive as the Sydney Opera House. Though apparently there has been controversy about the design (it opened in 2002), I think they're beautiful. There are actually two of them though you can only see one in this photo. Someone told me they are shaped like the native and notorious Singaporean smelly fruit, the durian. It doesn't say that in my guide book, so I don't know. I think they're magnificent and can't wait to go inside.

After the Esplanade, I just kept walking around, going a different way than I had come. I don't know what monument this is, actually, but it seemed worthy of a photo!

This is the Parliament building. I also passed the Supreme Court building. After my walk and my shower, I met up with Kevin and Ed for lunch in Chinatown.

For lunch we went to a dim sum place. For those who may not know what dim sum is, it's a Chinese restaurant where the servers bring carts of food around and you just take what you want off the carts. So one cart might have rice dishes. Another one might have dumplings. Some have desserts. This cart brought us some kind of rice porridge, flavored with pork and century egg. It was pretty good, actually, even though the thought of century egg is kind of gross. According to Wikipedia, it's a Chinese ingredient you apply to various types of eggs by using "a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice straw for several weeks to several months, depending on the method of processing."

Here are some of the other foods we had (we had a lot!). On the top left are little yam/potato cakes (fried, of course). In the lower middle are little pork filled pastries (yep, they're fried, too). And on the top right is Peking duck. The Peking duck and some of our other dishes actually weren't fried. It was delicious! My favorite was a dumpling filled with pork and prawns. I didn't take a photo of that, unfortunately.

After dim sum, we took Kevin through Chinatown. Here he is looking at silk goods with Ed. I also showed him my favorite bracelet store while I was there. I cannot disclose whether any goods were purchased there by any parties...

Here are Ed, Kevin, and I are posing with a lady in Chinatown where Kevin and I bought a few gifts. Rest assured, she gave us a "very good deal." Don't they all?! After this I left Ed and Kevin to some manly sightseeing and I headed out to MacRitchie Reservoir with Ali.

MacRitchie Reservoir is in the central part of the island and is where all the water is collected and purified for Singapore's tap water. It's a pretty long walk all the way around the reservoir (about 12K/ 7.5 miles) and we didn't do the entire loop. It's popular with joggers and walkers - there were a lot of people - though I can't imagine running 7.5 miles in the Singaporean heat in a jungle setting! We probably walked between 5-6 miles in the jungle, and though it was cool, it was not cool. This little pagoda is near the entrance, just before we entered the jungle trails.

So before I get to the monkey photos, let me just tell you that no sooner had Ali and I hit the trails than we saw two monkeys - a mommy and a pretty young child. I wasn't ready with my camera, so as I was looking for it in my bag, the little baby monkey started running towards us, which freaked me out. Like an idiot I screamed a bit (not bad, but definitely made a distinctive noise) and then the mommy monkey started walking towards us. Ali was like, "don't scream at them!" and then I got kind of rattled and we walked on by them without taking photos. Even though they're kind of cute, neither of us wanted to get too close to them and they were curious about us and not scared, so we kept going. I carried my camera with me the entire rest of the way so that when we saw the next monkeys I would be prepared.

But after walking another two hours, the monkeys never came. We saw this huge snail (close to the size of an iPhone), and some lizards, too. Even though we were having a great time and it felt awesome to be getting in a good hike, by this time I was really disappointed with how I had reacted to the first monkeys. What if we didn't get a second chance?!

We were almost at our exit when we heard a familiar rattling in the trees. There they were, at least 15 of them! They were slinking around the trees and getting closer to us. Though we weren't able to get clear pictures (it was really hard the way the light was coming in through the trees), we saw mommy monkeys with tiny baby monkeys clutching to their chests. Adorable! They kept getting closer to us so we backed away a bit (it's a little freakier than I had anticipated, all the monkeys coming up to you). I'll upload all the photos and send them around soon. Then I saw the monkey I had been waiting for...

Ok, so it looks like we're a lot closer than we really were, but I'm convinced this is the grandaddy monkey and the ruler of this little lot. Isn't he awesome? Kind of looks like that monkey from the Lion King. This totally made my day.

I'd better hop in the shower now because tonight I'm finally going to meet Ali's fiance, Zach, when we meet up for a quick drink in a little while. Then, Ed, Kevin and I are having dinner, and then hopefully a Singapore Sling at the place where they originated, the Raffles Hotel. I'll let you know tomorrow. :)