Singapore Day 5 - August 9 - Birthday In And For Singapore

It turns out Singapore and I share a Birthday.

I'm a little younger than Singapore, the country turned 52, and I hit 45.

The day started with a cheesecake (turns out Singaporeans don't make particularly good cheesecake, but it is a tradition and it was the thought that counted), and then a nice swim in the pool.

Then on to the Hawker Center and I had Singaporean coffee and Carrot Cake for breakfast.

Singapore's Carrot Cake is not a cake, nor does it have carrots in it. Instead the dish is white radish with egg that is steamed and served with a sauce and is a lot more tasty than you would expect, and very filling. The White Carrot cake dish tends to be more savory than the sweeter/saucy black carrot cake.

Then we walked to Little India and passed by a store selling designed Bengal cats.

Photography of the cats was not allowed, and there was a fee to pet them so we went on our way.

Along the way we passed by a Sikh Temple and a Hindu shrine.

Then we decided to have lunch at Platform 1094 - a Harry Potter themed cafe in Singapore.

Walking there we passed the older more Brutalist-style public housing.

The newer public housing is much nicer and the majority of Singaporeans live in public housing of one sort or another, and the housing is rather organized somewhat proportional to the demographics of the population but the people living there can in fact end up owning their units in a rather complicated fashion that would take a lot to understand, much less explain.

At Platform 1094 we found the place to be packed with an hour wait, so we went in to look around and decided not to wait and instead ordered a couple drinks to go and had lunch elsewhere.

Not bad drinks, and since it was air-conditioned it was rather nice but the ambiance could have been more Potter-Like but I expect they're skirting the very edge of copyright and trademark infringement as it is.

In preparation for Singapore's birthday, buildings were festooned with Singapore's flag everywhere in quite the patriotic display.

Then over to my friend Jonathan's place for a dinner and birthday celebration and to watch the Parade on TV. To see the Parade live is almost impossible - the stadium seat tickets are pretty much impossible to get and watching it from an air conditioned condo was much preferred. The parade was quite cool and there's a big "unity" theme about it all, quite interesting to watch.

We did get to see one distant overflight that came for the stadium that Juvat would have enjoyed:

It was a spectacular view at dusk and with his condo being on the top floor with roof access it was quite a nice view.

He's got a few cats that he's adopted over the years, one of which insisted I photograph her.

Then we descended from the roof to have cake:

A birthday held the greatest distance ever from home and the first birthday held in a country celebrating its own birthday. It was a fantastic day indeed.