A slightly more casual start today as it was going to be an easier day, with only 2 sights to be seen. The Buddha Tooth Temple and the Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice hawker stand in the Maxwell food center.
Both of these are on the edge of Chinatown. Also within blocks of the Buddhist temple are a mosque and a Hindu temple I discovered, but my interests lay with the Buddhist temple and museum full of artifacts spread over its 5 levels, the most significant being the Buddha Tooth fragment discovered in a collapsed Stupa in Myanmar in 1980.
The construction started in 2005 and the temple opened in 2007. Most of it is accessible to the public, but due deference and respect needs to be paid with headwear to be removed in the entire building. In the section where the Buddha Tooth is displayed shoes also need to be removed. I spend a good hour or so wandering the floors
Across the road in the Hawker center it is a different story, although queues were orderly when there were queues. Staff at the 2 Michelin star Waku Ghin had recommended this venue as number 1 to sample the Singapore national dish of Hainanese Chicken Rice. It turns out that Anthony Bourdain had spouted superlatives about Tian Tian also. And Mr. Bourdain was right. The rice was flavourful and fragrant enough to be eaten by itself.
To explain the rice is cooked a bit like an Italian Risotto using chicken stock, and I am sure 11 other secret herbs and spices. And the Chili sauce accompanying the meal was tangy as well as spicy. My only point of difference to the majority of consumers is, I prefered the roasted chicken to the standard steamed chicken. It was worth the walk. And the wait in the Queue. And I hate queuing.
On the way back zig zagging through Chinatown I finally got caught in a tropical Singapore downpour, which trapped me in one of the shops. And yes, I bought something. I needed that little extra horse statue anyway.
