This is the final instalment of my "Local Sights Through Foreign Eyes" series, which is more or less the pics I took when my Taiwanese friends, from the music company which the band Sodagreen belongs, were here for their concert in August...

Since it's been a while from the last post, here's a recap of the places we visited: http://merman13.livejournal.com/tag/sodagreen

On the 2nd August, after bringing Ricky and Fanfan through Chinatown, Little India, Thieves Market and Kampong Glam, we continued on to the Esplanade, where we encountered a major road block due to the National Day Parade rehearsals...

After a huge sidetrack, we finally made it to the Esplanade, explored the venue, bought some delicious cookies from The Cookie Museum there, and then proceeded to the crowded Marina Bay to see if we could spot some NDP action...

Well, although we couldn't catch the actual performance from our standpoint, the bay crowd was just as excited when the helicopters flew past with our Singapore flag...

After that, we walked over to the Padang and toward Capitol Building to grab some buns from Breadtalk, before taking a cab to Singapore Max Pavilion for the Sodagreen concert, which I'd already covered HERE...

Here are the photos...


The second part of this entry continues on the day after, when Ricky and I headed over to Sentosa's Palawan Beach for a bit of early morning sun. Fanfan decided to continue with her beauty sleep instead, so she bade an early farewell...


Spending those few days with Ricky and Fanfan allowed me to visit many parts of Singapore that I'd taken for granted over the years, and it was really interesting to see my own tiny island country from fresh perspectives...

Now, I can't wait to visit them in Taipei, hopefully next year!!!

After bringing Ricky and Fanfan to Chinatown and Little India, I took them to the Sungei Road's infamous "Thieves Market", one of the oldest flea market in Singapore that sells antiques and recycled or used wares...

Among many interesting finds were old models of cameras that some of us had actually owned, cassette tapes, walkman players, etc...

This was on the way to our next destination, which was Kampong Glam...

There, we walked through Haji Lane, and found ourselves relaxing for a well-deserved break and drinks at Bali Lane's Blu Jaz Cafe...

Thereafter, we explored some of the shops along Arab Street, Bussorah Street, Kandahar Street etc, and eventually, reached the Sultan Mosque...

Here are the photos...


And so, that concluded our brief but exhausting tour around the major ethnic and historic parts of Singapore...

From Sultan Mosque, we then moved on to the Esplanade, but that's another entry, coming up next...

On the second day of the Sodagreen folks' visit to Singapore a couple of weeks back, I took Ricky, Fanfan and Jiakai out for lunch at Amoy Street Food Centre...

After lunch, Jiakai had to return to the hotel to get ready for the evening concert, while the rest of us went on with our plans of exploring the ethnic parts of Singapore...

Our itinerary included visits to the ancient (by local standards) and recently refurbished Thian Hock Keng Temple, parts of Chinatown, Little India, Sungei Road's "Thieves Market", Arab Street, followed by Marina Mall, the Esplanade, through the Padang, and ended with Saint Andrew's Cathedral...

After that, we grabbed some buns from the nearby Breadtalk outlet and took a cab over to the Singapore Max Pavilion for the Sodagreen concert (see previous entry here)...

It was a long day indeed for the three of us, as we covered so many grounds and tried so many things that other tourists might not get the chance to try...

And I must say I was glad Ricky and Fanfan were able to catch up with my pace. After all, they only have that couple of days to explore our city, and wanted to make the most of it...

Anyway, I not only played "Tour Guide", but was also their unofficial "Photographer". So here are the photos...


I'll post up the rest of the photos from that afternoon soon, stay tuned!

Okay, here's the continuation of my adventures of playing tour guide to my Taiwanese friends a couple of Fridays ago...

If you missed the previous entry, here it is again: "Local Sights Through Foreign Eyes - Sentosa 1"...

After spending a short lazy afternoon at Sentosa, we made our way by cab over to another "pride" of Singapore:



Stay tuned for the next instalment of our local adventures in... Chinatown and Little India!

Last Friday, my Taiwanese friends, Ricky and Fanfan arrived in town, and although Ricky was here once before, it was Fanfan's first time in Singapore... 

Both of them had never really seen Singapore, so I thought I would bring them out for some sight-seeing. I'd wanted the opportunity to take some photos of local sights as well, as I had not visited some of these places for ages...

It's a pity they only had two full days, so I tried to cover the major attractions. I left out the nitty gritty parts of Singapore (got meh? got!) for their next visit someday...

And so firstly, we had lunch at Maxwell Food Centre, and Jiakai happened to be there with Fanfan, so he joined us too...

After lunch, Jiakai had to leave for rehearsals, so the rest of us walked through Chinatown and took the MRT to Harbourfront, had a peek at Vivo City, then proceeded on to take the Monorail to Sentosa...

Here are some 60 photos taken during this part of my series of pics, which I call...

After a taste of Sentosa, we headed over to the widely acclaimed Night Safari...

Watch out for more photos, coming up soon...