Cities within the City

While Singapore is an ethnically diverse, highly integrated place, there are still “enclaves” where a high concentration of people with the same ethnicity or country of origin live and work. The two largest “cities within the city” are Little India and Chinatown. (We also heard that out in the suburbs there is an area known as “Little America”, which seems really funny – I can’t imagine that it’s much of a tourist draw!)

We visited Little India on a rainy afternoon. The main thoroughfare was decorated with Indian-styled banners.

The district was filled with small trinket shops, fabric stores, furniture stores, and vegetarian Indian restaurants. It smelled delicious! While a lot of the stuff for sale was mass produced for tourists, there were some hand-crafted items.

We stopped by a large Hindu temple, the Veeramakaliamman Temple (how’s that for a mouthful?), in the center of Little India. The architecture was very intricately detailed.

Visitors were welcome in the temple (once shoes were removed), so we watched a very elaborate ceremony take place…but didn’t understand it at all.

I thought the piles of shoes outside each of the temples we saw were fun to look at - they reminded me of the scene from Slumdog Millionaire when the kids stole the shoes. :)

The Chinese Autumn Moon Festival holiday had just concluded when we were in Singapore, but Chinatown was still decorated for the occasion.

The lanterns, along with the brightly painted buildings, were a cheerful site. We thought the colonial architecture, blended with styles that are distinctly Asian, was really striking.

Chinatown had lots of little shops and market stalls. It was well organized and spotless...unlike many of the places in the real China that we’ve visited! It was such a great place that we went back again. Here's a family pic from our second outing: