Singapore: Chinatown "revisited"

It rained again yesterday and for fear of having to stay in the house again, I decided to start my journey earlier. At 8.30AM the alarm clock rang and I without a care in the world, turned it off. I woke up late but it was still earlier than the other days. Before my suspected curse of waking up at 11 and having the sky turn grey by 12 becomes confirmed, I hurriedly left the house just a little after 11.

By 12, I was in Chinatown and the sky is anything but grey. Actually it was burning hot. After walking through Pagoda St. and Terengganu St., I reached the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum.

I sought refuge from the menacing sun in the 6-level temple (basement and rooftop included). It was the first temple equipped with air-con and lifts that I’ve ever visited.

Lanterns are hung around the temple in celebration of Wesak Day.

More lanterns! Wesak Day will be celebrated here until 1st June.

100 Dragons Hall. A hundred Buddhas are enshrined on both sides of the hall wall.

More pictures of the temple at the bottom.

After a walk around thePagoda-Terengganu-Sago St. market, I proceeded to Chinatown’s Oasis of Cool. I’ve been wanting to walk up Ann Siang Hill Park and I tell you, what a great disappointment it was.

Basically, this “hill park” is nothing but a short 3-minute path. Oh well, I’ll treat that as a cool path to go to other streets it connects.

Walking down the park, I turned into Telok Ayer St. and visited another temple, the Thian Hock Keng temple.
There’s a mosque on that road too, but you can forget about it coz it looks like nothing but a shophouse. Just like the mosque and Hindu temple on South Bridge Road, it’s not worth a visit. There’s nothing! Ok fine, I admit I didn’t go into Masjid Jamae on South Bridge Road coz it looks uninviting. Don’t shoot me if I’m wrong about it being boring. I did go in the Hindu temple and you need to pay for your camera though I don’t see why you even need to take pictures. ‘Nuff said.

I had soft bun on Boon Tat St. (it’s supposed to be famous for satay but I don’t see any. Maybe just at night?). It’s a bun with kaya and butter in it (and I think that’s all). After that my friend came to meet me. Well, actually, he came and I had to go to the MRT station to pick him up. Not long after that it started to rain. Hmm…who brought the rain?

Because it started to rain I thought it’d be good to seek refuge in the Tooth Relic Temple again…and got my friend to take pictures for me hehe.

The Ten Thousand Buddhas Pavilion on the roof. In the pavillion is a gigantic cloisonne Vairocana Buddha Prayer Wheel (fui~that was long. Got it from the brochure :P)



Every turn of the cylindrical wheel represents a single recital of the scripture and mantra of the Dharma sutras that are placed inside the wheel.



Wheel of sutras! Oh my big face.