When I was flying back from Siem Reap, Cambodia in March I read an article in JetStar’s inflight magazine about vegetarian hawker food in Singapore. My go-to at the hawker is mixed rice because you just point to the dishes you want, grab a pair of chopsticks, and enjoy. Eating at a vegetarian hawker, however, would open up a whole world of culinary flavors that I have been unable to try here!
Lucky for me, I have kind and adventurous friends who have actively responded to my pledge to make every day count as I wrap up my time here in the Little Red Dot (sob!).
With that JetStar article as a guide, Josh and I headed out to the Aljunied MRT, where we were promised delicious bowls of laksa at the oldest vegetarian eatery in Singapore. One restaurant near where I lived in Malaysia served delicious vegetarian laksa and I miss it. I also miss my bowl of hot, spicy curry mee at 10am for morning break at school!
Mmmm food. My palate has expanded in the most delightful ways.
We knew we were getting close to our destination when we passed multiple shops that smelled of incense and sold Buddhist artifacts and books. Kwan Inn Vegetarian Food turned out to be a hawker stand serving mixed rice, made-to-order dishes, and several soups.
For our first course, Josh and I each ordered a bowl of laksa in a fantastic, fragrant coconut broth. I picked out a few items from the mixed rice counter for us to share – spicy fake fish (this used to be school lunch sometimes at school in Malaysia), tofu and green beans (a classic), and two kinds of mushrooms. We have the best mushrooms in Asia. Lime juice was our beverage of choice.
Total cost: $10.80. Eating can be cheap in Singapore if you know where to go!
Of course, with so many opportunities to experience real Peranakan food, we had to get more! Josh ordered peanut fritters (normally prawn fritters) and spinach noodles (yes, actually green). These were served with two types of tofu, mushrooms, and sprouts. Normally the meat is char siew, which is pork, and the noodles are plain egg noodles. We tucked in before I could get a picture, but I promise it was all delicious!
Thank you to Josh for a really fun meal and thank you to JetStar for its inspiration!
Lots of travel updates lately, so here’s a quick life update:
I recently signed for a job in New York at a Jewish private school just outside the city and I have a flight home. Mitch and I don’t yet have a place to live, but that’ll happen all in good time. Moving to New York City is now a real thing!
I’m feeling a lot better about the move now that work is settled. It’s a middle school social studies job, which will be new for me, but I’m pretty confident in my pedagogy and I’m excited about the school. I wouldn’t have taken the job if I didn’t think it was a good fit but too many factors aligned for it to be anything else. As it happens, I attended a Jewish school for kindergarten through grade eight, overlapped with my new head of department when I was an undergrad in the program in which she was a grad student, went to my new principal’s alma mater for grad school, and – here’s the part that sealed the deal – grew up in the town where my new head of school’s relatives live and was a member of the middle school youth group that his sister and brother ran when they were in college.
That last part, friends, is called playing Jewish Geography. Fun game. I’ve made lots of acquaintances and even friends that way, which probably makes us a rather insular group. I’d argue, though, that it’s fair to say that about every minority ethnic group. 🙂
I’ve written before about my excitement to be with Mitch again and that’s still true. If not for him, there’s no reason to leave Singapore.
And that’s what is making this so hard.
I went out for coffee with my friend Jamie this afternoon and we started talking about all the things we need to do before I leave in (gulp) just over two months. Two months and three days. Time flies. As Jamie and I chatted and planned where in the world we could meet up in the coming years (compatible teacher schedules help!) I decided that I’m ready to go, but I’m not ready to leave.
I felt such a cold sense of finality when I clicked “confirm” on my flight payment tonight. The hard part is that I feel that I have unfinished business here. I have such wonderful friends who I love and who, in some ways, I’m still getting to know. I’m not done with that.
There are students to teach, inquiry questions to address, and curricula to plan. They can get along without me just fine, but I don’t know how I’ll do without them – both the students and the teachers!
There are neighborhoods of Singapore I haven’t seen, cafes and restaurants I haven’t tried, parks I haven’t explored, and hawker food I haven’t tasted. There are amazing countries to visit that I’m closer to now than I’ll likely ever be again.
Ever is a long time.
Even after a year, plus six trips to Singapore before I moved, I feel like I’ve just arrived. I’m still learning and I’m still excited. I was so ready to leave Malaysia by the time that finally happened and I could not feel more differently now.
I also feel like I have a home here but homes are portable. Home has come to mean people, not places. I already have a lot of people in New York City and I am looking forward to being much more present in their lives. So, I’m ready to go.
Leaving? Not so much.
As Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack Dawson said in one of my favorite scenes in Titanic, “To making it count.”
I have 63 more days here. And I intend to make them all count.
After the cool climate of Kandy, which you can read about here, Mitch and I made our way south to Galle. Galle is normally very hot and they were having a heat wave. The locals couldn’t stop talking about it! We couldn’t stop counting the hours between our iced coffee breaks, but we absolutely loved our time in Galle. I’m so glad we ended our trip there; it left me feeling very light and joyful for the experienced that we’d had and the time we’d spent together.
We arrived in Galle after dark on New Year’s Eve (granted, pitch black was about 7pm). There’s a large Muslim population living in the Old Fort section of Galle, mostly families descended from prosperous merchants during the Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial eras. Over the course of our visit, multiple locals complained that living in the Fort had gotten too expensive; apparently about half the homes are now owned by foreigners.
Galle seemed rather quiet when we walked around town in the evening and we soon realized that most locals had gathered on and around the ramparts built by the Portuguese and enlarged by the Dutch to fortify the city. There’s a beautiful breeze up there and we could see stars for miles. With the ocean crashing below us, there was really nothing that could have made me happier (except, perhaps, a beer). We knew immediately that Galle was going to be our favorite of the places we visited in Sri Lanka.
How can you help but love a town with dessert food trucks?
Most of the restaurants were closed by the time we arrived, but it seemed appropriate to eat at a Middle Eastern restaurant that served amazing, authentic food (but, predictably, no alcohol). Our Airbnb was located next to a mosque and across the street from another one, so we heard prayers each night and each morning, which I loved. I heard prayers at a mosque for the first time on Arab Street in Singapore earlier this year and was stunned at how similar the melodies and words are to prayers that I’m used to in a synagogue. Really cool.
Mitch went for a run the following morning, New Year’s Day, despite the incredible heat. I made friends with a young guy running a restaurant and hotel near our Airbnb and drank an iced coffee while I waited for Mitch to turn up (and then had another one). We spent the day wandering through the streets and enjoying the colonial architecture and atmosphere of the Fort. Based on the number of churches and their sheer variety, it was easy to identify missionary influences. The majority of our time that day and the next day was spent wandering up and down streets with adorable names like Small Cross Street and Middle Street.
As I’ve said before, the ocean is my happy place. We spent quite a while walking along the ramparts of the Fort and then simply sitting down and starting at the ocean below us. The much-needed breeze was at its best up there and there seemed no reason to leave until we got hungry. Before lunch, however, I did happily walk into the Indian Ocean in my sandals and in my dress and I was perfectly delighted. Crossed that off my bucket list! Just like the previous evening, locals were at the beach going swimming and it looked lovely.
Mitch and I would have taken a dip, but we had errands to run. Mitch’s aunt had sent us on a quest for crystals and gems, which are apparently a hot commodity in Sri Lanka. Ideally, we would have shopped at the Pettah in Colombo but that was far too overwhelming. Although most shops were closed for Sinhalese and Tamil New Year, most jewelry and gem stores in Galle are owned by Muslims and therefore remained open. We had a lovely chat with a woman who sold gems in the front room of her owned, bought a few things, and hopefully accomplished that mission!
We were particularly excited about our evening activities for the New Year. Our friend Janitha’s home town is Galle and he invited us to his family’s house to meet his parents, grandparents, and brother and enjoy some traditional New Year foods, most of which are sweets! It was a very interesting cultural experience to be in a local home and learn about the local foods that we were enjoying. Definitely a highlight of our Sri Lanka travels!
The following day was even hotter and we continued our wanderings (photos above) but took breaks every 90 minutes or so to walk into a shop to stand under a fan or to enjoy an iced coffee and sit under a fan, though we never truly cooled off. It reminded me of the coldest skiing days when you go in for hot chocolate every run or two but never actually warm up until you call it quits for the day.
Even this plant was hot!
We did make our way into the Dutch Reformed Church, which was really interesting because it had a cemetery outside and tombstones in the floor inside. It was strange to be in a church in shorts, especially a church that is still active on Sundays, but the officials didn’t seem to mind.
After two nights in Galle, as with everywhere else, it was time to move again. The economical option was to take a bus back to Colombo and then a taxi onto Negombo, the beach town 10km from the airport where we’d arranged to spend the last night of our trip. However, neither of us had particularly enjoyed the bus ride to Galle and didn’t feel the need to repeat it, especially considering how far under our budget we were for the trip. So we went with the non-backpacker option and hired a taxi that got us to Negombo in about two and a half hours. The only unfortunate part was that I left my Kindle in my luggage and my luggage in the trunk; I couldn’t reach my bag, so I had a nap instead.
As we drove into Negombo, we saw more churches than mosques or temples. We also saw Jesus bumper stickers on lots of tuk tuks! The driver told us that a large percentage of Negombo’s population are Catholic, which, for our purposes, meant much easier access to Sri Lanka’s Lion beer. We were delighted.
After checking into the hostel, we walked across the street to the beach and stopped at the first restaurant guesthouse that we saw. It was located in a charming garden right on the sand.
We ordered a couple beers with lime slices and vegetable and fish curries. We ate, drank, enjoyed the breeze off the ocean, and talked about our favorite experiences from the week.
When the sun started to set, we took off our shoes and walked along the beach, both in and out of the water. Step into the Indian Ocean round two! And the sunset was beautiful.
Mitch and I left the hostel a few hours apart the following morning to journey back to our respective homes. I returned to Singapore feeling refreshed and relaxed, optimistic about the rest of the school year, and excited for the future.
It’s all an adventure, really. Life, they say, is a journey and not a destination.
Photos, travels, musings, and ideas on education by someone trying to make the world a better and more peaceful place
By Rebecca Michelle 