Food, Fish, Frantic Shoppers

Our first full day in Singapore consisted of us walking down Orchard Street (where our hotel is) and then going on to Little India (via the hop on - hop off bus which is free, courtesy of Singapore Airlines). Lunch was had at the food court at the mall at the Swissotel. That food court is truly amazing! And everything was very good, except for the durian dessert my mom got. Durian is not really for us.
Dinner was at the Dim Sum restaurant in the food court at the Marriot. Very good. And the soup dumplings that Maria-Elena and I enjoyed in Shanghai were a hit with my brother Christian as well. I think it's the whole "there is a kind of ritual to eating them"-thing. (first you dip them in vinegar and ginger, then you bite into the dumpling, slurp out the soup and then eat the rest.)
Christian and I went in search of a place to sit down and have drinks in. But apparently we went the wrong way. Because after walking around for two hours we went back to the hotel bar and had our drinks there.

Ok. So the second day in Singapore was nice.
My mom had a fever and decided to stay in bed all day.
My brother, my sister, and I decided to head to Chinatown.
It is the cleanest Chinatown I have ever seen. (The one in New York, for example, is totally dirty). And so we walked through it. We saw a Hindu temple, we visited the Buddhist temple, we went and looked at all the stalls selling trinkets etc. We went to a department store and bought sweet and sour prunes, antelope antler water (against my mom's fever), haw flakes, dried mango strips, and lots more munchies.
After dropping our stuff off at the hotel we went for footmassages, ichthyotherapy, and my brother got a shoulder massage instead of the foot massage.
The ichthyotherapy consists of you hanging your feet into a basin full of fish (there are three sizes) and having them nibble the dead skin cells off. According to the leaflet it is good against psoriasis and it relieves stress because of the tickling and vibrating sensations caused by the fish.
(The fish come from hot springs in Turkey and the water is cleaned daily and treated with UV rays to kill of bacteria etc.)
That evening my mom and I went for dinner in Smith Street (Chinatown) and ate from one of the stalls there. We had the pineapple fried rice and french beans. Very nice and good.

Today my mother and I have a hair-dresser appointment. We shall see how it goes. My sister Gesine wants to try the bigger fish today.
Tomorrow evening we fly on to Sydney.
And then we see the cousins! Yay!

I'll see if I can upload some pictures. If not, sorry.