It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Singapore is a multi-national city-state with an interesting history reflected in its many ethnic and historic neighborhoods-each one uniquely defined by its architecture, shops, markets and inhabitants.

We made it a point to visit several of these, starting with the most heavily trafficked—Chinatown.

Situated right in the center of the city, its streets, though crammed with tourist tat, are lined with historic two and three story wooden shophouses that are a charming contrast to the gleaming skyscrapers nearby.

Several of the streets that are near the Chinatown MRT station have high glass roofs over them, which do detract from the full appreciation of the historic architecture, but are a welcome addition when the rain comes bucketing down, as we experienced on our first visit to the neighborhood.

The shophouses are all fronted with narrow covered verandas too, which provide additional shelter from the rain, though many of the walkways are jammed with wares spilling out from the shops behind and even into the streets themselves.

While traversing the many and varied streets and alleyways, we saw dozens of fruit vendors selling, and people eagerly eating, durian—the stinky fruit that is hugely popular in Asia and banned on the MRT.

Verdict: we liked the architecture, but Chinatown was way too touristy for us.

The next two neighborhoods we visited were on our list anyway, but in each case we were also chasing the ever-elusive (in Asia) gluten free restaurant.

One, a café called Tianns, was located in an interesting neighborhood called Tiong Bahru that we walked through (unnecessarily, as it turns out, after getting off at the wrong MRT station).

It is the oldest planned housing estate in Singapore, built in the 1920s when Singapore was part of the British Empire, and the architecture is quite unique-a kind of Art Deco-Asian fusion that was really interesting.

The gf café was kind of pricey but fantastic- I had waffles and bought some gf bread to take back to the apartment.

Across from the café was the Tiong Bahru market, which is very popular and also built in the same 1920s style.

The second gf café  took some effort to get to and involved two different neighborhoods east of the CBD. As there was no MRT line there, we took the MRT as far as we could and then caught a bus.

First, we went to what turned out to be my favorite of all- the neighborhood of Joo Chiat, with rows of Peranakan houses and unique shophouses, again, all from the period of the 1920s.

Peranakans are a loosely defined cultural more then ethnic group of Chinese-Malay/Indonesians also known as ‘Straits Chinese’ who have been in Singapore since at least the early 19^th century, and have their own language, customs, food and fashion.

Many Peranakans held high positions in trade and government during the colonial era, which partly accounts for their gorgeous houses and shops.

The GF restaurant we were headed to was on East Coast Road, in Katong, another neighborhood with its own with historic shophouses.

It was a pretty long walk in the heat and humidity, but was worth it in the end as it was also excellent and I had waffles again!! I bought some gf granola and cookies to take along on our travels, as I was craving some baked goodies after being in Asia for a couple of weeks.

We timed our bus ride back into the city perfectly, as we were on the bus when the daily rains came,

On one of our final days in Singapore, we went into Little India for a meal (Indian food is reliably gf) and then wandered about in the neighborhood, which was lively with night markets and temples that were filled with worshipers, music and activity.

We kind of wished we had visited by day, as the architecture looked different again than all the other neighborhoods, but it was stilll quite enchanting by night.

Finally, we went to the quite small Muslim quarter know as Kampong Glam. Centered on Arab Street, its focus is the great Sultan Mosque.

It was a Friday afternoon, so the place was jam packed with men attending prayers (signs made it clear no women were allowed in the mosque at that time).

The narrow streets lined with two storied shops gave it a distinctly bazaar-like atmosphere and feel, and it was as different  as could be from the other neighborhoods we had visited.

We initially had thought we would cover much more ground in Singapore, and explore the entire island, but the weather (and lingering covid) prevented us from staying out all day and doing as much as we had hoped to do.

Instead we concentrated on the area around the CBD and our explorations yielded some unexpectedly interesting and historic neighborhoods that made our five days in Singapore more than worthwhile.