Saturday wanderings

It seems like we've already been to (almost) all of the "advertised" places to visit in Singapore, at least all of those that interest us. It's fine to go back to places we've been to before (maybe my preference more than Ingrid's). But we are still finding gems that are not featured in any guide books. We are more likely to discover these by wandering through the city with only a vague sense of intent. That describes our Saturday outing.

Our aim was to visit the Peranakan Museum. (Ingrid has been there, I haven't.) We set out on the familiar 33 bus to the city center, getting off near Chinatown with the intent to meander the remaining 1-2 km distance. We found delicious snacks in a hawker center in the non-touristy side of Chinatown.

The first three photos are street scenes from the early part of the walk.

As we neared the museum, we had a sudden change of mind: Let's go walk along the Kallang River waterfront. It's a bit east of the city center, an area we had not visited. The inspiration was influenced by our fantastic experience walking along the upper stretch of the Singapore River a few weeks earlier.

The Kallang River Promenade and walkways were pleasant enough, although not nearly so well developed as along the Singapore River.

On a whim, almost as an afterthought, we headed over to the nearby and newly built sports complex, which on the grounds of the old airport. We had to persist through some areas under construction and we almost gave up. I also expected that visiting a sports complex with no sporting events taking place would be seriously dull. I was wrong!

The grounds are spectacular. In multipurposing Singapore fashion, they've combined a shopping mall with the sporting complex. There is an MRT station right in the middle of the complex, so leaving was easy.

The highlight was that their major new indoor track facility was open to the public for the weekend. (It had only officially opened in June.) And, if you had on proper running shoes, you were allowed down onto the track. I did! And so I got to run a lap.