Chinatown and Dempsey Hill

During the week this week, Mark still spent pretty long hours at work.  On Thursday night after work, Mark and his coworkers went out together to a place called Au Petite Salute located at Dempsey Hill in Singapore.  Dempsey Hill now is mostly composed of bars and restaurants but was at one time (approximately mid 1800's) the site of the British Barracks.  Mark's group went out as a welcome dinner for Mark and a celebration dinner for another group member who just got a promotion.  During the dinner, they had Mark stand on his chair and say three things that no one knew about him.  Aside from that part, Mark had a great time and liked Dempsey Hill so much that he took me there on Saturday night.

Nighttime view of Dempsey Hill entrance sign and fountain

 I, for the most part during the week, just continued getting us and Colt settled into the new place.  Getting Colt settled pretty much has just consisted of a lot of attention and a lot of walks.  I still have quite a few people (about 5-10) everyday ask to get there picture taken with him or stop to ask question about him.  My new response to the picture question is, "Yes, but he charges pets for pictures."  It was getting kind of sad watching Colt's face when people would come up and stand 3 to 5 feet away from him to get their picture taken, it was like he just didn't understand why they weren't petting him?!  So, this new arrangement has made Colt quite happy because he now gets some pets from strangers and it's a subtle way of letting people know he won't bite them because that is still the question I get asked most often.

I also met with Shell's Outpost Group on Friday morning for coffee and to see their office.  The Outpost Group is comprised of spouses of Shell employees that volunteer to help with any questions that expats living in Singapore may have.  They were all very nice and had lots of helpful information.  They gave Mark and I a very nice welcome packet and invited me to an event in June, a workout session followed by coffee.  The workout session is to be instructed by one of the ladies I met who is a personal trainer, so I'm really excited!  Friday night Mark and I spent the night in eating dinner and watching a movie.

Mid-day on Saturday Mark took me on a walk to show me the "Department Store", as he called it, where he found cheap toiletries and things.  When we got to Chinatown I realized that it probably wasn't a department store quite like I was used too - I was right.  It was actually a 3 story shopping center filled with food, clothing, fabric, and toiletry vendors.  While it wasn't what I expected, Mark was right about the prices.  While in Chinatown, Mark also showed me one of the many Hawker Centers in Singapore.  For those of you who don't know ( I didn't until we got here), a Hawker Center is an open air complex which features a variety of different food vendors.  Hawker Centers are pretty common in Asia as they supply inexpensive food.  Mark and his coworkers eat lunch several times during the week at Hawker Centers.  To me, some looked really appetizing while others looked not so cleanly so I will be judging them on a case-by-case basis as to whether or not I will eat there.  I was brave enough to split Dim Sum (Asian Dumpling) with Mark from one of the many Hawker Center vendors and it was actually delicious. I would definitely eat it again.  Mark also scored some major brownie points by picking me out a really pretty bracelet from another vendor.

View 1 of Hawker Center

View 2 of Hawker Center

Another notable Saturday occurrence was that Mark and I had our first police officer sighting!  Singapore has pretty successfully made safety a priority in the country so with that I guess there isn't really a demand for many cops.  Mark and I had commented several times about how we never see police or patrol cars so when I saw the cops I got a picture, it's a little hard to see them but I promise they are there!

Our first cop(s) sighting! In blue at center frame

Anyways, after Chinatown we headed back to our place, checking out some bikes along the way, since Mark and I want to start riding.  But, bikes are incredibly expensive here so we are taking our time and weighing all of our options.  We may even consider shipping bikes from the U.S. if it makes more sense financially.  Once we got home we got ready for dinner but fed Colt first and took him on an evening walk.  I think Mark had thought I was over-exaggerating a little about the amount of attention that Colt gets on walks...That was until he went with us Saturday night.  That night we were probably stopped at least a dozen times by people wanting to pet or get pictures of Colt.  He was even asked to be in a group picture with about 20 tourists.   We joked that the flashes were like paparazzi and I also added that Mark probably shouldn't walk Colt by himself because Colt is a total chick magnet ; )

Following the walk, we headed to Dempsey Hill for dinner and drinks.  It is a really neat place because as your hopping from place to place you almost feel like your on a nature walk because of all the foliage and flowers. It was very pretty at night.  We started at a place called Margaritas and the margaritas were in fact, very good! I had the mango one.  Next, we ate dinner at a place called Contemporary Melting Pot and Bar where we split Chicken Curry and Margarita Pizza.  It was here that we discovered that neither of us like curry (hey, you can't win them all!).  Despite the lack of interest in the curry dish, we still liked the restaurant overall.  It had a great live band and an interesting selection of mojitos which  have become my favorite drink since moving to Singapore.  Being the wild and crazy party animals that we are, we were in home and in bed by 11pm.

Mango margarita for Margarita's! (Say that 5 times fast)

Mark and I at dinner

Live Band at CMP&B

Sunday was just used for some R & R by pool. Although, Mark did venture out to a sports store to buy a bench and free weights for the gym since it didn't have one. And I think that is about it for the week!