Singapore: Mrs M Tours, sketches and hungry ghosts

We’ve not had that many visitors in Singapore, so the arrival of Sophie for a few days on the way back from Australia gave Mrs M the excuse to drag someone around the sights once again. An English breakfast provided a solid foundation for a day in Chinatown while I wandered off do some sketching. After the Heritage Museum, they visited the Buddha Tooth Temple where preparations for the Hungry Ghost Festival were under way.

We headed for an early lunch at the Qun Zhong Eating House in Chinatown, which is also known as the Jing Hua restaurant. The owners appear to have recognised this confusion as a survey at the table includes a question asking which of the two names the customer uses.

After lunch, the girls embarked on a two-and-a-half hour walking tour of Chinatown while I wandered and scribbled through the streets north of Neil Road. We met back at the Heritage Centre and made our way to the car in the Chinatown Complex which was closed for its annual scrub down. The local community had assigned men to sit in front of tape stretched across the entrances to wag fingers and shake heads at people who dared to enter.

We were far too tired to venture out to dinner, so I volunteered to cook while Mrs M flopped pathetically on the sofa, with only enough strength to raise a wine glass to her lips.