Telok Ayer and Chinatown

This week I took a walk around two of my favorite places in Singapore, Telok Ayer and Chinatown. They are both pretty close to home and easy to get to with plenty to photograph. Must have been super hungry when I was out as most of these photos are restaurants. :)

This is my favorite restaurant, Urban Bites serving mediterranean food. I love hummus and a shawarma and they are correct, good coffee and baklava does equal perfection!

Coffee house in an old shop house. This street is all old shop houses mostly restored and about half are restaurants / coffee shops.

This place just opened last week. We got very lucky and snagged a table on Saturday, pretty good food :)

This is one of my favorite temples. I like to go inside and look at the bats hanging from the ceiling sleeping. If they weren't sleeping I wouldn't like to go inside and check them out. 

Same temple as above, Thian Hock Keng. I like that when you walk in, just behind these doors there is a giant pepsi machine. Totally unexpected.

A hawker stall at Amoy Street Food Center. It was early, about 11am so it was sort of quiet. By noon this hawker center will be crazy crowded.

11am and the only queue at Amoy St. Our favorite stall here is this one serving sliced fish soup! YUMMO! 

It's hard to stick to a diet in Singapore. There are endless opportunities to eat delicious food wherever you are. I took the photo and almost ran away from this stall to stop myself from attacking the brownies. 

Another hawker stall at Amoy St. I'd guess there are about 50 different stalls at this hawker center. 

Chinatown dragon puppet thingys. 

Chinatown Food Street. Newly remodeled and covered for shade and shelter from rain. This street gets pretty busy at times. I was surprised it wasn't busy when I was there. See a lady with a cart? That is exactly the same kind of cart I take to the grocery store when I have a lot to buy. 

Happy Friday!!!

Telok Ayer Street Photography

Saturday morning I met with my photo explorer group at Telok Ayer and we planned on walking around for about three hours and shooting whatever came our way. It was a small group of five photographers plus one organizer/photographer. We started at the Thian Hock Keng Temple, one of the oldest and most important Hokkien temples in Singapore. Photography is allowed in most areas of the temple and it is often frequented by tourists with large groups arriving daily.

Inside the temple courtyard looking at the back roof.

Inside looking at the open doors. There is a high door frame you need to step over to enter. This is there to make sure you are looking down (bowing your head) as you enter the temple.

A closer look at the doors. There are a few sets of doors painted like this.

Close up of one of the dragons on an incense urn. 

Here is the incense urn from the above photo.

Every inch is very detailed. Even the ceiling is beautiful. 

The temple started to get crowded with tourists and a few worshipers so we went for a walk around the area. Here are some of my photos. This neighborhood is very close to home for me, I walk around here all the time. 

This photo was pointed out by our organizer. The new high rise buildings and the old refurbished building with the street lamps gives a nice old and new contrast. This is why I like the group photo outings. I am here all the time but I don't always see the same things the other photographers see. 

Alley barber shop. I liked the reflection of the first customer in the mirror. He is waiting for the barber to finish setting up. The barber was excited to see us there and liked that we were taking his photo. According to the Singaporeans in the group, alley barber shops are hard to find these days. 

I took a photo of my group hard at work. They are trying for a reflection shot in the window of a business that is closed for the day.

I preferred the reflection in the car hood.

Another temple just down the street. This one does not allow photographers to shoot inside. The large metal furnace in front is for burning offerings.

I like all of the street lamps in this shot.

Happy Friday!!!