Luckily in Singapore, there is something to do at almost any hour of the day, as long as that something isn’t find eggs. Why hadn’t we learned from our previous escapades that eggs simply are not to be found in Singapore? I mean we had found them before, but not easily. A country full of the best of what every cuisine from all across Asia has to offer, and we always get hung up on eggs. I don’t know what it is, something about traveling in a tin can for days and eating indiscernible, tin-can food, and before you begin your adventures in a new place (culinary or otherwise) you just want a familiar, feel-good meal. For me, eggs for breakfast is that power meal that resets the travel ick and allows the adventures to commence.

I did find a list of 20 or so breakfast places in Singapore. That may not seem like many for such a large city known for its culinary scene, but I have found in my travels that no one does breakfast like America. Breakfast in other places is usually a much more simple affair, often not even restaurant-worthy. Out of those 20 restaurants, 4 opened at or before 8 AM. I chose one for its location, and despite the opening time still being several hours away, we set off in the dark, early hours of the morning to find the bus stop.

Singapore has double-decker busses, much like Britain, and Fletch and I ran to the top to snag the front row seats as soon as our bus pulled up. Besides being the funnest seats in the house, we discovered that they also offered the best vantage point from which to see the names of the bus stops, which were printed in small, nondescript letters, and impossible to discern amongst the other bus information. We had discovered the previous day that the Singapore bus system was most certainly not created equally to the MRT. The MRT is a modern subway system, simple enough for even our cat to figure out. The busses in Singapore are still stuck in the medieval times of no announcements or indication of where you are at, so that it turns into a game of trying to spy the right letters as quickly as possible as you speed past. We managed to make it work, but I wouldn’t stay at a hotel that was only serviced by a bus stop again. The MRT reigns superior.

We found a Starbucks to kill some time at before our restaurant opened, and then walked across the street to Ronin, a dimly lit, industrial-style cafe. Their menu was short, and turned out to be more of a cafe than a restaurant. Fletch ordered eggs on toast (the only egg option on the menu) and I went for a mushroom sandwich after all the hassle to find eggs. We also tried two of the signature coffee drinks, a concoction called The Wicked that was basically a mocha with some peppermint, and tasted like hot, mint chocolate ice cream. I was a fan. What Fletch received for breakfast became the brunt of many jokes. He had added on half an avocado and mushrooms to his eggs on toast, and that’s exactly what arrived at the table. A plate of those exact ingredients, no preparation, no additional sauces or anything to tie it all together as a meal, just toast, two poached eggs, half an avocado, and two portobello mushrooms. They were all fresh and lovely ingredients of course, but hardly a meal worth trekking an hour across town for, and definitely not a meal that lived up to Singapore’s culinary reputation. Maybe next time we visit, we will have learned our lesson when it comes to egg breakfast in Singapore.

Eggs on Toast

We made our way over to the Botanical Gardens, a wonderful early-morning activity that had been open since 5 AM. The grounds were massive; it was a one-kilometer walk just from the entrance to the orchid garden. Many people were out that morning, but then again, it was a Sunday. Lots of beautifully-groomed dogs ran around, happily chasing balls and sticks. It was nice to be in an area where people cared about pets. In Fiji, the concept of pets didn’t really apply. Some people had dogs they would feed scraps to, but those dogs were never allowed inside, and roamed around with the other village dogs almost like a feral pack. In Japan, no one had the time or space for pets. Seeing well-taken-care-of pets in a place outside of America was a happy sight.

The lawns between gardens were peppered with yoga classes, meditation groups, and clusters of people doing other aerobic exercises. There were also many runners out for their morning runs. Now granted, I don’t see the early hours of the morning very often, so there may have been runners every place we’ve been and I just never noticed (although there’s a few places where I think that is highly unlikely. *Cough* Palau *Cough*). I really was surprised by just how many people were running around the city all morning though. After living back in the land of everyone driving everywhere and having everything delivered to their doorsteps, it was nice to see so many people actively enjoying the gardens.

Somewhere around the Rainforest Walk, I ruined my first pair of white shorts. (Did you catch the foreshadowing?) Let’s just say that a tropical rainforest flower left pollen dust all over them. So we walked the kilometer back to the gate, and then made the hour journey via two MRTs and a bus back to the room. Being the intelligent woman that I am, I changed into my second pair of white shorts. Hey, they matched my top. Then we bussed the hour back downtown for our second adventure of the day, to find the aquarium.

To be continued…