Sunday

Morning.

Woke up early and enjoyed another lovely breakfast at the Café Swiss. I then ventured off to check out the Botanic Gardens. The Gardens are not only a botanical institution and a regional park, but a tourist destination as well – and since they had been highly recommended in my guidebook, I decided to check em out...




The park is free to walk around and do whatever, which is why it's also a good park for people watching. I saw people running, walking thier dogs, practicing some sort of meditation, performing martial arts, participating in organized dance, marching in unison... it was interesting. Funny story actually, upon leaving, I saw a group of about a dozen Asian people learning a dance in the park. As I got closer for a better look, I discovered that they were line-dancing in unison to the country song, God Bless Texas. I wish I could have gotten a short video of this, but my camera ran out of juice.

Singapore's national flower is the Orchid so natually, there's an Orchid garden within the park. Entrance for this part of the park is a small fee, but worth it. The flowers were really beautiful...





Afternoon.

I was originally thinking I'd take the cable car to Sentosa for the afternoon, but my feet hurt from my flip flops and I decided I'd do something more low-key. I had heard about a natural health method practiced by the ancient Chinese called foot reflexology and had even seen a place within the Raffles shopping mall that offered it. I googled it though - thinking if I was going to do it, I should head to Chinatown, and sure enough, there were plenty of places that offered it (according to Yahoo web forums anyway). I walked to Chinatown and into some sort of mall...

it was a sight to see. I found plenty of foot reflexology places, but got kind of nervous. There places were definitely no-frills... I'm talking little hole-in-the-wall places with a menu out front of the services offered. I couldn't chicken out though! I hesitently settled on a place that already had a few customers mid-foot-massage... the little Asian ladies that ran the place looked nice. They barely spoke a lick of English though. The smallest Asian lady motioned for me to put my feet in a tub of grainy (scalding) brown water. uhhh... ok maybe this wasn't such a good idea? Sitting up with my feet in the bucket, she did a quick shoulder and neck massage followed by lots of hard chopping on my back. At this point, I started laughing.. and then she started talking to me in Chinese and doing these motions with her hands, and I was so confused that I just smiled and nodded and more laughing. Luckily, the Asian guy next to me could a little translating - she was asking if this was my first time in Singapore, if I'd ever done this type of massage before, how it is very good for the health, etc. She motioned to my face and he said that she was saying I was pretty and that I looked 18 or 19 years old. Ha! I mean my hair was a mop - not sure why I bother straightening it in this humidity - and my skin was greasy from a combination of sun screen and sweat. But hey - it's a complement so I'll take it. Anyway back to the foot reflexology experience. This little Asian lady spent a full hour massaging my feet - pushing (and in some cases pulling) on every area and bone on my feet. It was quite painful at some points! I didn't know how this little lady could have so much power. I left there though with my feet feeling much stronger, healthier, and better. It was pretty cool actually. And only $30 SGD ($20 USD). I noticed when I got back to my hotel that every vein in my feet was sticking out - I took a picture which I will NOT be posting... it's a bit gruesome. My feel are now back to normal now :)