sfl, day 6

The conference was over, so today I set out for the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, a somewhat tamed tropical forest in the middle of the island. On my way to the bus I stopped in a fast-food-ish place and had more otak-otak (this time called Otah), some rice rolls with a sweet brown sauce, and a couple of big rice-flour dumplings with noodles and other stuff inside -- and the best kalamansi (sweet lime) juice I've had so far.

The forest was not quite the movie jungle I'd expected -- not *that* different from walking the Nipmuck Trail in Storrs ... (short pause) but with vines ... (longer pause) ... and monkeys. I had seen signs about the monkeys but somehow wasn't really expecting them, and I was just floored when one walked around from behind a tree....and then I realized I was in the middle of a troop, and they were in the trees all around me. Wow. On the one hand, the macaques are social primates and our cousins; on the other hand, they are sort of Deluxe squirrels; they have grey fur and long tails, they chase each other around in trees......I also saw a monitor lizard, about 2 feet long, pawing around in the leaves looking for bugs to eat (had to mention eating in this paragraph, since this is a food blog; even the monitor lizards eat well in Singapore).

For dinner, went on a quest to find the one food stall, in a city of uncountable thousands of food stalls, personally recommended by Chun. Took the subway to Chinatown, walked to the Hong Lim shopping complex, and started searching through two stories of stalls, probably over 100, for the one specializing in Big Prawn Mee (noodles) that was Chun's favorite. I was starting to despair because 3/4 of the places were closed or closing, but I found it, and it was open, and MAN! That may indeed have been the best bowl of noodle soup I've ever had. Nice prawns, but really amazing noodles (slightly wide, yellow, chewy) and super-savory broth, with lots of the little fried shallot thingies (sorry, Chun, I couldn't bring myself to order it with the pig tail). If Chun ever recommends food to you, listen. I was still a little hungry (long day), so I picked up two steamed bao at another stand, pork & cabbage and purple yam (both very good).