And so it arrived: our last full day in Asia. Faced with the prospect of a 5:50 a.m. flight the next morning, we had planned to stay out all night and then head to the airport, so we allowed ourselves to sleep in on Wednesday to enable late-night fun.
After our relaxed wake-up, we went with Vernie’s dad to a coffee shop (remember that this means basically a food court in Singapore) for their favorite noodle dish, bak chor mee, or minced pork noodles. We had originally planned to go on Sunday, but our rescheduling meant that we could go to the original outlet of this noodle shop, which is closed Sunday. The recipe has been passed down through several generations of a Singaporean family. The sons of the proprietor of this stall have opened their own branches around the city, but Vernie insisted that the original is best.
The noodles were served “dry,” meaning in sauce rather than in soup, and the soup came on the side. They were spicy without being hot, and the subtlety of the dish was in the quality of the ingredients. Vernie and her family visit the stall every week, and it was great to have one of our last meals at a place they love so much.
After lunch, Vernie’s dad dropped us off in the middle of the Southern Ridges Walk, which I had discovered on Wikitravel. It’s very new, so Vernie wasn’t even aware of it, but it ended up being quite a nice walk. Most of the path was on an elevated walkway over lush forest, allowing for dramatic views of the skyline, port and ocean. One of the highlights of the well-architected path was the Henderson Waves, a gently curved wooden bridge over a major highway. We also spotted the cable car that we had taken to Sentosa.
Despite ominous clouds, there was only a brief moment of spotty rain, and we were able to take shelter under a pavilion. Conveniently, the trail ended at the MRT, and we headed back to Vernie’s for a very relaxing afternoon swim followed by some reading in the sun.
After cleaning ourselves up, we set out for the center of the city again to visit Raffles Hotel, the home of the original Singapore sling. It was a tourist trap, to be sure, especially in the drink’s pricing, but it was unmissable. The hotel, allegedly a six-star property, has a distinct colonial appearance, right down to its tradition of serving you a bowl of whole peanuts. You’re supposed to open them and throw the shells right onto the floor.
Our drinks tasted like bubble gum — which, coincidentally, is illegal in Singapore.
We migrated next door to watch the sunset from the Swissotel’s New Asia Bar, which is perched above the city on the 71st floor. We enjoyed a couple more beverages and some sweet but spicy chips while we watched night envelop the island.
We left New Asia Bar and had an amazing dinner of chicken rice. We returned to Vernie’s again to put on our dancing shoes before heading out to Zouk, Singapore’s oldest and most well-known nightclub. In Singapore, Wednesday is ladies’ night at the clubs, so girls get in free. At Zouk, it’s also mambo night, which apparently means that old Western music is played while Singaporeans dance and do memorized hand gestures along with the lyrics of each song.
We left Zouk around 2:15 and cabbed it back to Vernie’s neighborhood, where we sat down yet again for supper, which in Singapore refers to a late-night meal. We revisited roti prata, one of our favorites, which definitely gave Providence’s drunk food selection a run for its money.
We walked back to Vernie’s, threw our stuff into our suitcases, took quick showers, put on our traveling clothes, and headed down to the curb to hail a taxi to the airport. Vernie gave the driver instructions in Chinese, confirming that he would accept a credit card as payment since we had run out of all of the various Asian currencies we had been handling.
We exchanged a near-tearful goodbye with Vernie on the side of the road in the middle of the night on the other side of the world. And our trip thus drew to a close.
