Arab Street

Continuing my tour of Singapore's cultural districts, I recently went to Arab Street. "Arab Street" is actually the name of one the roads that goes through the district, but for the sake of simplicity I'm going to refer to the whole area as Arab Street.

In order to get into Arab Street, one must first dodge it's guardian robot.

After Singapore was claimed by the British in 1819, money was given to Sultan Hussein Shah in exchange for his ruling power. With this money, Hussein built himself a palace. As I don't like taking good pictures, this is all you get to see of the palace:

With the his remaining fortune and some money that he borrowed from the East India Company, he decided that he would build himself a mosque too. It is this mosque, the Masjid Sultan (Malay for "Sultan Mosque"), that now dominates the local skyline. And it is darn cool looking.

One goes to Arab street to either eat food or buy a carpet, and I didn't have enough money for a carpet. This is where I went for lunch:

This girl was kind enough to smile for my picture.

I also went to a few cafes, like Sleepy Sam's.

Notice the wooden furniture? All of it (all of it) was broken and/or breaking.

Then I went to this place that turned out to also be the Museum of Chinese Opera.

I liked Arab Street the most out of the different cultural districts I've been to; it didn't smell funny, I liked the food, it was cleaner. And had palm trees.