I finally got around to taking some pictures of our neighborhood, and wanted to give you a little walking tour. All of Singapore does not look like this. This is a "heartlands" area, or more local area of Singapore. We do a lot of our shopping here (shop local!) and we spend a fair amount of time here.

Here's a view of the pedestrian mall. You can see shops on both sides that sell some version of everything you can think of. There are benches in the middle, and in the evenings, this whole area is packed with people.


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I took this picture to show the deep overhang. Some shops (most of them) claim this overhang as retail space and display goods in the entire covered areas. Some shops, like salons or local clinics, don't use the outside space. If you look closely, you can see the red paint under the overhang showing where displays can be set up, so that there are walkways.



There is some of everything here! Clothes, shoes, household items, pharmacies, CVS-type stores that don't fill prescriptions, but have all of that kind of stuff, hardware stores, stationery and package stores, salons, spas, photographers, bookies, fruit stands, clinics, gift shops, cell phone shops, money changers, jewelry stores, furniture stores--you name it! (Incidentally, the furniture stores make good use of their covered space and every night they pack ALL of their goods back into their "shop" like we packed our storage unit: solidly filled. Kyle says this would be "soul-killing.")




There's also food here. It is Singapore, of course! This is an eating area with tables and food and drink stalls. There are LOTS of food options in our neighborhood and we're slowly but surely learning where the best stalls are.


There are also bicycle ice cream carts. This is the Hong Kong ice cream cart. The proprietor is a tiny little man and you can barely see his head if you look closely. He has a stool he uses to reach down into the metal vat he uses to keep the ice cream cold. Liquid nitrogen, maybe? I don't know, but his ice cream is always cold.