Wonderful Weekend

This weekend was wonderful. We got to get out and experience new parts of Singapore. On Saturday Toby drove to IKEA. You may ask yourself why this trip is special. Well, this was only the second time Toby drove on the left side of the road. He did a great job. It feels weird enough to be in the passenger seat on the left side of the car, I can just imagine how hard it is to sit on the right side and drive on the left. So strange. Anyway, it was nice to be a t IKEA and look for stuff for our new apartment. We got a list of potential things to buy, but the only thing we left with were safety plugs for the outlets.

On Saturday night we went over to the house of one of Toby's co-workers. It was fun to hangout and we had some great food.

On Sunday we ventured out to Little India. It was all decorated for the upcoming Hindu festival Deepavali which was fun to see. We walked in and out of stores selling all sorts of things. There were clothes stores, flower stores filled with garlands, and many jewelry stores filled gold necklaces and colorful bangles. We were accompanied by Bollywood style music and burning incense.

We followed a walking tour map and ended up at a Hindu temple. We took our shoes off and went inside. It was filled with Hindus worshiping. Some sat, other knelled, and still others laid down in front of idols to worship. There was a man chanting and putting white power on people's foreheads. I'm not sure what that was meant to symbolize. I noticed that people brought food to offer to the gods and it seemed people paid money to go into certain areas of the temples, closer to certain alters. I know the basics of Hinduism, but from my limited knowledge I couldn't figure out what some of the statues were symbolizing. They we pretty scary looking. (look at the last picture)

After the temple, we walked down the crowded sidewalk to find a place to eat. We ducked into a vegetarian restaurant and ordered some dosai. Mine was filled with onions and chili peppers while Toby's was filled with potatoes. In the restaurant there was a sink to wash your hands right next to the dining tables since people ate with their hands. We really enjoyed it. After lunch we went back to the MRT. I got off at a mall to see if I could find some things we needed (I found a scrapbook store!!!! (although a piece of paper cost between S$1.50 - S$4.00) and Toby took Elyse back to the hotel for a nap. It was a great day.