Singapore, Day 3 - II, Merlion & Gold

I continued walking over the esplanade bridge where there was a lovely breeze and found the Merlion. I had brought ‘flat cat’ with me on my trip. Flat cat was a school project of one of my niece’s, where the students drew a crayon picture of a cat, gave it to a family member and then that family member traveled far away, taking photographs of the paper cat in that distant local. Flat cat was to be returned later. I had a Singaporean police officer take a picture of me and flat cat in front of the Merlion. An Australian student of Indian descent interviewed me on my thoughts about the Merlion because of the controversy about it. Guess I said that it seemed kind of artificial, but wasn’t hurting anything, could draw tourist dollars, so what was the harm anyhow? He was very nice and handsome.

I walked back to Chinatown and found a Taoist-Buddhist Temple called Thain Hock Keng Temple or Temple of Heavenly Happiness which was built in 1841. It is dedicated to Ma Po Cho, the Mother of Heavenly Sages and Protector of Sailors. It was open! The gilt and painted wood work was intricate and beautiful and I took pictures with it in mind to come home and copy a door design of a coiling dragon. The interior of the temple was scented with the coiling smoke of incense, the sound of falling water from the courtyard pools and was very ancient and peaceful. I lingered as long as I could enjoying the moments, but sadly had to move on.

I went back to Chan Foon’s and bought a pair of the 22 karat fish earrings (13 x 10 x 4 mm) and the fish necklace pendant (38 x 8 x 5 mm, but hollow). I also had to buy a heavy enough chain to hold the pendant and have the earrings put on wires solid enough to hold them, per the kind clerk’s suggestion. I looked very hard for a ring (at these prices who wouldn’t?) but could not find one that I liked. The total bill for the whole shebang was S$311 or US$217. I wore the earrings and necklace out of the store. So was the day's shopping all done, you may ask? Of course not! Stay tuned fearless readers...