Saturday morning routine

This is the first Saturday I’ve spent in Singapore without anything specific planned in. The only other weekend that we’ve had in town was when I first arrived and I needed to learn where the hell I was and how the world works here.  This weekend was much more relaxed!

            Having woken up fairly early we kick-started the day with a trip to Tekka Market. This is a wet market in Little India, and is something that I was slightly dreading. As much as I love shopping at food markets, and enjoy seeing all the fish, meat and veggies piled up, I have heard mixed reviews about how accessible Tekka really is, and how manic it can be, so I was concerned that the token white people might have a bit if a hard time bagging the bargains that locals are offered. How wrong I was!

            We spent around an hour working our way through a fairly extensive shopping list, and by the time that we finished the full tour we probably spent around £30 in total, and had purchased enough food to feed 6 hungry people dinner, and still have a good stash of leftovers. This market is full to the rafters with stalls – it’s like a much less glamorous, much more cramped version of Borough Market, but with less food to eat then and there, and a lot more fresh produce for you to take home and scrub – well!

            Considering the small stalls that each of the holders had, we were expecting a fair amount of repletion about what was on offer, but I was very impressed – for incredibly reasonable prices (much better than you would find in the super markets out here, and much fresher) you could get everything from fresh potatoes and carrots, to fennel bulbs, soft shell crab and even an entire fish, gutted, filleted and de-skinned by a man with a meat clever and nothing much else. I will most definitely be going back!

            Once we had lugged all our goodies home and had a very necessary shower (the market is good fun, but also very stinky!) and a swim in the pool while we waited for some laundry to dry in the shared machines on the same level as the pool, we then went out for breakfast at a local café that we had wondered past earlier in the week, and marked out as one to try.

            It’s called Cups and Canvas, and it’s full of fun artwork, amazing looking carrot cake, perfectly brewed coffee, and very tasty eggs benedict. If I was looking for a near perfect Saturday morning routine, I think I may have found it!