East Coast Beach & China Town

Today Dad and I took two tours. The picture loader has seemed to load them backwards however. So the China Town pictures are first (although we toured it second). Kein Seng and his wife Carol are a young couple who graciously entertained us for the afternoon. They took us out for Chinese food first (duck, shrimp, chicken feet, pork ribs, carrot cake [which isn't carrot cake as we know it - it was a mix of fish and bacon... tasty though], etc.). Then we went to China Town (below).

Quite busy here. They say that at night it gets about 10 times as busy.
Ok, the building above calls for discussion:

To the average westerner this building represents a _________.

You answered a "Chinese Restaurant" right?

Actually, any building in Asia that takes on this form is a temple for the gods and for burning incense to them.

My theory is that this style was the norm in China/Asia until maybe 100 years ago when buildings began taking on the more western/european look. However, the this old style has been preserved by the religious temples - which often seem old-fashion.
As the Chinese Lunar New Year approaches there seems to be a massive amount of red and gold colored things around. Pictured here is Carol with Dad and I.
A little chinese boy dad decided to keep. Actually, his name is Able (his Chinese name means 'righteousness'), he is Kein Seng and Carol's boy.
The shops in China Town. Lot's of free samples.

Below is the vert section of the skate park at Singapore's East Coast beach.

$10/2hours to rent a stunt bike here. I can't wait. (Who is that guy on Chi Mei's bike? haha)
The cable park at the beach, right next to the skate park. I can't wait for this either. I was going to try it out today, but I went swimming instead.
The East Coast Beach. Quite a descriptive name. This beach is 3.5 kms from Peter and Chi Mei's place. We walked down here twice, and biked down today in about 15 min.

I talked to a local (he was about 90 years old) who said, "I swim here for last 20 years - no sharks. Watch bike, they steal wheels and seat." So I went swimming - while dad watched the bikes.

Not to many locals swim here. They claim it is dirty, but I thought it was quite clean in terms of seaweed/rocks/shells - in which there were none.
This body of water is the South China Sea. The water is about 26 C.