Is it possible to be nostalgic about a place before you have even visited?

I guess it would take some priming. Perhaps it would start with booking a hotel called Nostalgia Hotel.

Last year Mary and I effectively organised and booked our trip in a day or so. We looked for a good rated hotel that was not part of an international chain. Somehow Google Maps popped out Nostalgia Hotel – it looked locally run, well located and well liked. We took a punt and booked it.

Little did we know, 7 months later, we would find ourselves in the middle of place that does come with considerable nostalgia. Tiong Bahru is one of Singapore’s oldest housing estates constructed in the 1920s. It shows. When we spoke with our Brompton friends we were told Tiong Bahru is a popular place that had gentrified. It certainly is a pleasant place to stay.

While there are fashion boutiques, famous bakeries, cool cafes, and gelateria – there is still the Tiong Bahru wet market and hawker centre which was located across the road from the hotel.

We arrived at Changi International Airport in the late afternoon on the 2nd of June. By 4:00pm we had arrived at our hotel, checked in, unpacked our bikes and were riding towards Fort Canning Hill. A place with much history.

A word of warning – the paths around Fort Canning Hill are very slippery when they are wet. So we proceeded carefully. Rain at 30c is a pleasant surprise and far more tolerable than rain would have been in Adelaide. When I had left Adelaide the temperature was around 10c .

We then popped down to Clarke Quay for some satay and beer. This is also quite an historical location. What was to become clear over the coming days was that the Singapore River and its paths would be the bike transit backbone for us getting around Singapore. It is a pleasant, if sometime busy, route.

Of course that was only a light snack. We finished our meal back the Tiong Bahru Hawker Centre. Note-to-self – 8:00pm on a Sunday night might not be the best time to visit – many stalls are closed or finishing up for the night. I ate some great rice, stir fried bean shoots and a quite delightful (if not beautiful) pork hock soup.

Not bad for leaving Adelaide at 9am?