T for Tuesday

 T Stands For is hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard

Another Singapore memory as it is Lunar New Year, year of the rabbit.

Singapore Asia

High on list for Singapore was a stop at Raffles Hotel, we stopped by during the day and at night.

As the saying goes, "If you have not been to Raffles, you have not been to Singapore". 

I had first heard of Raffles in a series of books I read in my teens so it has been on my bucket list since then.

Raffles Hotel Singapore started as a privately owned beach house built in the early 1830s. It first became Emerson's Hotel when Dr. Charles Emerson leased the building in 1878. Upon his death in 1883, the hotel closed, and the Raffles Institution stepped in to use the building as a boarding house until Dr. Emerson's lease expired in September 1887.

Almost immediately after the first lease expired, the Sarkies Brothers leased the property from Syed Mohamed Alsagoff, its owner, with the intention of turning it into a high-end hotel. A few months later, on 1 December 1887, the ten-room Raffles Hotel opened. Its proximity to the beach and its reputation for high standards in services and accommodations made the hotel popular with wealthy clientele.

Upon the start of the Japanese occupation of Singapore on 15 February 1942, it is said that the Japanese soldiers encountered the guests in Raffles Hotel dancing one final waltz. Meanwhile, staff buried the hotel silver—including the silver beef trolley—in the Palm Court.

During World War II, Raffles Hotel was renamed Syonan Ryokan (昭南旅館, shōnan ryokan), incorporating Syonan ("Light of the South"), the Japanese name for occupied Singapore, and ryokan, the name for a traditional Japanese inn. The hotel was reclaimed in 1945 during Operation Tiderace by the British Navy. Stanley Redington raised the British Naval Jack on top of the Raffles Hotel.

We went back at night for a drink after spending the day sightseeing.

The Singapore sling is a gin-based sling cocktail from Singapore. This long drink was developed sometime before 1915 by bartender Ngiam Tong Boon, who was working at the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel, Singapore.