Singapore is nowadays dominated by citizens of Chinese ascent, but in its early days it was very different. A majority of population was Muslim as Singapore was under the rule of the Johor Sultanate for hundreds and hundreds of years, before Sir Raffles arrived in 1819. Those days are long gone, but along with the Sultan mosque and muslim markets like Mustafa center, there are pearls like Jamal Kazura Aromatics where you feel just like in a souk in the middle of the arabian peninsula.
In fact, I started a small collection of cute little arabian perfume bottles - oil based essences that come in shiny delicate tiny bottles - during my trip to China in November last year, when totally out of the blue, I got a handful of random perfume bottles at Dubai airport... Just to decorate our bathroom.
The ones from Dubai look more like this...
Jamal Kazura [WEB] has the shiny ones, but also a tone of glass artwork. It stroke me that the store is extremely popular in Japan judging by the amount of Japanese girls in the store and a clerk who could even speak the language.
Eventually, I went for some Jasmine essence inside a glittery bottle, not portrayed as the photographer felt stressed out of the KAWAII shouts and the strong perfume - more in line with my magpie taste - but it was kind of fun to see the extent to which a somewhat simple thing (you can find these perfumes easily in Granada) was able to become a huge business and break into the heart of Tokyo.
If you are up for some muslim style shopping in Singapore, I recommend Mustafa Centre which is a huge supermarket that you shall not miss. It is close to the Hindu temples. It ain't gourmet or fancy, but is kind of fun to explore and maybe to import some spices or curry mix back home.
Interesting drink at Mustafa Centre.
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