Peranakan Museum

Set in a graceful former school building on Armenian Street, this jewel-box museum is the world's finest showcase of Peranakan culture — the distinctive hybrid identity born when early Chinese, Indian and Arab settlers married into the Malay world. Across intimate galleries you'll find dazzling beadwork and embroidery, ornate porcelain (nyonyaware), gold jewellery and an entire gallery devoted to the lavish twelve-day Peranakan wedding. A recent revamp added vivid personal stories that bring the objects to life. It's compact enough for an hour or so, and the perfect primer for — or follow-up to — a wander through the Peranakan shophouses of Katong and Joo Chiat.