Recently my brother Lance and I visited Singapore for a few days. I had only heard good things about Singapore, and while I’m inclined to agree with most of it, there are some things that I would definitely not repeat. As someone who prefers natural beauty, experiences and sights, Singapore was not my favorite destination – everything is man-made. Whilst very cool and interesting to visit, as well as influences from a lot of different cultures, it lacks one of the things I enjoy the most about visiting a new country – the depth of its history.
Day 1
We arrived at midday to a rainy Singapore, for which we were not prepared. The entrance to the city from Changi Airport was spectacular though, you drive on a massive highway with views of Marina Bay, and the tall city skyline. Our Airbnb check-in was a few hours later, so I directed our taxi driver to a café I had researched called Wakey Wakey. It was a lovely place to get in a bit of work, but immediately gave us a sense of how much more expensive Singapore was to Bangkok, which is where we were coming from. We spent around $40 (approximately £24 GBP) for two yoghurt bowls and a coffee.
We stayed at the International Service Apartments, which was the cheapest decent Airbnb we could find for £82 a night. It was not amazing, but it had good wifi, a functioning shower and AC. It was also actually at a pretty good location in the south of the city, so we dropped off our stuff and hopped into a taxi to Little India. You can expect to spend an average of £10 per taxi trip using the Grab app.
We arrived at the entrance of Serangoon Road, where a giant colorful banner let us know it was the Deepavali Festival of Lights. The road was so colorful – the buildings were painted every vibrant color imaginable, the streets were bustling with all different kinds of people, and there was a multitude of smells from the restaurants and side markets. It was also very hot.
We began by walking through an alleyway that seemed to be a market in itself, with people selling all sorts of goods, from clothes and shoes to food to jewellery and shiny hanging ornaments. We then started making our way to the Sri Veeramakaliamman temple, which was unfortunately scaffolded in renovation. The top of the ornate temple could still be seen, but the entrance was covered, which was a bit of shame.
I had a list of things to visit in Little India courtesy of one of the parents of my students who used to live in Singapore, and we completely accidentally walked in front of the top restaurant she recommended, Komala Vilas. It didn’t look like much except for the fact that there was a long queue of people outside, and the very fragrant scent of spices and curry was emanating from the doorway. We finally got in, and got sat next to an Indian man, who was casually scooping up rice with his hand from a tray filled with different dishes, whilst scrolling through his phone with his other. It looked pretty good, so we just ordered what he was having. SPICY. We walked out of there with slightly burnt lips.
Both feeling extremely full, we decided to walk for an hour or so, reaching the end of the road. We passed by several other temples, which were beautiful, and at around 7pm we made our way to a dinner café that had excellent reviews, Brunches Café. Upon arriving, since we had no reservation they couldn’t offer us a table, but upon finding out where we were from, the guy running it insisted to offer us a table at 8pm. The place was incredibly cute and the man was so friendly, so we decided to wait for an hour at the bakery next door.
I did not regret this decision at all. The staff at Brunches café were incredibly sweet, attentive and the food was good. But the best part was the live music. It was the kind of artist that was incredibly talented and could play and sing most songs on request, and was interactive such that by the end of the dinner, most of the café and the staff were involved in the singing. It was phenomenal; needless to say they got a huge tip.
We left slightly before 10 to make it to the Dancing Collective, where my friend Thiru from Edinburgh had recommended for bachata social dancing. The dance scene was incredible – the level was phenomenal and the people were so friendly. There were three people from Edinburgh (small world) – Thiru, Dimitrii and another girl who I didn’t know personally but had heard of, and it was so nice to get in some dances with them and catch up. Poor Lance sat there for 3 hours while I danced, but he did end up learning a few steps with some of the girls that were resting, so win-win?
Day 2
Woke up and wandered to the hawker stall where my brother was meeting his friends. Didn’t know what to expect from a group of crypto people living in Singapore, but we had a delicious lunch and they were incredibly friendly. They ordered traditional Singaporean food for us to try – Bak Kut Teh – which is a pork rib peppery soup and fried bean curd. Was not a huge fan of the bean curd, but the broth was phenomenal, especially with the crispy fried bread that is set on the table.
Afterwards, one of the group took us on a tour of Singapore that would end up lasting the whole rest of the day.
We began by going to the Flower Dome, a beautiful indoor greenhouse type of structure (actually the world’s largest glass greenhouse!) by the Marina Bay, where there are thousands of different species of tree, flower and plant. Next to it, we also visited Cloud Forest, an Avatar themed greenhouse with artificial waterfalls, and sky walkways that you can roam from the top to the bottom. The admission to both was a total of $62 (approximately £38) which I felt was well worth the money given that it was an immersive experience to enjoy for 2 or 3 hours.
After that we visited the Jewel Changi airport (yes the airport!), which is a shopping center and tourist attraction in itself that is connected to Terminal 2. It has the world’s largest indoor waterfall. This was a truly spectacular sight in itself, since it is surrounded by a beautiful display of plants and wooden benches for people to sit and admire. On the top floor, there is a range of attractions such as nets that you can walk on or jump on or the Canopy Park (which was very similar to Cloud Forest). We did both of these. In my opinion, while this might be something fun to do if you have a long layover, they were not worth the money. The entrance to Canopy Park online is around $10 and the entrance to the Walking Net is $20 (in total around £18), but in person it is slightly more expensive.
We ate at Shake Shack, which our friend insisted was the fast food joint to try. Since I don’t like cheese I did not get a burger, but Lance did and it was okay, nothing crazy. Would recommend if you want a fast food burger I guess?
Finally we headed back to Marina Bay to walk around for the views of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, and the Singapore Flyer. Our friend insisted we try a $1.50 ice cream sandwich. Not the kind you probably imagine. This was a slab of ice cream cut by the vendor slapped onto a folded piece of average soft processed supermarket bread. Quite literally an ice cream sandwich, and surprisingly the soft bread texture went quite well with the cold ice cream, but would not repeat.
On a whim we decided to visit the ArtScience Museum and did an exhibition called a Sensory Odyssey, which was $24 (£14). It was around 7 different rooms where everything from the smell to the sense of the room fitted the environment you were in. This was enhanced by 5K videos of close-up insects for example if the setting was in a field, or whales, if the setting was somewhere cold. I quite enjoyed it, especially the close-ups of bugs and insects, and it was relatively inexpensive.
After that we headed to the The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, which is a posh shopping center. It was actually very nice on the inside (duh), and our friend took us to Tim Ho Wan, which is a Chinese restaurant chain that had a Michelin star up to 2021. We ordered 11 plates of food, ranging from congee porridge, to dim sum to noodles to spring rolls. Everything was phenomenal, and the bill came to around $145 (£87), which considering everything we ate for 3 people was very good value in my opinion.
Finally we ended the night on the Singapore Flyer, a giant Ferriss wheel near the marina similar to the London Eye, that gives you a view of the entire city. We paid $40 (£24) for the Time Capsule experience and the ride, which was a little overpriced in my opinion. The views on the ride at night where phenomenal, but like any Ferriss wheel (in my opinion), a 20 minute ride just gets too long. And the Time Capsule experience was nice but nothing special.
Overall, we spent a total of $225 (£135) including taxis, which – although we did do all the touristy activities, felt like a lot.
Day 3
I had gotten a little ill the night before, so we woke up quite late, and given that it was a rainy day we decided to visit the Singapore Science Center including an Omni Theater 8K film for around $30 (£18), which was amazing value for what we got. Lance and I both really enjoy interactive science, so we thoroughly enjoyed all the experiments and science phenomena they offered. I especially liked the science of fear exhibition, where they demonstrated psychological and physiological effects of fears and phobias. The 8K film was in a planetarium, where the film was projected across the entire dome, offering an extremely immersive experience. It was a film about the journey to the peak of Everest, which we both massively enjoyed.
Since it was raining heavily and I had to tutor in the evening, we returned back to our hotel and ordered açaí bowls to the room.
Day 4
On the last day we visited Chinatown, where we went to see several temples, including a Taoist temple Thian Hock Keng and the magnificent Buddha Tooth Relic temple. It was very hot, so we stopped off at the Amoy Street Food Center to get some food, as well as to try the traditional Kopi (coffee with condensed milk) at a top rated Hawker stall. We must’ve spent a grand total of $10 between the two of us.
We then walked to the Merlion Park, which sports the famous Merlion, symbolizing Singapore’s origins as a fishing village known as Temasek. Unfortunately the Merlion was under reconstruction, but the view of Marina Bay and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel was phenomenal. We also had a great view of the theatre dubbed ‘The Durian’ for it’s durian fruit-like architecture.
Overall, the trip was very activity-packed and it was very interesting to see the influences of the different cultures and religions on the formation of Singapore. It’s also interesting to note the global significance and influence that Singapore is gaining as a city-state. However, it is quite expensive, especially contrasting the cheap Bangkok from where we were traveling, and it doesn’t offer the richness and diversity in landscape and history that nearby countries can. It is definitely worth a visit, whether you are a city person or not, but in my opinion not a place to stay in for more than a few days.
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