Singapore wows you right from the start with its eye-catching architecture, lush gardens, scenic bays and water ways. There are walking paths everywhere, amazingly modern transportation, clean streets and sidewalks, restaurants, bars, food halls and shopping all easy to get to. Singapore’s vision is to be a city in a garden. So far, they have done a great job fulfilling that vision.
We flew from Phuket to Singapore on Scoot Air, a low-cost subsidiary of Singapore Airlines. I’d highly recommend them. We had a brand new plane and plenty of leg room. We picked an upgraded package for our luggage, and got a seat near the front and a meal included. As we landed we noticed dozens and dozens of ships at anchor off the coast of the city. A lot of ships have this as their home base, so they stay here until they get their next assignment or to do maintenance. The drive from the Singapore airport to downtown follows a beautiful tree-lined highway that parallels a park and beach on the left side the whole way. According to our taxi driver, it’s a wonderful place for locals to spend a day at the beach. He also told us there was a seafood center there, where all the best seafood restaurants are located in one spot. As a former British colony, English is the de facto common language of Singapore. All written materials (signs, books, product packaging, etc.) were in English. And in like nearly every country we’ve visited so far (except Vietnam), they drive on the left.
We booked our first night in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) – an enormous hotel/casino/high-end shopping mall/entertainment center. It is an impressive building with three towers supporting a surfboard-like roof. We spent some time walking through the mall while we waited for our room to be ready. All the famous brands were here, and many we hadn’t even heard of. There was one hall that had stores of at least a dozen high end watch brands from Switzerland and Europe. I didn’t even dare step foot in them!
On the roof of the MBS is the world’s highest infinity pool – 57 floors up. Swimming in it gives the illusion that you will float right off the edge! It rained pretty much the whole time we were in Singapore, but it let up enough in the afternoon for us to be able to take a swim and get the obligatory pictures. It was a breathtaking sight to behold!
In the evening, the MBS puts on a water/light/laser show in the marina in front of the hotel. This was fun to see. After we went into the connected mall and ate at the food court. This wasn’t your typical food court, though. It was modeled after their “hawker center” concept where individual booths specialize in a specific cuisine – and you mix and match among vendors to customize your meal. There were over 60 vendors here selling all sorts of Asian and Indian dishes. Sophie and I chose a vendor who won awards for his roasted duck, which we enjoyed. These hawker centers are a great way to sample different cuisines, and save some money as each dish is very reasonably priced.
The next morning, we ate a buffet breakfast at Spago, which was on the rooftop. We actually got free breakfast because our room wasn’t ready on time when we checked in. Since they charged over $50 per person for breakfast, this was a nice bonus. Our room had a balcony overlooking the Gardens By The Bay. This is a modern garden complex that features these giant fantasy trees that are lit up at night. It also has some lavish indoor gardens under domes, which is where we went next. Because it was raining, we walked through some subway tunnels to get there. Nicest metro environment ever!
The first dome we visited featured trees, plants and flowers from several exotic areas like Australia, Africa, India, Asia, the Mediterranean, and even California. There were impressive baobab and bottle trees, large cacti, twisted olive trees, and to Sophie’s delight, there was even a dahlia section! There were also very interesting driftwood sculptures throughout, along with totems and other native arts from across the lands.
The second dome was the cloud forest, which has adopted an Avatar (the movie) theme. This was a tropical wonderland with waterfalls, ferns, palms and all sorts of flowers and orchids.
Next we walked through the rest of the park and the sky trees. There were many sections each focused on a different area of the world or type of plant. Since it was still drizzling, there weren’t many people there, but they also closed the skyway walks. Our hotel had borrowed us umbrellas, so we didn’t get wet and enjoyed it anyway.
We then picked up our luggage and changed to our next hotel which was across the bay closer to the heart of the city. This hotel was called the Fullerton, and was a gem! It was nearly half the price of MBS when I booked it, but felt a step up in luxury and refinement. It was built in a historic building right on the bay that was the former home of the main post office, as well as several government offices including the ministry of finance. This ministry was instrumental in transforming this once third-world country into the sparkling, affluent one it is today. You can see the results of the incredible investments and organizing power of the government, businesses and its people. What they have accomplished in a few decades is nothing short of incredible.
That evening, we went to another hawker center – this one called Lau Pa Sat which was housed in a Victorian-era market building. Here we tried a Singaporean dish called Nasi Lemak. We had it with chicken and it came on a colorful dish with green coconut rice colored with pandan, a fried egg, fried chicken, green beans, some sort of crisps, toasted peanuts with tiny fried anchovies or another fish, and spicy Sambal sauce. The mixture of tastes, textures and fragrant smells really made it special.
After we walked along the river front, which had many pedestrian paths and bridges. There was an Asian culture museum across one bridge that was putting on a dance show outside. We just couldn’t get over how many different spectacular views there were no matter where you looked. We ended up at a small park near our hotel called the Merlion park. Singapore literally means Lion City, and its mascot is a cross between a fish and a lion they called the Merlion, which was on display at this park. We also caught the MBS light show again here, this time from the other side of the bay. This was maybe even more impressive because the entire building lit up in coordination with the water fountains and mall buildings below – something you couldn’t see from the other side.
We were truly charmed by Singapore after our first day!
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