21st – 24th May

We landed late into Singapore, caught the last train into the city to get to our hotel which was near Little India.

The hotel is ok, it looked better on the photos, but it was in our price range and wasn’t a hostel! There is construction ‘hacking’ occurring during the day, but that doesn’t worry us, we will be out! The air conditioning works well, so that’s a relief.

Day 1 – Museums and Marina Bay Sands

I was excited to be in Singapore. My good friend Jack is Singaporean and he was going to give us all the top tips on where to go and eat. Food is one of many shared interests we have, and he has been slowly introducing me to Asian food over the last few years. It’s been epic. My taste buds were yearning for salt and spice and noodles and chicken and all the ramen I could eat. But first there was breakfast to conquer. Being British I am not a fan of anything but bread and sugar for breakfast. Rice and savoury food items other than egg and bacon, don’t sit well in my head, so I have to say we flaked a little in our first adventure into food.. settling on a pretty standard English breakfast, with differences, like brioche bread and white sausage.

Tomorrow we will be more adventurous.

Next we walked out in the heat to the national museum and had a guided tour of the tremulous history of Singapore. Ah those brits are at it again.. for a small country we got about a bit..

The guide was amazing, I learnt lots. There were many many school groups in the museum, so she did well to guide us through throngs of children!

After the history section we went to see the other exhibits including Japanese artists TeamLab. Again, I was very excited to see a group who’s work I had heard so much about, in the flesh. We walked into a dark space with projections of flowers and trees falling around us, then into a spiralled walkway that showed a collection of paintings brought to life. Periodically as we walked down the ramp there would be a thunderstorm and the rain would change the paintings. There were speakers along the opposite wall and above following us with sounds of the forest, and the animated animals stopped to watch us as we went past. It was very cleverly done.

By the time we were done in the museum it had started to rain, heavily. We quickly walked to Raffles hotel for a famous Singapore Sling. The bar was fancy; there were special leaf shaped fans that were motorised in a very pleasing back and fro way, there was dark wood everywhere, bags of peanuts that we steadily got through, and a machine that mixed the cocktails 8 at a time.

A tasty but expensive $77 later (ooosh a one time thing I reckon) we left for a wander about the downtown waterfront area. It was fantastic to see all of the famous buildings all sat neatly together. Every bit as impressive as I knew they would be.

We went inside the Marina Bay Sands hotel shopping complex to get out of the heat and then for something to eat at the food court. Here we go! This is more like it. Lots of food stands, selling a variety of amazing sounding dishes from all over Asia. I was only interested in the Singapore Chicken and Rice. A simple but very tasty meal.

We next walked through the Marina gardens and saw the tall man made trees. Their structure was impressive and there were loads of them, far more than I thought there would be!

It was time for a nap. The humidity was exhausting. We jumped back on the train, which wished us a ‘happy happy’ time on the platform (well that’s what we heard) and we went to cool off for a bit. Jack had put us in touch with an ex colleague, Andrew, who now worked in Singapore and we were meeting up with him later on in the evening. I had met him the one time in SF a while ago, but it was great to see him again and find out what living as an expat was like in Singapore (him being from Melbourne). He showed us around and it was a lovely evening. We went back to the gardens to watch the light show. The lighting of the trees in the gardens was an Arup project so I was keen to see this! It didn’t disappoint. We lay down underneath and watched as a symphony of classic tunes ranging from the Beatles to ABBA, with lighting reflecting the mood and beat of each song. It was incredible.

We then went to Satay by the Bay for food. I asked what we should try and this is what we went with. A very tasty concoction of Beef Hor Fun and Seafood Mee Goreng. Yum!

We took a walk over the helix bridge and Andrew took a photo of Andy and I – postcard style! Thank you Andrew!

We watched a dress rehearsal show at the Espaland outdoor theatre. It was very odd. I believe the premise was that there was a group of individuals who were stuck in their day jobs, and at lunch they didn’t socialise at all, just sat on their phones, but through the show each of the group had a talent they shared; juggling, acrobatics, dancing, baton throwing, (each act got better as the show went along, unclear if that was intentional) so by the end the group was able to connect and share the other side of themselves. That’s what I got out of it anyway. No words – so was tricky at times!! It was very good though.

After the show we said goodby to Andrew, who pointed us in the direction of a strip of bars. At this point we were absolutely pooped! So we walked over all the bridges, some lit better than others, and headed back to the station to get the train home. What a fabulous day of geeking out!

Day 2 – Botanical Gardens and Little India

After all the excitement yesterday we had a much more chilled day today. We had a lie in, which meant that by the time we did go for breakfast the bakery was open! We had butter puffs and coffee with condensed milk. Ah so yummy.

We got the train to the botanical gardens and paid to enter a section of it to see the orchids. It was hot. Much hotter than yesterday. The rain never came so we went from shaded veranda to shaded veranda, the sun cream sliding off our sweaty faces.

After an hour or so we headed back to our hotel. Jack had recommended a dim sum place near us so we went there, to Victor’s Kitchen. It was yum. Soup pork dumplings, friend prawn dumplings, some fun noodles, mmmmm tasty!

It looks horrid, but it wasn’t.

We went back to the hotel to cool down and chat to my mum. Relaxed for a little while, then went to little India for dinner. There was a happy hour in the square adjacent to our hotel, so we took advantage of some cheaper beverages, and we went to a vegetarian Indian for veg thali!

So delicious. Today was a good food day.

Day 3 – Art Science Museum and the Jewel

We were checked out by 10am this morning, meaning we were too early to go to the bakery for breakfast. We went instead to an air conditioned mall near by and had Kaya toast with poached egg. It was very tasty. The eggs were put into a bowl with boiling water and we were told to wait 8 minutes. We cracked them and out popped a perfectly poached egg. Amazing!

We went to the art science museum which was near the Marina Bay Sands hotel, to see another TeamLab exhibit; ‘Future World’. It was so good, I loved it.

This projection of a waterfall sensed our location and moved accordingly.

when we wrote on this touch screen sounds were produced, and the flowers exploded to create more shapes. Really interactive.

This was a fun one, there was a drawing station where you could colour in a line drawing of a vehicle or building to create a city scape. It was all themed around the bay. You scan your artwork and voila, out it pops on the projection and it’s 3D! If you touch the projection of your creation it jumps, spins around and changes size. It’s crazy!

There was another light tunnel which we walked through, on the other side you could watch the whole effect and it was beautiful.

We had lunch at the food court again, we liked it there! This time I had a laska soup and Andy had noodles and dumplings.

Yummy!

We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon in the shade. It was sunny again and very hot.

Next stop was to the Changi Airport for our flight to Kuala Lumpur. We were going to get there early but that was ok, we wanted to visit the Jewel.

The Jewel is astounding. A rainforest with a 4 storey waterfall in the middle, with walkways all around it. There were the usual things you’d expect in an airport; fancy shops and restaurants, but then there was a cinema and entertainment lounge, a sky treetop walkway (not open currently) and an immersive zone. It was so cool!

After wandering around there for a while, we went back to our terminal which seemed rather dull in comparison!! We were flying with Scoot airlines (never heard of them before.. cheap cheap but fine). It was only delayed an hour and a half. Pretty good by normal standards. Off to KL we go!