Singapore Sling

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My latest little adventure was a trip to Singapore! Thursday last week was due to be sports day, but due to an outbreak of influenza, all schools have been closed and so I have began my Easter holidays early. We had the Friday off school anyway, so my colleagues and I decided to make the most of our long weekend and go somewhere…Singapore!


Jake, Ben and I flew out on Thursday evening from Hong Kong, and it took about 4 hours to fly South to Singapore - the most Southern place I have now been, and not too far from the equator! Arriving late, we just got a taxi to our hostel and went for a short stroll and the guys had a durian and some food. There was a durian stand on the road side, almost like a durian café - I’ve never seen so many durians in one place.


On Friday morning we used the MRT (train system) and went to Raffles place, from which we walked up across the river, to the Raffles hotel. It was a reminder of the humidity I experienced at the beginning of my time in HK. Singapore didn’t fail on sunshine and palm trees! We enjoyed a Singapore sling cocktail in the long bar of the raffles hotel, so much that we had another one. It was a nice relaxed place, saloon style.


From the raffles, we headed to Little India, which is basically what you would assume it is! We had what seemed a very authentic Indian lunch at a hawker food market, surrounded by other local Indian people, scooping up curry with their right hand. Onto the next cultural district; the Arab quarter…again, what you might expect - some cool looking mosques and lots of Arabic people. It was a really nice area, lots of palm trees, and we stopped for some delicious Arabic iced mint tea. It was really interesting to see these little pockets of Singapore housing such cultural communities within them.


By now it was evening and we went to the Esplanade (river front) and had some hawker food - I tried some local coconut jam/dip which was good, but quite sweet. We spent the rest of the evening strolling along the river, having a glass of wine, and taking the MRT back to the hostel in Aljunied.


On Saturday morning we walked along Orchard Road, which had a good buzz, but was mainly shops, so we took the MRT to the harbour front, and went on a cable car to Sentosa Island. We spent the majority of the day in a bar on the beach, playing pool and drinking Singapore Slings…which may have turned into Slingapore Sings a few times! We finally left the beach after a great day on the island, and went to Clarke Quay for an excellent Thai dinner. Clarke quay is a popular night spot with a nice water feature in the middle and lots of bars.


My last morning in Singapore, and I strolled from Raffles Place to Chinatown, and along some of Orchard road to the art museum. There were lots of nice looking buildings, and China town was actually quite nice…I was not over keen on going there, seeing as I live in Hong Kong, but I was pleasantly surprised. To end our time in Singapore, we had a fantastic lunch in the Royal Plaza on Scotts hotel off of Orchard St, before heading to the airport for the return to HK.


All the buildings in Singapore were beautiful, helped by the sunshine and blue skies. I enjoyed the trip, and 2/3 days was the right amount of time to see it. It seems like a place where it’s good to have money! At times it felt quite surreal being somewhere that was so well kept, parts of it reminded me of Disneyland! The colourful buildings make it an attractive city, and it was strange to be somewhere where English was so widely spoken, and to hear so much English again!


Here are the ingredients for a Singapore Sling!
30ml Gin
30ml Cointreau
15ml Cherry brandy
45ml Pineapple juice
15ml lime juice
5ml D.O.M Benedictine
20ml Grenadine
dash of angostura bitter
top up with soda water
Enjoy!


J x

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