Advertisement
Published: February 26th 2013
Skypark View
View from the "skypark" atop the Marina Bay Sands.Some of you may know that I have actually written about Singapore
before. Whereas that visit two-and-a-half years ago was a one night stopover, this time I would be here to finish the place off with a two-night stay. You could say that this is the sequel.
Some of you may also know my cousin Nicola and her husband Simon - who so kindly looked after me when I first arrived in
London,
five years ago.
How time flies and much has changed in the intervening years - Nicola has since got married (incidentally, the reason I passed through Singapore the first time was to attend her wedding), moved to Singapore, and now has a 15-month old son Oliver, another second cousin to add to my burgeoning collection.
Some things have stayed the same however - I am still in London and am still travelling, and my cousin Marcus and his girlfriend Eve still live in Singapore (although they have moved house since then).
So there was no excuse really to not give Singapore another visit on my way back to London.
I arrived pretty late into Singapore, having to stop in Phnom Penh along the way. The stopover
Marina Bay Sands
The modern hotel-casino that has become a Singapore icon. was stupid - we literally got off the plane, straight into a queue for security, had our bags screened again, and then queued straight away to get back on the plane. I mean you would think that if we had just come off a plane, that we would already have been screened before we had got onto it, and thus we don't need to be screened again? Or am I just being stupid?
Anyway, Nicola's excellent directions got me to her apartment block quick smart via the MRT (metro/subway/tube) and the local bus system, which is pretty efficient.
No larger than Lake Taupo, Singapore is pretty densely populated as you can tell from al the high rises, which leaves limited room for cars. To control the number of cars on the road, the government issues a limited amount of vehicle licences for bidding each month, which are very expensive. The licences are then only valid for ten years. This means the public transport has got to be good - and it is.
The bling here certainly contrasted to what I had just experienced in Cambodia.
It had been a long few days, so I pretty much just crashed when I
Gardens By The Bay
Part of Singapore's 'green' project, are these futuristic gardens behind the Marina Bay Sands. arrived at Nicola's very nice apartment (complete with swimming pool).
With Nicola and Simon at work the next day, I was left to my own devices and after a good sleep-in, decided to venture out into the thirty degree, 90% humidity heat for a local lunch.
Nicola had told me that there was a hawker complex just down the road from her apartment block so I went to check it out.
Walking past a group of restaurants, I figured that I had found it, and so walked into place that looked like it specialised in Malaysian food.
With a lady behind a counter of food impatiently waiting for me to make up my mind and serve me, and no labels in front of the food trays to tell me what everything was, I decided to just wing it and act like a local, pointing out the things I wanted which were basically a selection of curries on rice.
Sitting myself down in the non-air conditioned room, I started tucking into my meal.
Woah. The curry beef is pretty hot.
"OK, just drink the ice-cold Coke and keep going - look hard, like you're a local, you don't wanna bring
Clarke Quay
Historical riverside quay that has been regenerated and is now home to numerous cafes, shops and restaurants. too much attention to yourself" I thought to myself.
I then tried the curry chicken.
Holy shit. My nose is starting to run, my head is starting to sweat, my lips starting to pulse. Shit, I'm almost out of Coke.
I bravely soldier on, to the point where I can no longer taste anything and my eyes are starting to water. The air is unhelpfully hot and heavy. The locals are looking at me now with smirks on their faces. My cover has been blown.
I literally cannot finish my lunch and the chilli seeds are starting to burn into my stomach now. I'm still hungry but I don't care. Mission aborted.
I then take a walk along the river, toward the main waterfront of the city. It is a pleasant walk despite the heat, and the area around Clarke Quay is colourful and vibrant. Where possible, the old colonial riverside buildings have been kept and done up and sit alongside high-rise condominium blocks and glass office buildings by the water.
I then arrive at the old colonial quarter of the city where the old Parliament House resides, as well as the Supreme Court and the Fullerton Hotel, one
Little India
Colourful shops in the Indian part of town. of the city's colonial landmarks. Opposite The Fullerton, is a crowd of tourists taking pictures of the water expanse that is the Kallang River, with the spectacular Marina Bay Sands Hotel on the other side of it. On this side of the river is the Merlion Statue, that I took a picture of last time.
Walking through the large patch of grass that the Singapore Cricket Club has managed to keep on this land scarce island, I get to St Andrew's Cathedral, the new Parliament building, and the new Supreme Court whose air-conditioning teases me as I pass its front door, only for it to shut again, almost in mockery. It's a sign that I had done enough walking for awhile and needed to cool down on the MRT as I made my way to Little India.
I've not been to India (yet) so I don't know what it is like to be there but Singapore's Little India felt pretty authentic - a cleaner more colourful version of what I imagine India to be like. It is a cool little neighbourhood for a tourist to visit even if there is an air of contrition about it.
I then walk down
Arab Street Area
Nice little promenade in the middle of the Middle Eastern part of town. towards Arab Street and the Muslim part of town where the Masjid Sultan is. It's also very nice down here although it felt contrite again, like the renovated old quarters of
Dubai.
By now I really had had enough of walking around in the heat, so it was back on the MRT to Nicola's place.
That night, Nicola and Simon took me down into the Lau Pa Sat hawker market for all the old favourites -
char kuay teow (fried flat noodles in soy sauce) and
satay sticks in particular. Yum. The food wasn't quite so hot this time.
After dinner, we then went up to the top of a skyscraper where the 1-Altitude bar resided. A completely open bar - not in terms of alcohol unfortunately - you get some spectacular views over the city. The bar itself is pretty swanky too - it all felt a little VIP.
My cousin and Nicola's brother Rob - who has briefly appeared in this blog in
Milan - and his girlfriend Sarah had arrived in Singapore overnight so we all went out for breakfast together in the morning along with little Oliver.
The riverside cafe we went to felt
Skywalk
Bridge connecting two of the artificial "supertrees" that stand in the Garden By The Bay. a bit like a creche - it was crawling with toddlers and young ex-pat families. One thing I have noticed is that the ex-pats that do live here are generally older - there aren't too many people my age here. The jobs that attract the ex-pats here are generally higher up the food chain so it would be atypical to see young, single ex-pats around here.
After breakfast we took a taxi down to the Gardens By The Bay, right behind the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. I wouldn't usually be keen to see gardens, but these ones were kick-ass. The place looks like some sort of artificial forest from the future with a series of huge "supertrees" in the middle of it, which are essentially metal structures that act as "vertical gardens" that house local and exotic flora and fauna. A bridge connects two of the taller supertrees and is known as the "skywalk" which gives you a pretty good aerial view of the gardens.
The gardens are made up of three different gardens - the Bay Central, the Bay East, and the Bay South, which we were in, and which is the biggest of the three. Remarkably, the gardens
Raffles Hotel
The iconic Singaporean colonial hotel. are situated entirely on reclaimed land.
I had a hard time keeping up with Oliver - boy, that kid has energy. Like an Energizer bunny, he just keeps going! Running around everywhere, throwing things, hitting things and shouting things - the boy is born with attacking instincts. Dare I say it, he definitely takes after his rugby-playing father, that's for sure!
After our walk though the gardens, we then made our way to Nicola's apartment where I was reunited with Marcus and Eve. It was a real whanau reunion.
Before we all headed out to lunch, I made sure I got some local delicacies from the shopping mall next door - some
kuay (coconut-based glutinous cake), coconut syrup balls, and some dried spiced pork.
On the menu for lunch at the hawker near Nicola's apartment (the right one this time) was
chicken rice, as well as some char kuay teow - washed down with some iced
teh tarik. God, I love South-East Asian food.
We then all went to what is a Singaporean institution - the iconic Raffles Hotel.
Named after Stamford Raffles, the British founder of Singapore, the old, vast, colonial building certainly takes you back in time
Singapore Sling
The Raffles Hotel's Long Bar was where the Singapore Sling was born. Tasting like a delicious, non-alcoholic fruit juice, you could get very drunk very easily on this. and no place does this more than the hotel's famous Long Bar where the floor crunches under your feet from the endless amount of peanut shells thrown onto the floor by the bar's patrons, as is customary here. We all order the famous Singapore Sling which was first created in this very bar - they are delicious, so we go for a second round. While Nicola was so kind to pay for the first round of Slings, Marcus then insisted on paying for the second round and wouldn't let any of us pay! Just like he did the last time I visited. I will return the favour one day Marcus, and there ain't any way that you're stopping me!
It was to be Marcus and Eve's last contributions to the day as they had another engagement that night - it was great to see them both again.
On my final night here, Nic and Si took us all up to the rooftop bar at the Marina Bay Sands.
With the taxi dropping us off at it's imposing lobby, the hotel is architecturally awe-inspiring and swankily impressive. You felt pretty cool as you entered the elevator up to the bar.
Atop The Marina Bay Sands
The kick-ass pool alongside the rooftop bar at the Marina Bay Sands. The vista from the bar is stunning. With its bright lights, Singapore is about as good a cityscape as I have seen. The bar itself which has it's own swimming pool, is also pretty damn cool.
To give you a sense of the scale of the place - it is the most expensive standalone casino property in the world, has 2,561 hotel rooms, a museum, two large theatres, seven celebrity chef restaurants, two floating Crystal Pavilions, an ice skating rink, and the world's largest atrium casino with 500 tables and 1,600 slot machines. The complex has three towers, on which a 340m-long "SkyPark" which resembles the hull of a ship, sits on top of, connecting all three towers. This is where the bar is.
I'll let the pictures do the talking.
Before heading off to the airport, we had dinner at the Singapore Cricket Club, of which Simon is a member. Eating outside, it was a pretty cool setting - on the decks of the colonial clubhouse in the centre of Singapore, staring up at all the bright skyscrapers surrounding us. The club put on a free chicken curry dinner for the rugby team too, as it does every Saturday.
Singapore Cricket Club
Dining with the club members at the Singapore Cricket Club. Admittedly, the club did have a slightly exclusive old-boys-club feel to it and almost all of the members and their partners were ex-pats.
To me it illustrated how comfortable the ex-pat lifestyle is here and it certainly has appeal. Singapore seems eminently liveable and I would definitely consider it should the opportunity arise, although I would probably want to do it when I am a little older.
And with that I bade farewell to Nic, Simon, Rob and Sarah and got into a taxi to the airport.
It was a great end to my two weeks in South East Asia and a big shout out to Nic and Si for the generous hospitality.
I will probably be back in Singapore one day, just like I will probably be back in Malaysia again one day to see my extended family there - hopefully as part of a more thorough tour of South East Asia in the future.
For now, it's the long haul back to London.
Cheers,
Derek
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 17; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0493s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
auspicious
Michelle Duer
I was laughing out loud reading your encounter with the spicy curry. Reminded me of when I was in Indonesia and ended up drinking the bowl of water that was meant for washing hands -- ewww. Sometimes, sticking out like a sore thumb can be some of the funniest moments (er, more so with hindsight) when it comes to traveling. Interesting blog as always!