This weekend marked the end of classes for this fall semester. I only have finals on December 8th and 12th, meaning that I have lots of time off before I leave for good on December 16th before, after, and in between the exams. With all of this time I travelled to Singapore for 4 days with my roommates. Singapore was one of the places that I wanted to make sure I visited while in Asia because it is one of the most modern cities on the continent which I think is one of the coolest attributes a city can have.
I had another overnight flight which meant that we arrived to Singapore around 3 am. We checked into our Air BnB and went straight to sleep, deciding to start our journey on Saturday morning. Singapore is known for its exquisite architecture and this is quite noticeable immediately after entering the city with its magnificent buildings boasting unique designs. One of the coolest is actually a three buildings that are connected by a boat that sits atop all of them. Yes, you read that right… a BOAT. Look it up if you do not believe me!
The first thing we did was get money, sim cards, and tourist subway passes (Which I recommend investing in). As for the currency, they use Singapore Dollars (SGD) and each one is worth about 0.75 USD making the currencies pretty similar. We took the MRT (Subway) to city hall from our apartment at Novena and walked around the financial center. There is also a famous park located here called Merlion Park. The park has a giant statue of a Merlion, a mythical creature that is half lion and half fish. This creature appears frequently around the city. We then rented bikes and rode over to the boat building I mentioned earlier and then the gardens by the bay, a garden with magnificent plant life including what they refer to as, “super trees. Riding bikes was probably my favorite part of the trip because of how much territory you could cover in a short period of time, allowing you to see different parts of the city.
Next we got dinner at this Korean restaurant and returned to our Air Bnb. The Air Bnb was decent for the price we paid and although it was not amazing we barely spent any time there. We all showered which was very nice because it was over ONE-HUNDRED degrees and we all felt pretty gross. At night we went to this lively area called Clarke Quay where we grabbed a few drinks and danced to live music for a couple of hours.
The following morning we slept in again and got breakfast in this shopping center near our apartment. We got sandwiches and coffee. The coffee in Singapore is definitely the best I have had in Asia so far. As a big coffee drinker this is something I appreciated greatly. We took busses to this island called Sentosa with nice beaches, resorts, and a Universal Studios park. This was obviously very westernized but had some nice trails off to the side. After fully exploring the area we rode the sky train back and went to Singapore’s MINT Toy Museum. While it was very nostalgic and pretty entertaining I was frankly underwhelmed with the actual size of the museum.
Luckily the area surrounding the toy museum was also pretty nice. Here we visited a few uniquely shaped buildings, checked out the Suntec Convention Center, and did some shopping for souvenirs and clothes. We were pretty hungry from all of the walking at this point and decided to go to this restaurant that was recommended to us. Due to communication issues we ordered the wrong dishes though. To remedy this we ended up getting fast food and ice cream to supplement the original meal. When we returned to the apartment we were way too tired to do anything else, so we stayed in for the night and just enjoyed each other’s company and watched youtube videos. We woke up the next morning, returned our keys to the owner, packed up, got breakfast, and headed for the airport. Oddly enough this was my first daytime flight of my entire time abroad.
I have to say that even though I was only there for two and a half days I liked Singapore the most of all the Asian cities I have seen thus far. The entire city is crazy clean because of its strict laws and regulations regarding littering. It is also so modern and sleek. It reminds me of the aesthetic of an apple store if it were expanded to the entire city/country. I also thought that the use of four languages, Mandarin English, Malay, and Tamil, in most public places spoke to the size of Singapore the country relative to its neighboring nations.
Unfortunately we did not anticipate how many break we would need because of the heat and therefore did not get to do everything on our list that we wanted to do. We wanted to check out a night safari that is apparently the world’s largest nocturnal zoo. We also wanted to find this street full of markets called Orchard Road. If you get the chance you should check these places out because they are all highly rated. I definitely suggest applying lots of sunscreen to avoid getting sunburnt as some of my roommates did. For some reason all of the weather resources I consulted said that it was going to rain everyday this weekend but it did not end up raining at all. There were not even any clouds in the sky! We could have used some rain to cool us down too!
Unfortunately as a result of the modern and upscale nature of the city everything is pretty expensive. When I say expensive I mean relative to other Asian cities, since they are typically cheaper than European and American cities. By avoiding taxis, staying in the Air BnB, and not having fancy meals we made it work for our student budgets. I had a fantastic time and I am just as excited for my final trip, Shanghai next week.
