Singapore. There’s nothing like it in Southeast Asia.
Futuristic is my favorite adjective. Shiny, modern, upscale, cosmopolitan are
also appropriate. It’s also a budget-buster as our 1-day/2-night stopover cost
us as much as a week in Malaysia. But we packed in every second of our brief
stay.
When Singapore decided to rain on us, we naturally decided
to go to the botanical gardens. With the experience firmly behind me, I can
easily say it was worth it. I can only imagine it on a sunny day. The more I
travel the harder it is to “impress” me but the orchid garden was exquisite!
Like Malaysia, Singapore is a blend of culture, so lunch
time took us to Little India for the south Asian spices that never fail us. We
also stopped at a nearby mosque; after all the calls to prayer that had been
waking us up throughout out travels it was only proper that we visit the
source. City trekking also brought us to Chinatown to see the authentically questionable
tooth of the Buddha. And also to a hipster pie shop, so I’d say we probably
covered all the cultural bases.
Good thing dinner at the hawker stalls was cheap because we
emptied our wallets throughout the rest of the evening. First to Raffles Hotel,
where you can drink the original Singapore Sling for only $27. Fortunately we
made up for it with the unlimited free peanuts, the shells of which we
discarded on the floor. We had to dig deep into our pockets again to ride the
Singapore Flyer observation wheel, but who knows the next time we’d be back in
Singapore! And lastly to the rooftop bar of the Marina Bay Sands, an extravagant
hotel…with a fish on top? Was it that I had just spent a week in a country of
much more limited means that being here made me feel so uncomfortable? This is
when I realized that this was not a lifestyle I long for. A little friendliness
went a long way when we were granted access to the Infinity Pool, the edge of
which dramatically dropped off into the Singapore skyline. A lack of swimsuit
could not prevent me from wading in…
We walked more in Singapore than any other day in the trip, maybe in my life. We wore ourselves out and completely forgot our last site, the Merlion Statue.
Singapore's Botanical Gardens
Orchid mania
Mosque
Chinatown shrines
The ORIGINAL Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel
Flying over Singapore!
Marina Bay Sands...
Infinity Pool!
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