Allie's Got Seoul: Singapore

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.