Singapore, the city that is known for its beautiful Marina Bay Sands hotel which gives the city a great skyline. Singapore, the city known for its laws which makes the city super clean and makes it feel safe. Singapore, where everything is more expensive compared to Malaysia… while the culture and food are more or less the same.
While entering Singapore we didn’t get a view yet, but, from stories heard of our friend who already spent a day in Singapore before we arrived, we got to know that it was more or less like Malaysia. At least we thought so. And it is in a way. I mean, the same languages are spoken, the same cultures live together and the same food can be enjoyed. However, Singapore is super clean as littering is against the law, it is more expensive and it has a way better skyline. Sorry Petronas Towers and KL Tower, but the skyline in Singapore is more organised and it is definitely impressive, in my opinion of course.
So, we got to Singapore by bus. It was a long, mostly cold, way to the first border. This is the point where we had to pack our stuff and leave the bus, not knowing if it would pick us up again and where. After finding the bus again and getting our stamp, we took a short ride to the next border, hello Singapore. This took a while, we all had to fill in an arrival/departure paper and the lines were quite long, it was around 6am on a Friday, maybe some working traffic.. as there was a traffic jam between the two borders, the entire process from border 1 to border 2 and getting back on the bus took like an hour. We didn’t expect that, to be honest. But hey, we were finally in Singapore. When we arrived at the busstop we already got to have a glimpse of the amazing Marina Bay Sands, one of the thing we’ve been looking forward to. First things first, getting ourselves a Singaporean sim to get in contact with our friend. As it was early in the morning, we weren’t able to check in at our hotel yet, so we left the backpack at our friend’s hostel. Immediately we noticed that the city was indeed super clean, I wasn’t allowed to drink in the metro or around the metro station, and the vibe was relaxed.
The first day we spent most of our time in the Singapore Zoo, which was fun and a great way to recover from the bus trip. In the evening we had some food at an outside foodcourt near the bay, with Marina Bay Sands in our sight. It is truly beautiful and insane in a way. Not only the Marina Bay Sands, but also the other skyline of Singapore. If you stand near the Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay, you see Marina Bay Sands on your left hand and if you turn right you look at the “second” skyline of Singapore, where all the high buildings (mostly banks) are located. If you walk a bit further you’ll get near the Singapore Flyer. As we were there at night, it was alight with beautiful colours. It has been a great day to get to know the city and get a first impression.
Our hotel was located a little further from the city centre and we took a bike back in the evening. Ofo is a bike sharing organisation and you can just grab a bike once you find one, they are easy to find and yellow, and use it until you’re at your destination, that’s where you can just drop your bike. The first ride is for free and if you invite others you’ll also receive some extra free rides. Really cool and easy way to get from A to B and explore the city. Our hotel, Fragrance Hotel – Pearl, was not expensive and had a modern look. The room was ideal for a weekend and the bed was quite comfortable. They do not serve breakfast, so we had to find that in our neighbourhood. Luckily we know by now where I can eat and what they serve at which restaurant. And as I told before, in a way Singapore is like Malaysia so the restaurants and the food were similar to what we are used to. Thus, it wasn’t hard to find a place to enjoy some breakfast. We ended up having breakfast at an Indian restaurant, Al Hariz, where they served both roti and thosai, Marc and I both happy.
For our second day we decided to use the steps provided by the hostel, the one where our friend was staying. By the way, the hostel, Bohemian Chic hostel, was really good looking, had friendly stuff, had steps?!, and there were lots of games available and some nice seats to hang. So, we took 3 steps and headed to Little India first. It’s not super close by and it is still really hot, so we took it slow and took plenty of breaks in between. At some point we just decided to take the metro, together with our steps, to transport ourselves to the Marina Bay Sands area. We wandered around the Shoppes by the Bay, also with our steps by our sides. The foodcourt in the shoppingmall was huge and again so organised. Unfortunately, while we enjoyed our lunch, it started raining… so we ended up staying there for quite some time. Luckily, we brought some cards. After the rainy clouds passed, we headed to THE hotel. If you don’t know which hotel I mean by know, just google Marina Bay Sands or take a look at some of my photos. Anyway, we bought tickets for the skybar, so we headed to the hotel first to find the entrance, which was outside the hotel of course. But still, we’ve seen the inside of this amazing hotel and it was actually a bit disappointing in my opinion. Probably because the outside is stunning. Anyway, we spent the late afternoon and the evening at the skybar; taking photos and having expensive drinks and even more expensive french fries.. but it was totally worth it!
The last day we took a bit slow, even though we still took the steps so there was enough exercising going on. First we stepped around Chinatown and took a look at some of the shops over there. What’s funny is that we could just “park” our steps somewhere, walk a way for some time and get back to our steps, while they were just out in the open. It feels like no one would actually still something, at least not in public. There are also so many cameras hanging around, so the possibility that you’ll get caught is huge. Anyway, we went to another shopping mall, had some lunch at the food court and surprisingly it started raining again. After the rain passed, we were planning to go to the Gardens by the Bay, unfortunately it was still raining and we went back to the hostel. Again we played cards and after a while we headed back to the centre and left our steps this time. After having some food, again, we went to the Gardens by the Bay. We kinda missed the light show, but it was still amazing. Unfortunately, that’s where our weekend trip ended. The bus trip home was horrible, the a/c was blowing 200% and we didn’t get any sleep, it was delayed so we missed our first class and I had a cold afterwards.. but well, it has been an amazing weekend.
If you want to know about some of the laws and regulations which might seem odd to you, read this article.
Traveling with Marsha 