Singapore Archives - Wandering North

Around the World 2022 Asia Singapore

Singapore day 2: Mostly Museums

Singapore. Day two. I probably didn’t need to set my alarm for 5am, but I did. I wanted to make the most of the day. Leaving my hostel, I set out to get a coffee and a bite to eat. Singapore is not an early morning place; at least not where I was staying. Almost nothing was open except for Starbucks, and I wasn’t going to visit an American chain restaurant. I tried to go to a couple of hotel restaurants but was told they were only for guests. I am pretty sure this was not true.

Now is maybe the time to mention that I did not meet a friendly person in Singapore. The people were, at best, cold and polite; and, at worst, rude. I have hardly ever thought that. Vienna, I think, and Hong Kong. Mostly I think people are great. But not here. Not in my brief experience. Anyway, I got a coffee and a juice and went on with my day.

This was a day of walking and museums. I took the metro to the vicinity of Little India and walked from there.

The metro in Singapore is not expansive but suited my needs well enough. Now is the time to mention that the metro in Singapore is also not friendly. I have never seen so many signs admonishing people for possible behavioral transgressions. There were signs that said no eating, no drinking, no talking, no pets, no durian, no bags on your lap, no sitting if someone else needs the seat, no holding the door, no standing near the door…it was a bit much. I just stood still and tried not to make eye contact.

Little India was a nice place for a wander. It was not as picture perfect as downtown and has candy-colored temples, busy markets, and side streets with street art murals.

*Tan Teng Niah – A Chinese-style Colonial structure*

I popped into the hawker centre there – the Tekka Centre – and had a meal from Pakistan (Delhi Lahori). Excellent and cheap.

I wandered around some more, aimlessly, taking pictures of all the lovely buildings, street art, and scenes. It was hot though and starting to get to me.

I walked quite a way in the punishing heat and humidity to the Raffles Hotel. (There’s that name again – as noted in my first Singapore post, he founded the modern colonial Singapore.) The area around the hotel was not great. A big mall. Big buildings. Busy, wide streets. But the hotel is beautiful. A low rise, gleaming white colonial era building with palm treed courtyards and Sikh men in white suits and turbans at the door. It is definitely of another era.

*Raffles Hotel and my one and only Singapore Sling*

I was there, like so many tourists, to visit the Raffles bar to have a Singapore Sling, as this is the bar where it was invented. And what a bar! Dark wood panelling and wicker fans. Well-dressed bartenders. Jazz playing. You could imagine Humphrey Bogart or Ernest Hemingway there. Unfortunately, smoking was not allowed. I had the cocktail, which was excellent. This was the most expensive thing I did in Singapore. It was $37 cdn dollars for the standard version. Worth it for the experience, but one was enough.

I didn’t find Singapore that expensive for the things wanted to do. Meals were normal to inexpensive and most of the stuff I wanted to see was free – walking the streets and looking at art and architecture. Price-wise, Singapore was fine – but stick to one Sling.

From the bar I went to the National Museum of Singapore. It was excellent. I knew almost nothing about Singapore’s history and this was a great overview.

From there I planned to go to the Singapore Art Museum, but it was closed so instead I visited the National Gallery Singapore. Definitely worth a visit, but also had I skipped it my life wouldn’t be dramatically different.

Paintings at the National Gallery

After that I went to a fun mini museum: the MINT Museum of Toys. It’s a small space, several storeys high with just displays of toys. I really enjoyed it. So many things I remember seeing (or in the case of a couple of things: having) and an interesting look at things like horror toys or Beatles toys, or all the diverse modern Barbies. It was cool.

The rest of the day was sort of vague. I wandered, drank coffee, smoked cigars, ate Thai food. I am really glad I got to visit Singapore. Two days was fun, but I’m content not to return.

I had a flight home very early in the morning, via Tokyo, back to Vancouver. Heading back to where I started out when I flew to from Vancouver to Saudi Arabia. All around the world, visiting Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, and Singapore. A great trip.

Around the World 2022 Asia Singapore

Singapore at Night

I’m sure there is a lot to do in Singapore at night if you want to enjoy some foodie experience or go clubbing or just get drunk with all the foreigners who seem to be there for precisely that purpose. But I didn’t want to do those things. I gobbled up some inexpensive Thai curry and then started walking from the area of my hostel to the Gardens by the Bay.

I walked along the waterside promenade. It reminded me a little of Vancouver; all the waterways and people out walking – except that Singapore had much more appealing looking patios and architecture.

The city looked nice, with all the tall buildings clustered together and lit up. The restaurants were packed and people were out enjoying the evening air. Out too were the buskers. Lots of them on the walking paths, playing music. The thing I found weird though was that all the ones I saw (maybe seven of them) were playing the sappiest, blandest songs I have ever heard. It sucked. Not the voices or talents, but the song choices were the worst kind of music I can imagine. Bland, meandering, vaguely romantic trash. I found this disappointing. I love buskers but give me something with some energy. Some jazz, an electric guitar, an accordion…something. But I was clearly in the minority opinion, based on the crowds appreciatively applauding and throwing money into hats.

As I got over to the area across the water from Merlion Park, where the dome-shaped Apple store is, there were crowds of people waiting. For something. I loitered a bit and then music and colored lights engaged as fountains erupted from the still waters and began one of those choreographed water and light and music shows. It was very Las Vegas. A bit corny. I mean, I’m certainly glad I happened upon it, but I also found myself judging it for its general lameness.

I walked off before the crowds disbursed and carried on to my destination.

The Gardens by the Bay are … a huge garden by the bay. But they are more than just a garden, they are a proper attraction, with rare flowers and plants and cloud walk platforms. I’m sure it is lovely in the day, but I went at night when it was quite dark and I could see nothing except for the super tall, tree-like pillars, covered with plants. Like something from another planet. I went to see them because they looked so unusual and specific to Singapore. What I didn’t know is that there is a light and music display that happens every evening.

I immediately rolled my eyes. “Great, another corny display.” I had already been appalled by the buskers and underwhelmed by the ‘water ballet’, so I braced myself for the bore to come. But then all of the lights came on and started swirling and sparkling and music swelled. The songs ranged from classical to traditional, to jazzy and showtune-y; all paying homage to Singapore musical styles. I wanted to hate it, but I was delighted. It felt like Disneyland (which I love). It felt corny in just the right way and was magical and fun. I can’t explain why I like this and not the water show and I would totally get it someone hated both, but I found some joy in it.

It was a great end to the day. Singapore does feel, in many ways, artificial and hollow and materialistic, but there are some nice things there.

I walked back to the strip of restaurants and bars along the water near my hostel and ended day one of two for me in Singapore by having a cigar and an iced tea on the patio of a middle eastern restaurant, watching the crowds of tourists getting increasingly inebriated against the backdrop of pretty, colonial buildings and still water.

Around the World 2022 Asia Singapore

Impressive Singapore: first impressions

Singapore is one of those places I had no interest in. I never doubted that it was clean or safe, that it had world class restaurants, a high standard of living, and excellent shopping; I just don’t care about those things. Give me dirty, overcrowded, dodgy, chaotic cities. To be fair to Singapore, because I quickly dismissed it, I didn’t spend any time reading about it. I might not have gone at all, except that on my flight back to Vancouver from Bangladesh, many of the flights had layovers in Singapore. It was my opportunity to see it for myself.

I would spend two full days and two nights in Singapore, which was enough. I saw what I wanted to see in that time – but it was at an exhausting pace. I think stretching it out to three days would be more reasonable.

A teensy bit about Singapore

The micro country of Singapore is an island at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula, just above the Equator. Singapore was a trading port city back in about the 14^th century. In the early 17^th century, the Portuguese destroyed it and then then it remained in relative obscurity until the British colonel and governor Sir Stamford Raffles (his name is everywhere) arrived in 1819 and ‘founded’ it as a new port. Singapore became a British possession in 1824 and it became an important trade location and, later, military base. It was occupied by the Japanese in WWII and the British lost control to the Japanese in 1942 at the Battle of Singapore. It then fell into more bad times post war with a loss of infrastructure and continued discord in the region as it and other former British colonies moved towards sovereignty. Singapore was part of Malaysia for a time and then became its own country in 1965.

Today Singapore is very wealthy and multicultural. Known for being clean, expensive, and modern, having great food, having a ban on buying and selling chewing gum for non-medicinal purposes, having the death penalty for many crimes including drug trafficking, and having caning as a possible punishment for many offenses including voyeurism. Oh, and it is illegal for men to engage in sex with each other. Not women though. Countries are complicated.

First Impressions

I landed at about 5am. Breezed through the airport where, disappointingly, they do not stamp passports, even if you ask. Twice. I took a taxi to my hostel. There is no train, there are buses, but I just wanted to get to where I was going with maximum efficiently. It wasn’t too expensive. I forget exactly how much. Maybe about $30 cdn.

My hostel, KINN Capsule Hotel, was located right in the centre of downtown, in a perfect location near restaurants, the harbour, the subway, a hawker centre – pretty much everything I needed. The hostel was tidy with clean and comfortable dorms; the kind that are like little pods, closed with a curtain. It was great in many respects, except that it didn’t have a kitchen, just a coffee station and the hang out area was designed in such a way that it seemed like they didn’t want people to hang out. Anyway, I was there such a short time I just needed a place to sleep. The hostel was pretty cheap by Singapore standards ~$70/night cdn.

My failure was thinking that I did not need to book a bed the night before I arrived. (I know better but was trying to save money.) I got there at 5:30am to drop off my bag. What I really needed was maybe 2 hours of sleep. That would have to wait.

As I walked out, the sun was just about to come up and I stopped for a coffee. Once up, the city was illuminated but still quiet. People were out jogging and doing tai chi along the waterfront promenade. The city did look flawlessly clean, and the tall, skinny towers gleamed and reflected in the still waterways. Lower to the ground were British colonial buildings, with buttercream columns, and pristine white statues of British figures.

My first impression was that it was a very impressive looking city. I would not say it is beautiful and it did not excite me, but it did feel impressive and, importantly, it didn’t remind me of any other city. It wasn’t like Seoul or Singapore, Hong Kong or Taiwan. It seemed more refined, more uptight. Well put together in way that looked great but doesn’t seem like that much fun. That’s why the word that I keep coming back to when I think about it is impressive.

Day one

I spent my first day walking around the central downtown neighbourhood, the waterfront, the harbour, and Chinatown. I walked along the waterways and to the Merlion Park, which is a scenic view of the water with a large Merlion statue/fountain. Merlion? Yep. The city’s national icon is a Merlion: half fish, half lion. It is supposed to be a reference to Singapore’s origins as a fishing village combined with the original name for the city, which translated to ‘lion city’. I was told that many people hate the Merlion statue. I liked it. It’s white and pretty and different.

From this view you can see over the water to some iconic modern structures. It is all quite scenic and impressive. I got a fresh juice and continued to wander.

En route to Chinatown, I sopped and had breakfast. I went to a coffee and toast place. Or more specifically a Kopi and toast place. Singapore has its own coffee traditions. First, they call it kopi. It is roasted differently. It is strong coffee served in small portions with sugar or condensed or evaporated milk or many other variations. “Kopi-O” is coffee with sugar. “Kopi-C” is coffee with sugar and evaporated milk. And so on. The Kopi is served at breakfast with toast. You can get the toast a myriad of ways, but the traditional way seems to be butter and kaya (some kind of sweet coconut jam), served with soft boiled eggs. I ordered the breakfast set but didn’t have the eggs because eggs are gross.

I walked to Chinatown. I visited the temples, including the Buddha Tooth (replica) Temple (I think it is hilarious that they just openly admit that it’s not an actual relic) and the Hindu Sri Mariamman Temple. I liked the Hindu temple much more. The Buddhist one is very new and feels it. It looked impressive (there’s that word again) but felt a little cheap.

Chinatown was great for a walk though. The streets are lined with these pretty two-story buildings, painted pastel colors and with wooden shutters. Lanterns hung in the streets. And there were lots of appealing cafes and shops to poke around in. I was also looking for (and found) a cigar shop/lounge but it was closed.

Feeling peckish, I visited the Chinatown Complex Food Centre, one of Singapore’s famous hawker centres. A hawker centre is kind of like a food court, but it is partly outdoors, and each food stall is of the highest quality; often with a family making a few dishes for many years to perfection. There is even a Michelin star hawker centre stall. And it is cheap. I had a bowl of some sort of laksa type of vegetarian soup for less than $5 and it was excellent.

I spent the late afternoon doing more of the same: walking and poking around the streets. I took shelter at a café for an hour when a torrential downpour made the streets impassible. I had a cigar along the water at a Thai restaurant. As the sun started to set, I headed out again after a short nap and went to the Gardens by the Bay and did more eating and walking, but I will put that in a separate post.

My first day in Singapore was really good. Not exciting, but pleasant. I enjoyed the walking and the sights. while it is quite modern, it has enough of its own character that I still found it interesting – and impressive.

Around the World 2022 Asia Bangladesh Saudi Arabia Singapore

Planning for a short ’round the world trip

Trying to decide where to travel next is not a science for me. I don’t have a process or a list of criteria. A place will just start to become interesting to me through something I read or saw, and usually it will be a place that is far away geographically and culturally from the last place I went. So I can’t say why exactly, but I decided I wanted to visit Dhaka, Bangladesh. It had been on my radar for a while. It looked crowded and exciting and intense. I decided to go.

Bangladesh is very far from Vancouver. Multiple stops would be required and when I was doing my flight research, I saw that a number of the flights went through Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, somewhere else I had never been. I also found that several of the flights back to Vancouver took me through east Asia, and many through Singapore, another new-to-me destination.

This is how my ‘round the world’ flight itinerary was built. I decided to spend two full days in Jeddah, four full days in Dhaka, and two full days in Singapore: starting in and returning to Vancouver. (Plus making connections in London, Cairo, and Tokyo.) It seemed like a great opportunity to see three places in one go and circle the globe in one trip. Saying ‘yes’ was an easy decision.

Of course, a trip like that requires a bit of planning. I worked out the flights (all separate; not a ‘round the world’ ticket) and then needed to sort the visas. The visa for Saudi Arabia was easy to get: an expensive and instantaneous e-visa. The visa for Bangladesh was a different story, being one that required an application to be made by mail or in person with loads of supporting documents and a fee. It also required several follow ups by email and several recitations by email of things already provided in the application. It always amazes me when countries that have very low levels of interest from tourists make it exceedingly difficult to visit. Singapore welcomed me without hassle.

I booked my accommodations. A proper hotel in Jeddah, a cute guest house in Dhaka, and a capsule hostel in Singapore.

I devoured guidebooks and blog posts, studied my maps, and tried to memorize some basic phrases (many of which I quickly forgot).

I packed my backpack with two outfits suitable for all three destinations, plus an abaya for Saudi Arabia, and cigars to last the trip.

It came together quickly. I was so excited. All around the world to visit three very different destinations.

I don’t often write planning posts, but this was an ambitious itinerary and I have gotten a lot of questions about how I picked the countries and why I chose them, about the visas and the packing. So there you have it.

Onward to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Category: Singapore

A teensy bit about Singapore

First Impressions

Day one