Category: Southeast Asia 2016

Singapore, Singapore

I was impressed with Singapore from the moment we landed in Changi Airport! What a nice and huge airport. There are orchids everywhere since it’s their national flower and lots of other flowers too. Singapore means Lions City because the first person to sail to Singapore from Indonesia in the 13th century thought he saw a lion-most likely a tiger since they roamed the land until the 1900’s. The area went back and forth between the Dutch, British and Portuguese during the Colonial times. Until a Brit named Sir Stamford Raffles fought for a halfway point for the British to have between British India and China and fell in love with the island at the tip of the peninsula. Fifty years later they are celebrating their independence. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt in Orchard Road-the main shopping street lined with amazing multilevel malls and high end shops, kind of like 5th Avenue in New York. All of the malls have these huge food courts in the basement and not fast food outlets like our food courts but fresh local food! We got lucky and were upgraded to a Grand Suite so it made our last city very comfortable. Plus we were in a great location. As usual, it was hot but no rain while we were there-possibly at night but nothing to interfere with our plans. The skyline is gorgeous, the first night we went down to Marina Bay and took in the sights there, went to the top of the Sands hotel and saw the who skyline from the 57th floor then watched a laser light show on the bay. This year is the 50th Anniversary of independence for Singapore so there are so many fun events going on. As usual here in Asia, the local food was amazing, we tasted everything we could! We would all order something different and share. It was fun doing it in different parts of the city too like Little India and Chinatown. They were really pretty little areas of Singapore, also Arab street with a golden mosque. We had to go to Raffles Hotel to drink a Singapore Sling. It was actually a perfect time when we went, it was mid afternoon and hot so we needed a drink anyway! The front of the hotel is really nice because you feel like you are back in the colonial days. Sikh doormen stand in front in full uniform, it is a sight to see! The Long Bar had such a great atmosphere, I loved it. What I didn’t love were the prices of the drinks!! Since this is a tourist must, they really take advantage and a Singapore Sling is about $22. It isn’t very good either-well it just tasted like fruit punch. The picture explains the history of the drink and why it was made for women. The other thing I liked about this area and even in Malaysia and other parts, were the shop houses. They are narrow terraced buildings with a covered area in front on the sidewalk. They are 2 or three storeys high and share a wall so they are built in blocks. They were very popular in the early days of the cities where they could have a shop downstairs and live upstairs. Many are now lovingly restored and gorgeous, some have such pretty colors too. We saw a lot on Emerald Hill, an upscale neighborhood in the city. On our last night in the city we went to Gardens in the Bay. We barely saw a quarter of it because it is so large! There are two huge areas under domes, one of them a cloud forest. Elevated walkways to see the gardens from above too. We watched the light show at night, it was set to music and larger than life audio animatronic trees that light with the music and are covered in live plants. It reminded me of a Disney light show. It was a beautiful way to end our magical Asian adventure!