Well, we made it! It’s been quite the journey to get here to Singapore but we did it and we’ve been enjoying taking in an entirely different culture than what we are used to. We had some hiccups along the way but since we’ve gotten here so far it’s been smooth sailing. We left March 12th out of Bismarck and prepared ourselves for the 33 hour journey to Singapore.
We ended up having to spend the night in Chicago due to weather there in Chicago. Our flight out of Denver was delayed and we were supposed to just barely make our connection in Chicago. Instead, the airline spent 20 extra minutes trying to fill the three seats on our already delayed flight. We missed our plane by 5 minutes. It was still at the gate when we landed in Chicago. It was super frustrating and we probably should have re-booked to begin with, but we gave the airlines a chance and they failed us big time. So we made the best of it and enjoyed an evening in Chicago. We hit up the Hofbrauhaus which I had never done. We enjoyed some German beer, pretzels, and snitzel. It was pretty awesome and a good way to spend your evening if you have to be stuck in Chicago.
The next day we tried again and boarded our flight to Tokyo. It was also late an hour out of Chicago but luckily we had enough time in Tokyo to barely make our connection to Singapore. The flight from Chicago to Tokyo was 13 hours. It was by far the longest flight I’d ever taken. I was dreading it and wasn’t sure how I was going to do on a flight that long but I must say it wasn’t too awful bad. The flight crew did a great job of keeping us well fed and refreshed. As long as you keep yourself well entertained the time flies by fairly quickly. I watched quite a few movies, read my book, played cards with my hubby, and played on my iPad. After we landed in Tokyo, it was another 6 hours to Singapore. Needless to say, it was a LONG day. We arrived in Singapore at 12:30 AM the next day. We didn’t experience too much jet lag because once we arrived, we were able to go to bed for the night and wake up at a normal time the next morning.
Our first day in Singapore, we got the full experience. Singapore is known as China for dumbies because it is still very Asian influenced, but everything is in English. All their street signs, menus, and mass transit systems are all labeled in English. This makes it easy to navigate for someone coming from the West or “Westerners” as they call us. Mass transit is really the only way to get around as driving a car is expensive. It costs 90,000 just to license your vehicle so it’s common to see lots of fancy cars because many of the people driving are rather well to do. We started the morning off in Little India taking in all the sights and smells. We went to an open air market full of fruits, vegetables, LOTS of fish, and some meat. We walked down the famous Buffalo Road which housed all sorts of different vendors and stores selling anything from food to electronics and even flower garland.
The open air market was very interesting. To see all their different fruits and vegetables, fish, and dried goods. Some of the interesting things we saw: sharks, huge prawns, dried fish of all kinds, fruits I’d never even heard of, all sorts of interesting vegetables. Basically you could find anything you were looking for at these carts. Our friends who live there come here quite a bit to shop. Most vendors you have to barter with as they will usually charge you a higher price since you are considered a “Westerner”. The majority of the meat there is chicken and pork. Lots and lots of chickens with the head and feet on and lots of pork with the bone, joints, backbones, etc. I guess chicken breast is one of the cheapest meats you can find as white meat is not sought after, instead they go for the dark meat. Interesting little tid bit of info.
Once we left Little India, we headed over to Singapore’s biggest department store, Mustafas. Legend has it that a man originally worked for a tailor as an assistant. He would collect the scraps of leftover fabric and sell them to his friends and family. After years of saving up money from the fabric scraps, he opened Mustafas. Mustafas is like a grocery store and department store all in one. It spans for several blocks and is 5 stories containing anything you can imagine. Groceries, housewares, electronics, and everything in between. We walked around Mustafas and picked up some essentials. I was surprised to see so many items from the United States in there, but also from all over. There is a bunch of food imported from Austalia as well as Germany, France, and China. I have found a few new products that I will have to look for once we get back. One of them being a fruity french beer that is amazing! After we left Mustafas, we enjoyed lunch at a local joint that our friends frequent called PigsFly. We enjoyed some Thai and India food: cashew chicken, pad thai, chicken masala, and butter chicken along with some sticky rice and naan. It was delicious and yes it happened, but I don’t have photos to prove it. 😉
We headed back to our friend’s apartment for an afternoon rest and made plans for the evening. We decided to venture down to the Marina Bay area, home of the famous Marina Bay Sands Casino and Hotel complete with a swimming pool 57 stories up. On the way there we took a stroll down the also famous Orchard Road. Block after block of high end stores. Gucci, Prada, Armani, they’ve got it all. Singapore is a shopping paradise and mall after mall can be found literally scattered across the entire island. We enjoyed a drink at a lounge called Ku De Ta which overlooked the skyline of Singapore 57 stories up and also gave us a great view of the pool on top of the Sands. As I sipped my white wine, we enjoyed watching the sunset along the skyline of Singapore.
The other side of the lounge gave us a great look out onto the bay which was full of container ships as well as the Gardens by the Bay. We walked out to the overlook at the Gardens by the Bay where there were metal trees lit up in neon lights. It felt like something out of Avatar. We took photos and enjoyed the great weather. We also got a nice view of the Singapore Flyer which is like a big ferris wheel and gives you a birds eye view over the entire city center. The Sands Hotel and Casino is a premier destination for people to check out while they are visiting Singapore, it holds a hefty price to stay the night but seems to be a very luxurious place to stay. In the photo, you will notice the Rolling Stones logo, apparently they are scheduled to play there coming up.
From the Marina Bay, we headed over the Clarke Quay along the river. We ate at a nice little Mexican place called Cafe Iguana. Much to my surprise, you can basically find any sort of food you are looking for in Singapore. There is American, Mexican, Indian, Thai, Japanese, and Chinese. It had rained earlier in the day which sort of cleared the sky and brought a gorgeous clear sky that evening. The weather in Singapore is hot and humid. So humid. It’s been in the high 80s with close to 100% humidity. Everything molds in Singapore so very little carpet is to be found unless it’s sealed well indoors. Lots of the restaurants and stores are open air and spill out onto the street. With being so close to the equator, literally 1 degree above the equator, it maintains a pretty consistent temperature year round.
We got a really good taste of Singapore in our first day there. It has definitely been a culture shock. A completely different mindset and set of cultures. Singapore is an extremely eclectic mixture of people from Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and quite a few Australians. We are definitely a minority when we walk around here. But it has been extremely fun to experience a whole different world so to speak. If you have the chance, I’d recommend giving Singapore a visit. There is very little crime there (if any), it’s fairly easy to navigate, it’s extremely efficient when it comes to mass transit, it’s an awesome mixture of cultures, and it has now been named the most expensive city in the world.
I will share another post about our second day in Singapore and then it’s off to Cambodia for several days. If you are on Twitter or Instagram, I’ve been doing my best to post lots of photos there. So if you are interested in following along with our trip, you can follow me there. We are looking forward to spending a few more days in Singapore in between trips. There’s so much to see and do as it is in most big cities. We hope to hit up the Zoo there and take the night safari, check out Emerald Hill, and do a full city tour so we get to see the important spots in Singapore.
Have you ever been to Singapore? What’s on your must do list while in Singapore?
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