After our wonderful time spent in Thailand, it was time to move on to the next stop of our journey: Singapore!

(Note: This post is a continuation of our Asia travels. A link to my most recent post prior to this one can be found here!)

Day 12: Arrival and Gardens by the Bay

After a morning flight from Bangkok to Singapore, we checked into our hotel, which was located in Little India. While a notoriously expensive place, Singapore is famous for its hawker centres located all over the city that have countless delicious food stalls at amazing prices. We stopped at one for lunch on our way to venture into town.

After walking around Little India, we got on the metro and went down to the Gardens by the Bay—a giant park located next to the very famous Marina Bay Sands hotel. The park grounds were beautiful, with all the greenery and infrastructure being impressively well maintained. In a weird way, it reminded me of Disneyland in how well-kept everything was. It was also incredibly humid, so we moved slowly to avoid overheating.

When we were finished walking around the gardens, we made our way through the giant shopping centre (Shops by the Bay) which was impressively huge. It was nice to have a break from the heat in the air conditioning, but we didn’t stay in there for long as it was quite crowded and we weren’t interested in shopping. We then made our way out of the mall to the beautiful harbour area, which had awesome views of the Singapore skyline.

After walking along the water, we had dinner at a hawker centre located in the centre of the business district. Before making our way back to our hotel, we walked through Little India again, which absolutely came alive at night. It was fun to experience the Indian subculture while also experiencing the magic of Singapore itself.

Day 13: Sightseeing and Skyline Views

We started our day with a local special for breakfast called Kaya toast. This is a popular breakfast in Singapore consisting of toast with a coconut-flavoured custard that you dip in lightly poached eggs. It was interesting and fun to try this local breakfast.

After breakfast, we got on the metro and headed to Chinatown. It was nice to walk around and take in the beautiful scenery, and also have a look at the famous hawker centre that was featured in the movie Crazy Rich Asians.

After Chinatown, we made our way to the central hawker centre for lunch before going to the ArtScience Museum, located near the Marina Bay shopping centre. We decided to visit this museum because we liked the look of one of the exhibitions going on, and we were interested in seeing a science museum more oriented toward adults.

We bought tickets for the Future World exhibition, which had various light and interactive displays. A highlight for us was an exhibit involving colouring in a plane or bird design, scanning the image, then being able to “fly” your design across a huge screen using a controller device. Unfortunately, some parts of the exhibition were closed, so we were given free tickets to the Goddess Exhibition, which looked at the role of women in the entertainment industry. This exhibit was great too.

After the museum, we went back to the hotel for some rest—we had a full night of plans ahead of us.

A few hours later, we travelled back to the Gardens by the Bay to see the evening light show at the Supertrees. There was a whole festival going on when we were there to promote the release of the new Inside Out 2 movie, and the light show we watched was specially designed to coordinate with the movie soundtrack.

After the show, we walked along the water which was beautifully lit up by the city lights and various artistic light installations. One thing that amazed me was how busy the area was—there must have been tens of thousands of people (at least) out and about.

After another delicious dinner at the hawker centre, we hopped on the metro to visit a rooftop bar that had a view of the city.

Visiting a rooftop bar in Singapore was definitely on our to-do list, and we did some research to find out which one was the best fit for what we were looking for. Our decision-making was also partially influenced by our access to dress-code appropriate clothes as backpackers, since many places were quite strict with what you were allowed and not allowed to wear.

We ended up going to a bar called Mr. Stork located on top of the Andaz hotel. While the restaurant was busy, we were able to get a spot at the standing bar, then walked around the rooftop garden for a 360-degree view of the city.

Day 14: Jewel Before Departure

We woke up on the early side on Day 14, as our final sightseeing stop in Singapore was the airport itself. We had heard great things about the airport, as well as the spectacle that was the giant mall attached to it. We purposefully booked a noon flight so we could spend some time having a look before moving on to our next destination.

It was quite easy to get to the airport, and after some walking we made it to Jewel, which was the name of the mall. It is most well known for the beautiful garden, waterfall, and domed ceiling located in the middle of the mall, and is surrounded by many floors of shops (12 floors total, according to my research(!)).

By the time we got to the mall, wandered around, and found somewhere to eat and buy snacks for the plane, it was already time to go to our airport gate. It was a great way to spend the morning and would be a fun place to stop in on if you ever found yourself on a longer layover in Singapore. It was certainly worth seeing!

Singapore is such a beautiful and unique place. There is a ton to do there, it is easy to get around, and there is an itinerary for every budget. We both enjoyed our time there and will definitely be back one day.

My next post will cover our final stop before India, Kuala Lumpur. Thank you for reading!