Today is our big day in Singapore. We are only here in Singapore for one full day, so we need to make the most of it.
We booked a 3 hour walking (eating) foodie tour for the morning, and then have the afternoon free.
But first, some logistical matters to address.
We already bought our 2 day MRT pass, but we need to get a SIM card and breakfast. And figure out how to get from our hotel to Chinatown for the tour.
So we needed to get our bearings.
We had coffee in our teeny tiny hotel room to start the day right. And when I say teeny tiny room, believe me because I’m not kidding.
The bed was probably queen sized, and there was enough space for a chair either side between the bed and the wall. Twice that much at the foot end of the bed, but most of that was taken up with a mini fridge, cupboard and desk. And then there was a teeny tiny bathroom off to the side.
$200 per night was what we paid.
Anyhow, at least we had a comfy bed to sleep in …
Coffee consumed, and we went in search of breakfast. We did a quick walk around the block to see what there was to see.
We found a hawker centre (I’ll explain that later) – or a food court – with all manner of takeaway food places in it, and we saw the word ”bakery” … and you cant go wrong with a bakery for breakfast … can you?
We bought this sugar scroll thing that was about the size of a dinner plate and 10mm thick made of puff pastry. It was pretty tasteless, but stopped us from starving.
Not that there is any risk of starving in Singapore … although I’m having trouble with the concept of eating hot noodles for breakfast, which seems to be the standard food for all meals.
We found a 7-Eleven down the street and bought a SGD$12.00 (about AUD$14.00) SIM card, and hopped on the nearest MRT to get to Chinatown by 9.30am.
Once we had hooked up with our tour group and our guide, we were off to get the history of Singapore, learn about the food scene here, and eat.
There were only 6 of us on the tour – a couple of Chinese girls (early to mid 20s) who never said a peep the whole time, an American couple from Long Beach California (late 20s), and MBW and myself.
Here is fun fact … only Tourists call this area Chinatown. The locals call it something else that literally translates to “buffalo cart water”.
So back in the day, hawkers were street food vendors that pushed their carts around the streets of Singapore. They were supposed to be licensed, but most were not, so when the inspectors came around most of them scattered.
So the government created hawker centres where all of the food vendors could open a stall in a controlled environment … and that is where we went.
Here are a couple more fun facts … 90% of the food in Singapore is imported and they have little to no agriculture here. According to our tour guide, the only thing that grows in Singapore is people.
Next fun fact is that 80% of the population live in public housing, and most of it is pretty … ordinary.
I’m not going to try and explain everything we ate, except to say that if I’d bothered to learn how to use chopsticks before we left home, the whole experience would have been so much better.
The other important lesson about doing a food tour in Singapore when you can’t confidently use chopsticks, is to wear dark clothes … to minimise the splatter from eating noodles.
Sigh 🙁
After the very first dish we ate, I already looked like I should have worn a bib, or perhaps a garbage bag with holes cut in it for my head and arms.
I’m not going to bore you with all the details, but we ate lots of different dishes, had coffee, and had a fabulous time learning about the food and culture of Singapore.
You will recall that MBW broke her foot at Easter 2023, so walking is either a bit uncomfortable for her, or downright painful.
After hiking all over Chinatown for 3 hours in the tropical heat, we headed back to our teeny tiny hotel room (TTHR) for a rest and some air conditioning.
One of the other things that we were keen to look at in Singapore is the Gardens by the bay (GBTB). It’s a bit like the Brisbane botanical gardens, except on steroids. And you have to pay to go in … like SGD$59.00 each to look at some flowers. That’s about AUD$68 each. Each.
Now, to be fair, MBW was keen to go, but I needed some convincing.
When we were in New York in 2018 we earned our stripes as subway ninjas. And I have to tell you that we still have it.
The Singapore subway is astonishing. Every line is coded, and every station has an identifier that makes sense. Bencoolen Station (next to our hotel) is station DT21 (where DT = Downtown line). Chinatown is DT19, so it is two stops closer to the city.
Some of the tracks are 6 or 7 levels underground. Don’t even get me started on the fact that they are cheap, driverless (as in fully automated with no staff on-board), and you never need to wait more than 4 or 5 minutes for a train to come.
And clean – I reckon you could eat off the floor in those subways.
So we did the subway ninja thing and hopped trains, changed platforms, and found ourselves at the GBTB station. We walked about 500m from the station to the gardens’ and bought our tickets for the Flower dome including a Monet exhibition, and the Cloud Forest.
Both exhibitions were absolutely amazing.
The flower dome was this enormous, air conditioned dome that must have covered half an acre in land size, and had gardens from many countries of the world represented, including Australia. Walking through the Australian garden was seriously just like walking through the bush at home.
You can become so absorbed in the gardens that you can easily spend a couple of hours – or more – wandering around, following paths, and looking at the extensive exhibits or stunning gardens.
The photos simply don’t do it justice.
We then went through the Cloud forest, which is another fully enclosed rainforest complete with a 35m high waterfall. You wind your way through the exhibit and can easily lose an hour or more just wandering around and looking at the plants.
One of the things that we found really funny (and annoying) is that young Singapore ladies behave as though they are rock stars … they are constantly taking photos of each other … but not just a happy snap, a fully orchestrated “look back over the shoulder with pouting lips and a perfectly timed hair flick” to get just the right effect.
And – oddly – they seem to think it’s OK to block off the path and stop people walking through while they get the perfect shot.
By the time we had finished the gardens it was getting late – maybe 6.30pm and we needed to get dinner and get back to our TTHR.
One of the places that we ate at on the tour was kinda on the way home, so we did the subway thing again and navigated ourselves back to the hawker centre and queued up to order dinner.
This particular lady who runs this shop has 9 Michelin badges … a concept I don’t entirely understand, but has something to do with getting awards for food quality, cleanliness and hygiene. And the food was amazing.
SGD$9.00 for two bowls of food that were so delicious …
Back home to our TTHR by about 8.00pm to get our bags packed and ready to head off to Khao Lak Thailand tomorrow. We have a 2.00pm flight, so we have to be at the airport by 12.00noon, so we need to be on the MRT heading to Changi Airport by 10.30am.
That will give us a few hours in the morning to have a poke around and see what there is to see. It seems that Raffles Hotel is only about 500m away, so that will be a fun way to fill the morning … but you will hear about that tomorrow.
It’s been a great day, but a BIG day. We walked more than 19,000 steps and had a fantastic day in the city learning about Singapore food and culture. And seeing the gardens, and riding the subway.
Ciao
#Thailand2024
