After having some local breakfast in some of the street food places, to which mainly locals are going, it was time to explore Singapore a bit!
Chinatown
The first stop of the day was in Chinatown. We were the whole time with his car around and in every garage we were driving the credit card was scanned. Every car in Singapore needs to have a device stuck to the front window. The credit card is put into the device and will get scanned when leaving the garage again, the fee gets paid right away then.
In China town we went to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. This temple is huge and quite famous actually. I was entering it by surprise, due to no idea of the plan for the day. We were entering while some monks were practicing their rituals and it was just amazing to see it. We were walking quite past them and I took some videos, due to my fascination for it. In Europe temples and the practice of Buddhism isn’t that common, for me even the first time seeing it.
In the next room there were many buddhists reading out loud a saying, which reminded me of praying a bit, but not sure what exactly it was called.
The best thing about this temple was that there were many floors. On one floor, there was a little museum for the temple itself. At another there were some strongly religious objects being located and also some place for meditation.
My favorite was the rooftop. At the rooftop, there was another little temple. Inside the building there were some moving pillars. I had to move it and walk with it three times for luck. At the rooftop there were also 10.000 little Buddha statues. They were all from donations and so you would be able to donate money, to get a little Buddha there.
Food
We were getting around the city and tried some local food at little stores on the side of the street or in the Hawkers. We tried soups with Tofu in, soups with fish or other seafood in it. It was all tasty, but I was always unsure about the spice level of it. Luckily Andrew was understanding how I would struggle with the spicy food and took care of it.
There was only one restaurant where it was just too spicy and that was the one from the Indonesian restaurant! We ate some fish with a black sauce there and some extras and the extras killed me!
The whole two days we were tying out a lot of food and he was inviting me to them. Super tasty and no fear of food poisoning was in the air, what a dream! From Chinese, to Indonesian, all the way to Korean and Japanese food, everything was tried.
Probably my favorite thing was the chestnut water drink, which we bought at Chinese supermarkets. The chestnut water was super tasty and sweet as well, so when some of you are going to see it, try it out!
Seeing how Singapore was getting developed in the Singapore City Gallery.
There was one place also, near or still, in Chinatown in which you were able to walk through and see how Singapore is structured and about their history. How did Singapore become a country, what are their future plans and what is there to do?
There was some video of the country playing and the room was filled super quickly. It was also the first time of the trip that I was surrounded by other tourists which was quite weird. This was for sure a touristic place, but still a bit unknown.
After visiting this, it was time to go back home for a little rest, which was needed. I was super exhausted from the flight, the day and the weather already so I needed some resting time! Even fell asleep.
Marina Bay
It was time for us to go to Marina Bay, the probably biggest tourist attraction of the country. You are able to see the famous hotel there with the huge swimming pool on top of the building.
At the Marina Bay, there are boats and most things you are probably going to see when researching Singapore. Thousands of people were there to take the same pictures, the same as me!
We were going from one tourist attraction to another and making it to a mall. In this mall there was just a river going through, with boats driving on it. It was so surreal but kind of nice to see. Andrew had a surprise, we were going to see a light show. The light show takes place every day there and it is also every day the same one.
Light Show Marina Bay
Many people attended the lightshow and it was crowded. It was a lightshow with a waterplay. So fountains were going in the air, fitting to the music. There was a story projected on the rising water and it was about a bird. It was such a peaceful music and atmosphere, which was just great!
After the first lightshow, there was a second one happening, where the music was getting a bit loader and more wild, which also was cool, for a grand finale basically. Everything took around 10 min and it was for sure worth it. We also didn’t have much time because the next light show was happening, but not in Marina Bay!
Light Show Gardens by the bay
We drove quickly to the Gardens by the bay, which is also a huge touristic place, but looked amazing. Sadly I was only there at night, next time in Singapore I need to go during the day!
We were going in it and it was really humid, but peaceful. We found a nice place to sit down and waited for the show. The big trees were in front of us and we were surrounded by people. I was excited for the light show.
The trees started to light up and music played. Some music from big movies were playing. From Pirates of the Carribeans over to Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and also Star Wars, which was my favorite thing playing. It was looking amazing and it was basically one highlight after another!
The lightshow at gardens by the bay is always changing in periods of times, not like in Marina Bay. When comparing them with each other, which is hard, I would probably prefer this light show. The location was just better, being in this park with those huge trees surrounding you, it has something special about it! Even though Marina Bay was bigger from the lightshow!
Second day, shitty weather = more relaxed
So the second day started wet, it was raining, for me something nice, for Andrew not as much. I was planning to go for a swim in his pool, but he didn’t want me to, due to the danger of thunder.
We were leaving for breakfast quite early and then going on a rooftop from some public housing. It was time to have a view over the city from there, which was nice. In Floor 47 we got out and overviewed everything. The weather didn’t let us have a great view, but it was still nice.
We went back to his place after a short time being outside, so now I went swimming.
It was a around 50m pool which was amazing. I was relaxing there, swam for an hour and did some meditation after, before getting up again.
The place from Andrew was amazing, you could do so many things there, going to the gym, playing games, studying in a quiet room, doing a karaoke party and many other things.
Sky Garden at CapitaSpring
After a short relaxing pause we went to CapitaSpring, a company that has a big garden on the rooftop. It is only during specific hours during the day possible to get up there for free. Only other way would be visiting the restaurant up there.
There is a big line waiting and wanting to get in the elevator up to the rooftop. When driving up, you have a great overview of Singapore and also can walk through the garden. The garden is interesting, because the restaurant is having their herbs there for the food.
When going lower a little bit, there are three or four floors with more plants again. It looked like a jungle inside a house. There were some relaxing areas and also a little gym. Just such a cool space over there, but we didn’t really have time to see much, because Andrew had so many plans for me, to show me around so yeah. I was still trying to slow it down a bit, so we can relax more.
Airport Singapore!
The last stop of the day was something really special. He went with me to the airport, but not for me to fly. We were exploring the mall and being able to watch the waterfall. The waterfall in the airport of Singapore is the biggest indoor waterfall in the world and it is just amazing!
When I was arriving in the airport of Singapore, I sadly didn’t had the chance seeing it due to the timing. My flight to Indonesia after Singapore was the same, I wasn’t able to see it, because it is active only during the day and not early in the morning night.
Singapore did it quite smartly. The locals are visiting the airport during their freetime to leave money there when buying food or other things. This is something I have never seen at another airport so far. They made it so attractive that people want to spend their time in the airport.
Before getting to Singapore this was the only thing I wanted to do, seeing the airport!
We were seeing the waterfall and I expected it to look cool, but it is just impressive! Such an amazing thing! There were a huge amount of people everywhere but it was still really peaceful which was amazing.
Lightshow airport waterfall
There was also a lightshow at the airport waterfall, but it wasn’t really impressive. It was basically just the intro of every Marvel movie, because a new movie was about to get in the cinemas. I was not impressed at all, so not worth it going for that one, but the waterfall in general and the whole surrounding was just amazing and extremely worth it!
What will happen next?
I was leaving Singapore the next day and made my way to Indonesia, what I was experiencing there you are going to find out in the next blogpost!
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