The “budget” part of trip has come to an end. We said goodbye to Vietnam in Saigon, and took a late afternoon flight to Singapore so we could experience something different. We landed at 8pm in the most futuristic and impressive airport (which I will speak about later), and took their wonderful metro system into the city to our hotel. After so much travel we were both tired, but I decided that I wanted to go into the city so I left Bryden in the room to sleep and ventured out.
It was 10pm when I finally headed out to see the city, but I had heard that there was a market in Little India known for selling watches as well as nearly anything else you could want that is open all night long. I took public transportation (a bus followed by a metro) which felt remarkably safe and clean and eventually ended up on the roof of this mall eating some of the most delicious Indian food I have ever tried. Full, I then headed down to look for the watch I had been eyeing for the longest time (an Orient flight watch) and ended up returning to the hotel with it, as well as a Seiko 5. This was the first taste of what I could come to expect from Singapore. The hectic nature of the market, the friendly people, and the level of safety and cleanliness throughout the city is something I had never seen before. I took a taxi back to the hotel which further revealed to me how absurd the city was. Driving through the Marina Bay district I caught a glimpse of the unbelievable Marina Bay Sands Hotel, the Super-tree Grove, and the very beautiful financial district which was full of amazing skyscrapers which appear to tower up infinitely high and gave the feeling of a future I had never seen before.
The next morning we woke up early and set out to see the big sights in the city. There is a lot to see in Singapore for being such a small country. Waking up early, Bryden and I took the metro towards the marina. We wanted to see the Supertree Grove and the Marina Bay Sands hotel. Making it to this impressive and utopistic part of the city, we were struck by how cool some of the structures were. We looked up at the huge hotel, which resembles a boat floating on three 50+ story tall columns. We then walked down to the gardens, which were full of the most lush and tropical foliage imaginable. Flowers bloomed all around us, trees towered over the walkways providing shade, and the Supertrees (tall, metal manmade trees) were awesome.
Eventually, we decided to take a break from wandering, and took an elevator up into one of the Supertrees. We ended up on a rooftop bar, where we enjoyed some juice and stood above the gardens admiring the city in the close distance. It is amazing how a city can have such a great public natural space in such a central location.
We then wandered around the city, seeing more interesting things but nothing too remarkable, and then headed back to the marina to meet up with a friend of a friend. We met Marcelo in the Marina Bay Sands, and headed up to the rooftop patio to enjoy the sunset. With drinks in our hands and great people to talk to and beautiful views of the city in the distance, we couldn’t have been happier. The sunset was one of the best that either of us had ever seen.
After the sunset, we went out to dinner with Marcelo to a very nice restaurant that served Singaporean, as well as Malaysian and Indian and Chinese cuisine. We enjoyed an incredible meal, which was much fancier than anything we had eaten on the trip so far, and enjoyed our time with Marcelo greatly. We headed back to our hotel relatively early, tired from a long and busy day.