Singapore for a vacation

[briareos_kerensky]

I'm eyeing Singapore for a full week (7 days) vacation during summer. Has anyone been there and can recommend places to see and avoid, if 7 days are too much to visit it, best month to go there, and so on? Or if the place is worth visiting at all?

[charlesr]

I'm going there for a work party in April. Thread followed. I'm staying at the Marina Bay Sands hotel which looks cool with its rooftop infinity pool.

I'm told that if you want to try a Singapore Sling (cocktail), you need to go to Raffles (a rather posh hotel) and say you are meeting someone in the hotel bar and ask for directions to that one (otherwise you get directed to a tourist bar). Apparently they make the drink properly in the hotel bar.

Other info gleaned so far - street food is safe and great. Arab Street and China town are good for food. David will be along shortly to give us the low-down I'm sure.

[Mr Ono]

Sentosa is the obvious visit for Universal Studios, The Aquarium and the luge.

Marina Bay for the shopping and the Gardens by the Bay.

The Night Safari is very good.

Don't forget to try the food at hawker centres.

I love SGP but would not want to spend more than 4 days there at a time

[Anpanman]

The Chinese and Japanese gardens I found nice, right on an MRT station too.

KL is only thirty minutes away, I did the trip in the opposite direction as I was doing Malaysia. Good way to try F on SQ too.

[Dogg Thang]

If you spot a kindly old gardener, he may slip you some chewing gum. Also cereals smell delicious there. Just about my only memories - I lived there for a few years as a very young child. I'm not really helping...

[briareos_kerensky]

I love SGP but would not want to spend more than 4 days there at a time

That's what I feared most. I'll lower it to five days, maybe choosing a better hotel

[wakka]

Take money. I found Singapore insanely expensive when I visited, ?18 for a pint! That was on Clark Quay or whatever it's called though, which is pretty ritzy.

[briareos_kerensky]

I've been told that you can take the train to Kuala Lumpur (7 hours), and that is a beautiful city to visit. Maybe I'll do a plane ticket to/from Singapore and then go to KL. Back to the drawing board (once again)!

[gunrock]

Haven't been for many years but loved it. Livingston Circus for hawker food and Bombay Woodlands or Banana Leaf Apollo for (very different region) Indian food. Second the Chinese and Japanese gardens on a hot day.
Some people say it's Asia sanitised but I enjoy it for what it is. Hong Kong has a dirtier, grittier feel but for just relaxing Singapore does it for me.

[dataDave]

Don't go drinking down Clarke Quay or Boat Quay unless you are on five-figures a month like the regulars... I paid $36 for a whiskey after politely meeting a colleague with some of his pals, earlier that week I got bummed $35 paying for my lunch down there after agreeing to join someone else. The moral is I've been living here for over four years and I still get bummed all the time.

I only ever buy alcohol from the duty free shops at the airport. A 75cl bottle of JD will cost you seventy quid, and it's not much cheaper from a bar. Forget drinking.

I can recommend the best Indian curries ($24 feeds two) and Chinese style seafood ($65 feeds two), the best sushi chain (Sushi Tei) and the best arcade (VirtuaLand, Bugis Junction basement). That's all that has ever taken my interest. There are very little in the way of museums and the like.

Universal Studios sucks. Don't bother. Not even if you're eight. I hear the Transformers ride is decent, but that alone worth the entry? Nah.

[capcom_suicide]

The Rang Mahal restaurant located on the ground floor of PanPac is incredible! The flavours and quality of the Indian food there is something that can only be described as an experience.

[briareos_kerensky]

Thread bump for Charles to write down some impressions on the city

[charlesr]

Ah yeah cool. Will do. Need to collect my thoughts. Mainly awesome to see Dave Fallows and my friend from school. I'll write some stuff soon

[charlesr]

So, landing at Singapore for the second time (the first time was on the way to Bali as a plane hop), we grabbed a taxi and took the short ride from the airport in the East to the middle of town which doesn't take long. I had figured out before that Singapore is so small I could run round it in a day.

Everyone apart from the uber rich lives in aparment buildings. With the entire country being a city, it has to grow up rather than out, although there's quite a bit of land reclamation going on. Normally to the South - Malaysia being to the North won't take too kindly to that...

Everywhere is very clean and efficient. The underground metro on some lines has lights on the map to show you which stop you are at and which sides the doors will open on next.

There is a huge dock which is the lifeblood of the city, bringing in a lot of money to the country.

The people I met seemed genuinely happy from the 7-11 cashier to the taxi drivers to the hotel and restaurant staff. I didn't meet any of the construction workers though...

Dave took us out to the red light district to check out the cool Penang seafood restaurant with great chili crab and some incredible salted egg squid. I was surprised to hear he hasn't cooked his own food in years. Eating out, there is so much choice that I'd be a bloater in weeks.

Also went to an authentic singapore/chinese restaurant called Spring Court. Great nosh.

Also went out for dinner with an old school friend who turned out to be next in line for prime minister or something and has his own house with a garden. This is pretty weird because where I'm from, everyone has a house and garden, but over there....

I didn't get a chance to try Dave's recommendation of 4Finger chicken

Shopping centres / districts were mental and really busy all through the day and evening. Which is good.

It was hot. It never drops below 25? all year around.

Stayed in Holiday Inn and then Marina Bay Sands, the latter of which is fiercely expensive (I wasn't paying) - crazy infinity pool on the 57th floor (you can pay to visit this if you are not a guest). There's a shopping mall of high end brands attached to the hotel. Nuts. The food court was amazing. It took half an hour just to look at everything and choose - makes our efforts in the UK of KFC vs MacD look pants

As a tourist there was a fair amount to do.
Sentosa Island has Universal Studios which is worth it for the Mummy ride, Jurrasic Park and Transformers. The Battlestar Galactica ride was closed - gutted It looked like a whole world of awesome. Discounts on Sentosa with Mastercard by the way. It has a decent water park (not as good as Waterbom in Bali) but you can swim with dolphins and go snorkelling with 20,000 fish in a tank. Stuff shuts in storms though obviously. The TrickEye museum was great - definitely go there with a full battery on your camera! Went to some exclusive playboy beach club one evening which was cool and right next to the luge.

Inland, there's the zoo and next to it the Night safari. I suggest doing one or the other. The night safari is really popular but tbh, the zoo was superior. If you have kids, take swimming kit for them - there's a small water play area that they can cool off in and then get some AMAZING ice cream.

We took over Raffles for afternoon tea one day. Pretty cool. I'm not patriotic, but for a minute I felt very British. If you go by Taxi, ask it to pull up at the front entrance for the full experience, not the side. Guessing this was also daftly pricey. I has spending money on a company branded visa card, so just slapped it on that.

If you are into nature, there's the Botanical Gardens to the West and Gardens by the Bay (at the Bay!)

What I really wanted was a day without kids so I could just go round the shops and try everything on and stuff, but that didn't happen. Gadgets seemed a similar price to here in the UK, but I'm told you can haggle in the prices down in smaller shops.

I did a week in Bali first because it's only a couple of hours away and is beautiful and opposite.

[briareos_kerensky]

Sounds great. How much did you spent there? Would 7 full days be too much from what you've seen?