Singapore – A City of Lights

When we tell most people that we are heading to Singapore on our 4 month Grand Asia Tour they look at us like we are mad. Not because Singapore is a horrible place, but the opposite, because it is beautiful and VERY expensive.
We have to be honest that we probably wouldn’t have gone here, even though we really wanted to, if it wasn’t for our fantastic friend Miss Carly ‘mother of dragons’ Pearlman and her boyfriend the lovely Connor. Carly had just moved to Singapore (and by ‘just’ I mean 5 days ago) so it was extremely rude of us to just rock up at her new home but we love her and weren’t going to miss this opportunity to hug her face off.
We arrived in Singapore and were instantly excited as we walked passed the 7-11 to see every chocolate and drink we had missed during our two years in Korea but there isn’t many joys in life as exciting as seeing an old friend , especially at an airport. I may have cried!
We are slightly embarrassed to say that we spent our 5 days in Singapore mostly catching up instead of exploring. We did manage to see the incredible ‘Gardens by the Bay’. This was incredible and one of the highlights of the 4 month trip. The trees were pretty on their own but if you head down to these giant electric trees at night there is a huge light show to music. We lay on the floor with the trees up above us and listened to the movie soundtrack montage as the lights danced around us. It was beautiful. While we watched I thought about all the other beautiful moments on our trip and how lucky we have been to experience so much…once again I may have cried. Just when we thought our evening couldn’t get any better it was made even better with our trip to ‘Satay by the Bay’, which as you might guess is a fantastic ‘Hawkers centre’ specialising in satay.
‘So what is a Hawkers Centre?’ Is the question I finally got the nerve up to ask since everyone in the world seemed to know what one was. I thought it was just one place in Singapore that you went for a meal but no. A Hawker Centre is the name for a food court full of deliciousness. They are really popular in Singapore and for an expensive city they are a really cheap and delicious place for travellers to head. Your mainly problem will be what the hell to choose.

This is the famous Singapore ice cream sandwich, which is actually just ice cream in sweet bread. DELICIOUS!

The other big bucket list item for me was to see a Singapore ‘Merlion’. The ‘Merlions’ are the iconic image of Singapore. These half lion, half fish statues stand all around Singapore Island and guard it from evil. I’m a sucker for stories like that so I was really happy to see them.
One of our days was spent being big kids in Universal Studios, but I’ll share that in another post.
The best way to sum up this city would be: A rich person’s playground. So much thought and detail has gone into every shopping mall and building. The light shows (Gardens by the Bay and on the river) were the best I’ve ever seen. We were extra impressed after looking forward to Hong Kong’s light show and being VERY disappointed. This city is just very polished and although I love a place with rougher edges like Hong Kong I did love visiting and I’d love to go back…but maybe for a long indulgent weekend.
The biggest regret of the trip was that I didn’t have a Singapore Sling. I KNOW!!!! For a cocktail lover like me it was almost painfully to not visit Raffles (where the drink was created) and have a tasty sip. I’d love to say it was the $24 price tag that stopped us but really it was the fact us scummy travellers had no shoes or trousers that were appropriate. Ahh well it’s the perfect excuse to go back and then I can give this lovely girl another hug.

Love you Miss P xxx