Category: Singapore

SG: Day 4/Sun dinner with Sue and friends + info from locals

I met up with my friend Sue and her boyfriend and two more friends for dinner on Sunday,

Starting from City Hall MRT, it’s a 15 minute walk through underground shopping arcades to and malls to reach the Esplanade on the north side of Marina Bay.

We ate a tasty seafood dinner at the open-air hawker centre with a view on the water, despite it threatening to rain (luckily we only got a handful of drops, as the covered tables were all taken). Family style of course. With a beer, dinner came to S$23/US$18 each.
While I enjoyed the stingray and always enjoy trying something new, I don’t think it was worth the premium price (though not as expensive as chilli crab!)

Good conversation, nice to meet new people, good food, being outdoors. Excellent evening!

After dinner we walked south along the bridge (towards Merlion Park) to watch the nightly light show put on by the Marina Bay Sands hotel (both laster lights and a lit fountain).

Some tidbits of enlightenment about life in Singapore from that evening (i.e. from locals):

  • Singaporeans go for the 5 C’s: credit card, career, condo, car and carat (as in wedding ring). i.e. big families are certainly not a priority with mine and younger generations
  • Before you can buy a car, you have to get a COE – Certificate of Entitlement. There are limited numbers of these auctioned off each month, sometimes as high as S$80,000/US$64,000!!!
  • The other way the gov’t limits cars in the city core is via ERP – Electronic Road Pricing on various roads/times in the core city. Every car has a little transponder box on the dashboard.
  • Good places for walks in gardens/outdoors: Southern Ridges (parks connecting to Mt Faber), Singapore Botanical Gardens, MacRitchie (tree-top walk), Sungei Bulok, Lower Pierce, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

SG: Sentosa Island details/photos

Don’t ask me why it isn’t called Pulau Sentosa. Oh wait, it actually is. Never mind…

Sentosa Island is an entertainment island complete with beaches, hotels, amusement parks (inc. Univers@l Studios), a casino, restos, golf, the “southernmost point of continental Asia”, etc.

It’s almost free to go to the island (S$1/US$0.80 if you walk the bridge, or S$3/US$2.40 to take the monorail from HarbourFront to the island)

Tip: the monorail is free coming back even if you walked.

I enjoyed watching the vertical wind tunnel, brought back memories of skydiving…

SG: funny signs

Some amusing signs around Singapore:

SG: Pulau Ubin details/photos

Pulau Ubin is an island (why yes, “pulau” is Malaysian for island) located in the northeast corner of Singapore, sandwiched between Changi Village (after which the SIN airport is named) and not far from Malaysia. The island used to be home to granite quarries
Getting there takes about 90 minutes, so plan more than half a day for this excursion:

  • MRT to Tanah Merah (EW4) station
  • Bus #2 to Changi Village (30 min)
  • Bumboat to the island (10 min; S$2.50/US$2 each way, no schedule, only leaves once 12 people have queued up – unless you want to pay the full S$30/US$24 amount by yourself or with the others waiting)

The bumboat lands at a little kampong (village; the last one in Singapore), where there is an informative display by the clean wahsrooms, and there are literally hundreds of bicycles for rent; also a few seafood restaurants

Rent a mountain bicycle (S$10/US$8 per day) and head for the eastern tip of the island to Chek Jawa Wetlands Nature Reserve (3.5km), where there is a coastal boardwalk and a mangrove boardwalk (the latter with lookout tower)

  • In the mangrove, look for mudskippers which can “breathe” air
  • Near the park entrance, look for wild pigs – I saw a lot of piglets too!
  • On the north side of the island, you can see a long metal fence in the water just offshore, presumably to keep Malaysians from meandering over (Malaysian mainland is quite close, just under 1km!)
  • Enjoy a seafood lunch in the village (near the dock) before queuing for a bumboat back
  • On your return to Changi Village, you get to go through a metal detector at the ferry terminal!?

Tip: time your visit for low tide as both the mangrove and coastal walks are more interesting (the water level changes 2.5m/7ft between low and high tide!)
Tip: try out the bicycle including seat height, gear shifting, and make sure it has a lock as you can’t take it into the nature reserve!
Tip: there are a few hills – both up and down :-)
Tip: the rest of the island wasn’t that exciting, though biking along the mostly shaded road through jungle is relaxing.

Unfortunately it was exactly high tide when I went so I saw fewer sea critters than expected.

Definitely worth going though!

SG: Night Safari details/photos

I had heard mixed reviews from other backpackers, but I quite enjoyed it, as you get to see animals that are normally sleeping in the day and active at night. I give the Night Safari 2 thumbs up.
Unlike the zoo, these animals are in enclosures
Take the included tram for a good overview, and some ecological/environmental appeals (yeah), and then do the long loop walk to get up close and personal (includes some areas not covered by the tram)

Tip: go early, plan on enough time, and take the SAExp bus (at least back – much faster and it runs later; only S$4.50/US$3.60 each way; my trip back to Little India was only 25 minutes, as opposed to an hour and almost as much via MRT plus bus from Ang Mo Kio MRT station)
Tip: you can almost forget about photos, as no flash allowed (unless you have some serous camera equipment)

Besides the usual African animals there were also of interest:

  • An artificial cave with critters
  • Red & Brown Giant Flying Squirrel – it actually looked like a huge squirrel sitting on a tree branch (the size of a small-to-medium dog!). He didn’t fly while I was there, but still…
  • Asian Small Clawed Otter – 3 of them, all obviously looking at me, making quite the whining sounds
  • Mouse Deer – super tiny deer-like things (the size of a cat)
  • Malaysian Flying Fox (bats) – in a walk-in aviary where they hang 2m away from you and fly right by you, feasting on fruit (strung up by the staff) – do they really eat watermelon in the wild? (the bats are harmless but they warn people afraid of bats to maybe not enter)
  • Several species of civet (a type of wild cat) – their scent is used in perfumes (in diluted form)
  • Slow Loris – small mammal that produces venom! (because it’s so slow?)
  • Asian golden cat – sleeping on a tree branch, with legs hanging off either side (much like Susan’s cats do on her arm!)
  • Striped Hyena (spotted ones as well)
  • Lesser Mousedeer – the smallest hoofed animal
  • Barking Deer (sound like dogs) – though they didn’t bark while I was there
  • Pangolin – looks like an albino armadillo, but unrelated. They were sleeping though
    Aside: I still think that the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay building looks more like pangolins than durians
  • Various rhinos – unlike the ones I saw in Africa, these ones looked like they were wearing 4 pieces of plate mail armour
  • Fishing Cat – I saw them standing by the water staring intently, but unfortunately did not see them jump in to catch fish. Although one of them did walk belly-deep in water a few times!
  • fyi: Lions and tigers can interbreed but the offspring are sterile. The hybrid of a male tiger and female lion is called a tigon, and the reverse is known as a liger
  • Also, they have a cool lit bursting fountain in the courtyard off to the side

Remember you can click on photos to see the full-size version:

in NRT – in the ANA lounge

Wow, the United service (in economy plus) was pretty marginal on this 6.5 hour flight from SIN-NRT. I think my flight attendant was having a bad day :-)

Skipped the lesser United Club (big lineup to get in) which is right after the international transfer security checkpoint, and went straight to the ANA (*A Gold) lounge, which is much nicer, less crowded and with better food and drink selection (although no windows). I should have done this on my way back from Seoul last fall!

I have about an hour and a half to kill in here before I need to board the next leg to SFO.

Fast internet connection in here.

I’m going to upload some photos from Singapore – I was organizing and reducing resolution on the best ones during the flight (an ongoing process – I did that on the MRT and bus yesterday too). At least until I depleted my netbook battery, that is.

SG: on the road (er, air) again!

After a painful 4:30 alarm clock (and only 3.5 hours sleep), I awoke to pouring rain. The taxi ride was quick with no traffic (about 20 minutes and only S$23/US$19 from Little India).

My taxi driver spoke the local pigeon English – I could only understand a third of what he said. I had read about this language mix, but it’s the first time I really encountered it.

The rain was done by the time we arrived at the airport.

A 3-flight, 28 hour itin today. and only the last and smallest leg upgraded.

I’ll be trying to post more photos and stories during the trip… physically it’s pretty much over, but much left to catch up on the blog.

The Singapore Airlines *A Gold lounge is nice. I’m pretty sure it’s nicer than the nearby contract lounge that UA tries to send you to.

SG: Day 6/Tue Summary

In a nutshell:

This is my last day in Singapore (and this trip), heading home on an early morning flight tomorrow. I decided not to pop over to an Indonesian island after all.

  • Went to Pulau Ubin, a rustic island in the northeast, which still has old kampong (village) life. There is a nature reserve (Chek Jawa Wetlands) with a mangrove and coastal boardwalk on the eastern tip of the island. To get there, you take the MTR, a bus, a bumboat which only leaves when it has 12 passengers (no set schedule) and rent a bike for the 3.5 km sweaty ride. Unfortunately it was exactly high tide when I went so I saw fewer sea critters than expected.
    Definitely worth going though!
  • And it was partly sunny to boot. I couldn’t find my sunscreen in my knapsack while I was out, but sure enough I found it accidentally once I got back to the hostel, while reaching in for something else. I have quite the farmer’s tan going now :-(
  • I also ate a baby squid lunch on the island – tasty, but not quite what i was expecting (there were only a handful of restos, and all but one seemed closed at the time)
  • About to head out for the Night Safari next door to the Singapore Zoo (it’s a separate entrance/facility). The zoo, btw, is world-leading and has a lot of free ranging animals as opposed to small concrete enclosures.

SG: Day 3/Sat Summary

(more details and photos to come)

Well, the 3rd full day, i.e. Saturday, ignoring the 3 days/2 nights in Penang:

  • Went back to Mustafa dept store to look for a specific gift and discovered their grocery store upstairs so I bought some funky food items and ate a slice of Indian pizza
  • Checked out the Sim Lim Square electronics mall (just off the edge of Little India), to see if I could get my phone fixed (I’d rather reformat it when I get home than have a stranger do it – there wasn’t a quick fix) and to peek at new phones (like the HTC One X but it doesn’t come with an NFC chip here)
    I did end up buying a little mobile phone recharger (S$20/US$16; it has a micro USB plug to stick into your phone – this would have been super handy on this trip, at least before my phone died) and a USB cigarette lighter adapter (S$/6/U$5).
  • Enjoyed a Cuttlefish Hang Kong Bee Hoon (S$3/US$2.40) at the Bugis St Hawker Center
  • Walked through the crowded Bugis St Market, where I enjoyed a large cup of wheatgrass juice for S$1/US$0.80 (other fruit juices available, mostly at that price, some at a premium)
  • Walked around Kampong Glam (kampong = village, glam = a particular tree), including Arab St and Haji Lane (better seen at night when it’s busy, esp the shisha places), and the cafe-and-Turkish-resto-lined pedestrian road leading to the Sultan Mosque (which of course had just closed to visitors for the day).
  • Stopped in Chinatown to search for something I saw the other day but of course couldn’t find it :-)
  • Took the MRT to Pasir Panjang to do the 4km Southern Ridges 10km trail walk back to Mt Faber. I ended up eating some cockles (S$5/US$4 for a small plate which was too much food for one person) at the hawker market next to the MRT (pretty much every neighbourhood has a hawker market, usually close to the MRT station).
  • By this time it was getting towards sunset, so I decided to hop one MRT station closer (Labrador Park) to Mt Faber to shorten my hike. This is at the west end of a golf course, and I could see an HP building (augghh!) across the road.
  • I ended up walking through what must be a middle class neighbourhood, peaceful wide boulevards with large canopy trees, singing birds, and lots of apartment buildings that aren’t squeezed tightly together.
  • After about 15 minutes I made it to the south park system, having seen some sunset colour between the buildings. Oops.
  • At this point it was getting dark, but I decided to go into the park anyways, as there were still people around and some lights on the paved trail.
  • Crossed the Henderson Wave Bridge (turns out Telok Blangah MRT station was close to that – had I gone there, I would have had a great sunset!), which is a funky curvilinear bridge with wood-strip decking, curved bench/shade areas, and the biggest collection of people-with-cameras-on-tripods I’ve ever seen.
  • Continued up the hill to Mt Faber, with great views of the city lit up at night, past the Jewel Box (the name of the gondola station, which heads to HarbourFront and Sentosa Island), then down the dark steps with my mini keychain flashlight (along with an Estonian guy I met on the trail) – the sign did warn that this path wasn’t lit and to take the road, but I’m sure that would have taken a few minutes longer :-)
  • Stopped at Clarke Quay before going home

Aside: I saw 2 Maseratis and 1 Ferrari today…