Singapore
Singapore & Sentosa
From January 13th to January 18th, 2023
Day 1
We flew in from Bali in the morning and checked into our hotel, Fullerton by the Bay.
We dropped our stuff quickly and set off walking through the streets of Sinapore until we reached Chinatown. There’s a number of happening streets that surround this area, so we knew we were at a good launching pad.
We stumbled upon a large temple called Buddha Tooth Temple and wandered through it. There were thousands of buddha heads decorated on the walls and many offering places set up.
After the temple, we walked to Papa Doble Bar (#61 on Asia’s 50 Best) located on Smith Street, along with a large number of other bars.
After Papa Doble, we found our way through a Chinese Hawker Center (or market) in an unlikely hallway, leading to an unlikely door that was the dive bar Sago House (named after the street it’s on).
After a few delicious bar snacks and more creative cocktails, we walked all the way back towards the bay to the Mandarin Oriental to check out their bar, MO Bar.
On our way to Mandarin Oriental, we stumbled upon Light to Night, an outdoor display of lights projected onto a historic building, the Museum at National Gallery Singapore. There were a lot of people spread out on the grassy area opposite of the building with blankets and friends to watch the light and music show. Had we not had such a tight bar schedule, we may have stopped and watched the show.
After MO Bar, we set out for our last bar of the evening called Manhattan Bar at the Conrad Hotel. The Manhattan Bar reminded us a lot of a bar you might find in New York (hence the name) and we really enjoyed ourselves, the people watching, and the scenery. It was a “who’s who” scene.
Day 2
We woke up the next day to take advantage of a city tour around Singapore. Our tour included a number of stop, but most of the history of Singapore is told through the lens of the three main races: Malay, Chinese, and Indian. We first stopped at Haji Street where our guide told us is the only place that grafitti is allowed in the city.
After a tour through Haji looking at all the tea shops, perfume shops and temples, we wandered over to Little India where it felt like we were immediately transported to India due to the open market, incense smells, vibrant colors and lively music.
We then took off to one of the highest lookout points in all of Singapore, if not the highest: Mount Faber Peak. At Mount Faber we got to see a 360 view of the city and learned of the island Santosa where there is luxury housing and beach clubs. We decided to see what Santosa had to offer a few days later.
At Mount Faber Peak there are many people walking around and much like how people around the world put locks on bridges, the thing to do here is to make a wish on a little bell and tie the bell to the top of Mount Faber. The bells are modeled after Polands Bells of Happiness
Our last tour stop for the day was back in town on the bay where our guide took us to Merlion’s Park (or “The Lion”). Singapore's name is itself derived from 'Singa Pura' (which means "Lion City")
It was a long half day of touring and history, so we decided to take a break and grab lunch at an Italian place nearby. It wasn’t worth recommending, so there’s no point in sharing the name
Later in the afternoon we had a High Tea scheduled at the Raffles Hotel. You can tell it’s a “thing” people do when they’re here. Not only do you get to see the Raffles Hotel, but you also get to experience the joy of sitting for tea while enjoying small light bites prepared by the kitchen.
Our bar tour continued with the next stop being at 28HongKong Street, exactly the address of the bar itself. This place was crawling with locals, and the ambience was on point. The mac n cheese bites were to die for!
I don’t know how we did it, but we geared up for a 3 Michelin star dinner at Les Amis. It was fun to try French style dining in the city of Singapore, but all the locals knew of the restaurant and the clientele inside was fun to watch.
We saved our last bit of energy to head to the final bar of the day, grabbing a nightcap at No Sleep Club.
Day 3
Walked to mall to have lunch, we were craving a bit of hometown comfort and caved at the sight of Shake Shack. There were a lot of people here, so we didn’t feel that guilty for going.
While walking through the mall we passed by a large store space that was advertised as a Whiskey Museum. We didn’t have time to stop, but it looked like a fun place to check out.
We had an appointment to make our own perfume scent, so we made our way back over to Haji Street for our appointment at Sifr Aromatics. We spent the first 30 minutes of our perfume making process by answering questions about ourselves to our aroma expert, who was the owner of the shop. The place really started to pick up, but both of us made our own custom perfumes to take with us for the rest of the journey. It was a unique experience.
After smelling real nice and an afternoon nap, we were excited to visit another bar, the big dog of Singapore: Jigger & Pony. We made friends at the bar, and friends with the bartender (shocker), and had a blast sitting belly up at the bar. We had bar snacks here that would also double as dinner.
Our last stop of the day was to see another top bar of Singapore: Analogue. The area Analogue was in is really cool, and unlike any other spot I had seen around Singapore. The Chijmes Heritage Site and shopping area seemed much more American and modern, less traditional asian architecture. We got some more snacks at Analogue and called it a night.
Day 4
We started our morning with a nice hike back over by the Mount Faber area. The hike we did is well known amongst locals and there’s a neat bridge built along the top of the tree line. The Southern Ridges Walk is about 6.5 miles, but we took a shorter route to see the highlights we wanted to see, like the Henderson Waves portion.
We hiked over from our hike to take the cable car over to Santosa to see what the beach clubs were all about. From above, we could see the entire Resorts World area, a Hard Rock Hotel, and a number of theme parks that were filled with kids. You can tell that there is a lot of money being spent in this area to make it a destination for families with kids (think Santa Monica Pier). Because of the money they’re pouring in, there’s a considerable amount of construction around the area, so it took us a few wrong turns before we started going in the right direction.
We couldn’t decide which beach club to go to, so we started off at Rumors, which was a bit further from the center of the action. Rumors had a lot of cabanas and lounge chairs, along with their own private pool. There weren’t that many people there, so we just decided to sit at the restaurant for a bit before planning our next move. We went to check out another beach club called Ola which was crawling with what seemed like a kids summer school. They had the best looking menu, so we sat to eat and have a beer (it was almost 90 degrees with 90% humidity) and watch the kids camp run around.
We were exhausted after lunch and took a cab back to our hotel for a rest before our big night out at the Sands Expo & Convention Center.
We walked over to the Sands from our hotel before our dinner so we could shop around and see what the mall had to offer. The mall is really incredible, very futuristic, and swarming with people. There are a lot of high end stores, along with low end stores. The Apple Store and the Louis Vuitton store were the highlights. There’s also a Rain Oculus that randomly spouts of water into the canal that runs through the mall. I think you have to see it to understand it.
We headed up to the top of the Marina Bay Sands Singapore Hotel for our dinner at Spago, which overlooks the infamous Infinity Pool Marina Bay Sands. Dinner at Spago was nothing short of fantastic, and we had a good time watching all the kids and influencers swim in the pool from daylight to sundown. We prefer the way the pool and the city looked at night-time.
Our last stop of the night was at bar Republic (#90 on Asias top 100) located inside The Ritz Carlton. Republic had great atmosphere, a great menu, and great cocktails.
Day 5
We started our day off with an awesome lunch at My Awesome Cafe on Telok Ayer Street. There were so many cool restaurants along this street and people bustling around them. We wish we had found this street earlier, as we would have explored it more. Lunch was really incredible at My Awesome Cafe, we highly recommend.
The street parallel to it is called Amoy Street, and there are a string of great bars on this street. A local that we met recommended that we bar hop along Amoy Street at night to feel like a local. I’m sure it’s a great scene.
We had only 2 more bars to cross off our list in Singapore, and so we headed out for Nutmeg & Clove (#75 on the Worlds 50 Best). It had great design, an interesting menu that taught the history of Singapore, and great food & drink.
Feeling nice and buzzed, we set out to tour one of the top tourist attractions in Sinapore: Gardens by the Bay. We had our hotel purchase the tickets for us, because it’s slightly confusing to purchase it online. You should mainly purchase the 2 main attractions online, then you can purchase more tickets to the other exhibitions when you get there, if you want. The guide recommended that we start our tour in the Flower Dome, and then do the Cloud Forest second. The Flower Dome was basically a large indoor botanic garden, that had trees and plants from all over the world. The dome was enclosed with incredible glass architecture, and the temperature was very cool to keep the plants in good shape.
We set out for the Cloud Forest and it reminded us of the actual cloud forest we visited in Costa Rica. There was a lot of Avatar advertising throughout the cloud forest, and you could tell it is/was a great marketing attraction for them and the movie combined.
Our favorite part of the entire Gardens by the Bay area was the Supertree Observatory. We got there just at the right time as every night they have a music and light show around 7:45pm that many people gather around at the bottom to watch it. We took the middle tree up top (insider tip) and the view was one of the best we’ve seen of the entire city at night.
Atlas Bar was the last bar we had to check off our Singapore list, and it may have been our favorite bar. Located inside the Parkview Hotel, Atlas Bar had a very distinct personality from all the other bars we’ve been to, putting off a 20’s Great Gastby vibe. You can tell that it’s a great spot to be for New Years Eve or any other kind of swanky party.
Day 6
We had to leave this day, but had one more thing we wanted to check out before leaving Singapore: The UNESCO Singapore Botanic Gardens.
We made our way over to that neck of the woods and had an absolutely fabulous and authentic greek lunch at Blu Kouzina near Dempsey field. They have food items flown in from Greece to serve at their restaurant.
We made it to the Botanic Gardens and can see why UNESCO has made it one of their own. The 185 acre garden has many different things to offer and we felt like we could have spend many more hours there. It was extremely hot out, so we only had about a 3 mile walk in us before we had to retire, head back to the airport and catch our flight to Ko Samui.
Next time we visit, we plan to check out:
Malaysia
More bars :)