My OneWorld Around The World Trip: Singapore

We arrived in Singapore and found we had just missed the last train into town, so we got a cab instead. However, it was fortuitous, since the cost turned out to be very affordable in fact, and we enjoyed a great view driving into town. And it was quite amazing too. I had heard Singapore was very modern and clean. And that is certainly true. It is really beautiful, just like that “City of the Future” I imagined when I was a kid at Disney World marveling at Tomorrow Land.

Our hotel here was really swanky too. We stayed at the Pan Pacific, right in the heart of the downtown, with a sweeping view of the brand new marvel, the Marina Bay Sands hotel, with its innovative “Sky Bridge” – a huge platform with gardens and pools sitting 57 stories atop three towers – on the left side, the beautiful marina in the center, with innumerable towering skyscrapers behind, wrapping around to the historic British Empire buildings along the river, and a geodesic mesh form concert and performance hall, the Esplanade. We spent an hour just marveling at the view from the room. The ride up in the glass elevator on the outside of the building to our 27^th floor room was a real thrill too.

After sleeping as late as possible on May 12, we set out to explore the city in our short time here. We were struck not so much by the heat, but the intense humidity. The air was so dense with it that visibility was less than a mile. It was truly intense! After all, we were just a few degrees north of the equator. But fortunately, Singapore has built with this feature of the climate in mind. Our hotel was connected directly to a sprawling network of tunnels, shopping malls, underground and elevated passages, all mercifully climate controlled! We found we could walk all over the downtown district inside these spaces, and emerge only when we wished.

We went first to the Marina Bay Sands, and thought we might try our luck at the Blackjack tables, but found passports were required, and we had left them in the room. We enjoyed walking over an ultra modern bridge, styled after DNA, with twisted steel curving to support the walking structure, to reach the stretch of land opposite our hotel on the other side of the marina, where the massive casino, shopping and hotel complex has been built, though, and strolled through the wide open spaces inside the shopping mall, with striking architectural features at every turn. We took a lot of pictures! And the walking did us good too, as we have been eating an awful lot at every turn throughout this trip!

Speaking of eating, we also liked the food in Singapore a lot. We ate at the hotel several times, and I ordered the roast duck rice twice in fact, it was so good. We had sushi for our lunch meal on the 12^th. We skipped McDonald’s too, defying our instincts when we passed it in one of the malls! So I am really proud of that! Hahaha

We also walked through the historic district around the capital building, and took some pictures there, before we headed back to the airport today. It was so lush and tropical, and typifies the grand old architectural style that one associates with the British Empire. We almost got caught in an afternoon thunderstorm, but made it back into the underground just in time, as we were seeing large drops begin to break the surface of a reflecting pool.

Oh, I should not forget to mention the nice pool at the Pan Pacific. It was nice to kick back in water without salt for an hour or so! It also helped break the heat of the afternoon after our initial walk. I guess my ramp up to marathon training for the fall Marine Corps Marathon has been paying off too, as I found I was able to traverse the whole pool underwater in a single breath – Olympic size or more! It was not too crowded, and so fun to swim with the super futuristic towers looming overhead in all directions. A beautiful picture.

In the evening, we headed over to the Marina Bay Sands again, just a hop, skip and a jump away. We tried to take the metro, but ended up going way out of the way in fact, and not getting much closer. But it was fun to get “lost” in the subterranean labyrinth, and find our way back, and we got to walk past some towers just in construction now, fun to see the work in progress. And we did find our way to the complex again in time, from the other side, in fact. We strolled along the Marina on the other side, a really beautiful walk also. Some great pictures there… And of course, we went up to the Sky Park, and it was well worth it. It is quite a feeling to walk through expansive gardens almost 60 stories up off the ground! It was a bit cooler up there too! We marveled to see beyond the tower, on the strip of land beyond, which is still under active development. Some of the structures look like something out of science fiction. Two massive bubbles, maybe 100 meters high, spring out of the ground, skins of glass framed by graceful steel arches. I hope I get to come back in 5 years to see what it looks like when completed.

We walked through the casino, but knowing we would visit Macau the next day, we opted to skip any play there, just enjoyed the sights and sounds, and made it back to the hotel by 11:30. Finally, home, a good 10 hours’ sleep, and a relaxed afternoon again before heading back to the airport, this time, making the train, and enjoying that whole shuffle too. The metro is one of the most modern in the world, and spotless. The hotel gave us late checkout too, always worth asking. We were able to take a relaxed pace for the afternoon, repack and ready ourselves for travel, leaving at 3pm.

Oh, we did not chew gum either! As you might know, it is against the law still, although I heard that the gum makers are suing through the World Trade Organization to challenge the law. Personally, I don’t think it is a good case… Singapore is obviously not trying to be anti-competitive through that ban (the purpose of which to prevent are the WTO rules), but have a legitimate reason for banning gum other than protectionism or other just causes for that challenge… At any rate, we did pack our gum safely in our bags. And we had forethought to store our large bags at the airport, taking only our overnight bags into the city with us. We will do the same in Hong Kong, so we have packed those bags for a 1 week trip, and will replenish our supplies from the big ones when we get to Rome.

Now we are approaching Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. The plane is a nice 777-300, clean and efficient. We took off in quite a rain storm, but low wind, and very pleasant. I was a bit nervous with visions of the famous equatorial storms that can batter planes, but happy to encounter no real turbulence at all. We just began our descent. No lights visible yet, probably cloud cover. I saw it is much cooler in Hong Kong, so that will be nice too…

No time change tonight either! And this time, we will play in the casino a bit! We have a modest budget and will play it away as long as it will last, or else walk away if we double it by any chance. Hoped to stay at Wynn in Macau but stupidly waited to book initially for some reason, and it filled up, still had no availability even a day ago. But Venetian is a good one too, so we will stay there. I hear the food court is better there too from my friend Yinn, from work, who grew up in Hong Kong, and knows Macau already…