We love Singapore
The second country we visited, and the place that Samantha left her heart, was Singapore. We absolutely fell in love with this country. It is probably Samantha’s favorite country that we have ever visited. It has everything to fill our hearts with content, keep our feet curious, and make sure our stomachs are full of cheap curry. Few things are more fulfilling. Among the top things we loved about Singapore was its diversity. Singapore has four official languages (Malay, Mandarin, English, and Tamil), so you can just imagine the diversity among its citizens. The mesh of cultures brought such a vibrance and openness to the country that we absolutely adored. From one end of the city to the other you can’t help pass through Chinatown, Little India, and the Arab quarter. Better yet food is unbelievably affordable, so go ahead and indulge yourself to Arab food for breakfast, Chinese for lunch, and Indian for dinner. And if you aren’t entirely sure where to eat, there are an uncountable number of open air cafeteria dining areas that are packed with nearly a hundred different street venders cooking anything from Thai pineapple rice, to Arab kebabs, to Chinese cooked duck (head and all). And if duck heads aren’t you thing, maybe the fish head curry served on a banana leaf is. I am missing the food already just thinking about it. Bottom line, Singaporeans know their food. As vegetarians we didn’t feel left out either. In fact, Little India has street after street of vegetarian only dining options, with endless menus of appetizers, entrees and desserts. Mmmm mmm mmm!
Another reason why we love Singapore was its cheap efficient public transit. Not as cheap as Hong Kong, but not nearly as expensive as Japan. We were able to get all around the city and even made it off the main island to a small neighboring island for around $4. Talk about affordable.
Another thing that Samantha became obsessed with was a little shopping area called Bugis Street. It was a couple of blocks wide, packed full of clothing stores that were each the size of a walk-in closet where one could find really unique, fashion savvy items ranging anywhere from $8-$15 so not only are the food and transport affordable, but shopping was amazing as well. But if cheap street fashion isn’t your thing, you can walk a few blocks over to Orchard Road to find every designer brand could you dream of.
Aside from eating and shopping in Singapore, we were quite busy and we found so much to see and do. We took a day trip to Pulau Ubin island. The island is scarcely inhabited, save for the squirrels, snake and iguana we saw. Pulau Ubin island is most known for its hiking and mountain biking trails. In fact there were few drivable roads, we actually only saw a handful of cars on the island, most of which looked like they had been out of service for some time. The best way to go around the island was by bike. We biked from one side to the other and enjoyed a great nature hike through mangroves and walk along the boardwalk. Another day was spent on Sentosa island, a man made island on the southern side of Singapore. Sentosa is pretty touristy because that is where Universal Studios is, but we made a quick journey out to the most southern tip of continental Asia which happens to be there and Tyler enjoyed the beautiful white sand beaches that surrounded the island. We also made a visit to the Botanic Gardens which were beautiful. They were perfectly manicured and Samantha especially enjoyed the National Orchid gardens.
We spent our evenings exploring as well. One evening we chanced upon the National Museum and were so happy that we did. The exhibits were really fascinating and they illuminated the uniqueness of this amazing country. The following evening we went to the Night Safari zoo, a nocturnal zoo. It was really interesting and we got the chance to see a lot of animals that were previously unknown to us. Tyler also got selected to be the audience participant in a stage fire show. I think they were scanning the audience for a man who would look good without his shirt on. That’s right, they stripped him down and made him attempt some fire stunts himself. Tyler was a good sport and we will have to upload his on stage debut soon. Another evening we spent on the Marina Bay harbor with our street vendor ice creams in hand while enjoying the light and water show off the pier.
We loved wandering this incredible country and we can’t wait until we can return again.