After Taiwan and Hong Kong, the next stop was Singapore.
This is the second time I’ve been to Singapore. To be honest… Singapore isn’t that great. Basically, the entire city is a giant shopping mall. With the most miserable climate imaginable. The only reason I came back is because I have a ton of friends who live there that I wanted to visit. I probably stayed too long though, one of my friends wasn’t even in town.
Sights
Skip straight to the next section for food (probably the only thing anybody cares about).
The first day, we met up with two of my friends, their year-old daughter, and the wife’s extended family. We took the girl to the aquarium. She promptly fell asleep. The stringrays were very moe though.
We had stingray for dinner.
The next day, we visited the same friend at his workplace. He works at the Singapore research place, and they had a big fancy building with a nice view. Saw some robots. Walked around some malls.
Later, the guy I was traveling with wanted to see a ping pong tournament. So we rode the train for an hour to get to the ping pong tournament. Turned out it was a tournament for middle schoolers. We watched a match, but then we were embarrassed so we left. It was approximately as exciting as the Ping Pong anime.
That evening we met up with Slashe and n4gaiyume. They took us to eat lots of delicious Singapore foods. We walked randomly around malls and chatted. Then we ate dessert (pictures later).
The next day, we met up with another friend of mine, who took us hiking on a rural jungle island. We had to take a boat to get there.
It was pretty awesome. Basically just jungle and the occasional shack.
There were wild coconuts and bananas everywhere.
Also tons of wildlife. We were particularly impressed by the family of wild pigs, and also by the monkeys (the sun had set and they were up in the trees so I didn’t get a pictures of them, sadly…). There were lots of tiny crabs too. And yes that bird is carrying a fish.
We also got to see the mangrove forest which was cool.
The next morning we met up with another friend of mine, who took us to a museum. We saw some photography and dinosaurs. Then we saw a bunch more shopping malls. Like I said, infinite malls. I hate malls.
We also visited Little India and saw this cool temple, although I don’t remember what day that was.
Food
While Singapore isn’t that exciting, it does have really good food. It has food from all over Asia.
The first night we had spicy hot pot. They gave me a fork and spoon and my friend chopsticks. Racists. So of course he used the fork and spoon and I used the chopsticks. When we ordered, they asked how spicy, we said medium spicy, they looked at me, and they were just, “No.” So we got low spicy.
Slashe and n4gaiyume took us to dim sum.
And sampling the delicious fruits of Singapore at the fruit stall. Definitely the best food of the trip. We didn’t have durian since I’d had it last time and suffered enough then.
We also had some pig intestines. It wasn’t bad.
And for dessert was mango sago. This has little pieces of mango and also sago, these transparent balls. It was amazing. We had mango sago two more times while were in Singapore. When the mango is fresh it is to die for.
Another good dessert was this hot sesame soup. Forget what it was called.
We also had lychee juice which was delicious, and some Indian nan things. Forget what they were called but it was good. Also chili crab, which is exactly like it sounds, crab in this chili sauce, which isn’t actually that spicy. There is bread which you dip in the sauce too, it’s really good. We had a bunch of other seafood that night as well.
Another cool thing in Singapore is the “food markets”, which is basically like a mall food court, with a bunch of different options, except the food is pretty cheap and very delicious. Each stall usually only sells a couple dishes so they’re quite good. Here are a few things we had from the food markets, although we ate at them quite often:
We stayed in Singapore too long, we were a bit bored by the end. But I got to see my friends and eat lots of delicious food. Next stop: Okinawa.
Ahaha, that “This is a country of infinite shopping malls” is exactly what I thought. I’d literally walk out of a mall, cross the street, and find myself in another mall….and somewhere behind that would be another mall with overpriced water. It’s among the most soulless cities that I’ve been to. (Well technically it’s a country the size of a city.) Without money to spend shopping or at the casinos, anyone would be so bored as to run amok. You’re just lucky you had friends there to show you around, so you didn’t have to waste a week wandering around the malls by yourself and wondering what people did for fun at the place. (I regret that I’m speaking from experience.)
Singapore felt like Korea. You must have a guide, because it is not a place where you will be rewarded with nice discoveries for taking the time to explore. In Japan, (or possibly Taiwan though I wouldn’t know), you can be walking down what seems to be the most boring and generic block of concrete apartments ever, but then you’ll turn down a random alley and find something you never expected to see. It could be an arcade, a red light district, a shop selling something odd, something historic, or a random trail leading away from it all, to a quaint shrine past the edge of the city. The point is, there are countries where you can throw a dart at a map and then take a train there and expect to be rewarded.
What summed Singapore up the most for me was when I visited a big and empty park with a sign prohibiting twenty to thirty things (everything from kiting to eating durians a big red X), which could’ve saved paint by simply writing “no fun allowed here.” As for the food, I think it has everything you’d find in Malaysia, only Malaysia is spicier and cheaper, and therefore better. The capital of Malaysia also has a better sense of place, with exotic old architecture that hints at culture and belonging, and which S’pore’s modern architecture simply cannot convey.
Exactly! So many malls haha. Without any friends there it would have been an awful experience. It’s much better if you can get away from downtown and away from the malls.
Yeah, Japan and Taiwan you can just wander around and find awesome stuff, Singapore you have to know where to go.
Malaysia would probably be cooler to visit but I don’t know anyone there. 🙁 Also it’s hot and miserable so I didn’t want to stay any longer in the area than I had to.