Days 1 & 2 - Singapore (18 - 20 July 2019)
And we’re off on another adventure! We started the morning of July 18th in Salt Lake City. We were bright-eyed and bushy tailed. I’m prettty sure none of us looked up how long the travel would be, which is why we are all smiling!
We had layovers in Portland and Narita, Japan before our final leg to Singapore. It was a delight to be able to FaceTime my parents while I was in Japan. 😊 I was amazed at how different the other side of Japan’s landscape looked!
We chose the yellow line hop on/hop off bus to experience all together. It goes from east to west in the city. They have double decker, open air busses that had commentary about the city as we were driven around.
They also have apartment housing that ranges from $250,000 to over $6 million Singapore dollars. I’m not sure how teachers can afford to live here. However, the city is unique! I love how they use both nature and colors to soften the cityscape.
After completing the yellow line (we stayed on the bus to get the lay of the land), we took a break to grab a cold beverage from 7-11, and a few of us decided to go on the red line bus loop.
In Little India you could smell the spices punching through the humidity. It was a sensory experience!
I also love how they splash color everywhere here. It helps it feel more inviting to me.
There are four national languages in Singapore: Malay, Tamil, Mandarin, and English. You can feel how the languages mix together to create the unique culture that is found here.
They were also practicing for a military parade. Singapore will turn 54 on August 9th!
We walked in to the mall and found some lunch, which was delicious! I had a pulled beef and avacado sandwich with some pumpkin curry soup. It was too warm outside to finish the soup, but it was good!
After lunch, we took the green line shuttle service out to Sentosa Island. It was fun, but you needed to spend several hours here to see and experience it all.
As we walked around, we found one of the Merlions of Singapore!
We took the MRT back to the hotel, to recoup for a minute. It always is awesome to see random English on t-shirts, and a few instructional signs on our way back in to meet up at a hawker market. 😁
We went to Lau Pa Sat Festival Market. A hawker market is an area where you have a lot of different food selections, and can eat in a communal area. This one was set up with a central area, and spokes coming off of it.
We took the MRT over to the Singapore Flyer, which is a slow-moving Ferris wheel that overlooks the city.
The Flyer was calm and had air conditioning too! It was beautiful to look at the views.
We walked back to the MRT to make our way back to the hotel. Thanks to the heat and humidity, I’m pretty sure we were tired enough that none of us talked the whole time back to the hotel. However, it was a day full of new experiences in a new city/country!
We had layovers in Portland and Narita, Japan before our final leg to Singapore. It was a delight to be able to FaceTime my parents while I was in Japan. 😊 I was amazed at how different the other side of Japan’s landscape looked!
We landed in Singapore and waited to pass through immigration for about 30 minutes and after finding an ATM to pull out some cash, we made our way to the taxi stand to take theee cabs (to accommodate 9 of us) to the hotel. After crossing the international date line, and only having 4 hours of sleep, we decided to take it easy today...And by taking it easy, I guess it meant we only walked more than 8 miles, instead of more than 12. 😳
It really was a great day! The humidity is a little intense. It is kind of like a puppy that wants to show you love, but maybe goes a little overboard with smothering you with love. That about sums it up!
After a Chinese/Indian breakfast buffet, with 100 of our closest friends, we all gathered to go downtown.
We decided to take the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) to the downtown area, and buy tickets to their multiple line, hop on/hop off bus system.
Singapore has banned gum (this is totally my kind of place), so their métro system was really clean and taken care of. The best part, (drum roll please) IT. HAS. AIR. CONDITIONING. Oh my heavens.
We took the Downtown (blue) line to the Suntec City Mall. It really is like it’s own city. There are hundreds of different stores on a few levels. They have multiple wings and towers of the mall.
We chose the yellow line hop on/hop off bus to experience all together. It goes from east to west in the city. They have double decker, open air busses that had commentary about the city as we were driven around.
Singapore is an interesting place. It’s simultaneously a city and country. They decided they wanted to claim more land from the sea, so they imported sand, and made it 25% larger. Well, there you go.
They also have apartment housing that ranges from $250,000 to over $6 million Singapore dollars. I’m not sure how teachers can afford to live here. However, the city is unique! I love how they use both nature and colors to soften the cityscape.
After completing the yellow line (we stayed on the bus to get the lay of the land), we took a break to grab a cold beverage from 7-11, and a few of us decided to go on the red line bus loop.
The red line goes from north to south, so there were completely different things to see. In addition to other places, it covered Little India, Chinatown, and the Arab Quarter.
In Little India you could smell the spices punching through the humidity. It was a sensory experience!
I also love how they splash color everywhere here. It helps it feel more inviting to me.
There are four national languages in Singapore: Malay, Tamil, Mandarin, and English. You can feel how the languages mix together to create the unique culture that is found here.
They were also practicing for a military parade. Singapore will turn 54 on August 9th!
We walked in to the mall and found some lunch, which was delicious! I had a pulled beef and avacado sandwich with some pumpkin curry soup. It was too warm outside to finish the soup, but it was good!
After lunch, we took the green line shuttle service out to Sentosa Island. It was fun, but you needed to spend several hours here to see and experience it all.
As we walked around, we found one of the Merlions of Singapore!
We took the MRT back to the hotel, to recoup for a minute. It always is awesome to see random English on t-shirts, and a few instructional signs on our way back in to meet up at a hawker market. 😁
We went to Lau Pa Sat Festival Market. A hawker market is an area where you have a lot of different food selections, and can eat in a communal area. This one was set up with a central area, and spokes coming off of it.
We took the MRT over to the Singapore Flyer, which is a slow-moving Ferris wheel that overlooks the city.
The Flyer was calm and had air conditioning too! It was beautiful to look at the views.
We walked back to the MRT to make our way back to the hotel. Thanks to the heat and humidity, I’m pretty sure we were tired enough that none of us talked the whole time back to the hotel. However, it was a day full of new experiences in a new city/country!
Now I need to go to Singapore!
ReplyDeleteYour trip is going to end up costing me a lot of money!