General tips:
- Public transportation stops running at like 1 am most days
- Public transportation will likely involve multiple transfers, be ready for that. Places that seem to be pretty close won’t be that close due to transfers
- Buses are half as cheap as subways and sometimes are the same ETA
- Hawker centers are all cash, other places card is widely accepted
- Busses need to be flagged down, they will pass your stop if no one flagged them down
- Don’t worry about data, sim card will cost about 15 bucks for 100gb for 7 days. Cheap and plentiful
How chill the pace of this itinerary is on a scale of 1-10: 8
2/11
10:45pm: Check into hotel
11:15 – 12:20: eat at Sin Huat Seafood
12:20 – 12:30: Buy durian across the street (Fruits Top 1 Department Store)
12:30 – 1:30: Explore and walk along geylang road
1:30 – 1:35: Watch girlfriend eat smelly durian while she’s banished into the hallway so we don’t stink up the room
Arrived late on Monday night, not too much of Singapore is open late at night. As seen by the time public transportation shuts down (around 1 am is the last full trip), most stores will be closed far earlier than that. That’s why we started off with Geylang road, that’s one of the few places that is up and awake late at night (probably because it has things like the red light district). Walked along the road trying to keep an eye out for red light district “stuff”, but honestly it was a little hidden. Found some places to eat Sin Huat Seafood and a place selling durian. The seafood is not cheap, but dammit if it’s not the best crab I’ve had in my life (and I do not lightly claim anything as “the best in my life”). We got their special crab dish (crab bee hoon) and the crab meat was unlike any other crab meat I’ve ever had. It was so firm and not flakey, fresh, and just other-worldly. The noodles that came with it was a nice add on because it helps fill you up too (don’t get me wrong, the crab was f**king huge too). I love eating the eggs in the crab, but when it came down to this crab, I couldn’t finish it. I didn’t know that was possible since I’m usually fighting and passive aggressively trying to steal some eggs, but here I waved the first crab egg white flag in my life. We finished our meal and then asked for the check and my jaw dropped stiffly to the ground. It came out to be about $90S. It was so much that I actually checked online to make sure we weren’t being stiffed because we were tourists, and lo and behold it was legitimately that much. After having a lot of other crab in Singapore, this is really a standard rate for crab. Be careful be careful be careful the chef tries to push you to buy a couple of items, and luckily I was in the mood to restaurant hop so I just wanted to try their best dish. Otherwise…I might’ve had to start looking for a part time job on vacation. After that we went across the street to get some durian. It smelled awful, so must’ve tasted great (I wouldn’t know cause I can’t really eat it).
2/12
12:00 – 2:00: Eat at Corner House
2:00 – 4:00: Walk around Botanical Gardens
4:00 – 7:00 Go home and rest
7:00 – 8:15: eat at Burnt Ends
Go home and rest for a big day next day
First real day time! Starting off big with a reservation at Corner House. If you take public transportation, it’s a JOURNEY to the restaurant. You literally have to walk through the botanical gardens to get there. I’m usually skeptical about fancy French meals but this meal exceeded all my expectations. The item that stood out the most: cod. I HAD NO IDEA YOU COULD DEEP FRY SCALES AND EAT THEM. OMG. The cod meat itself was perfectly cooked, moist, tender, delicious. The scales were heavily salted and then deep fried and the crunch to that was unreal. That blew my mind and I loved that concept. Tasted so fresh and the flavoring in the skin made it really seem like it came straight from the ocean. We walked around the botanical gardens and the only thing I was thinking was….I should invest in an umbrella for the sun, and if that doesn’t work, a towel for all this sweat. Seriously, don’t make the same n00b mistakes as I did and bring ammunition to fight the sun. Reflecting back on the botanical gardens having been in the rest of Singapore, I think it’s not really a must do anymore. There are plenty of places for you to see better attractions like the flowers (Flower Dome), swans (Singapore Zoo) and more. We went home after this since it was a lot of walking in the blistering and humid weather (I wonder if people in Singapore take numerous showers because we did). After we healed, I decided to head to Burnt Ends because they have walk-ins and we failed to secure a reservation (more tips coming soon). I heard great things about this australian bbq place and I was going to check every day to see if a walk in was available. And just my luck….ONE SHOT WONDER. We were able to secure some dining outside and we gladly took it. And then just my luck… someone cancelled and we were able to sit inside at the counter seats. When you make a reservation. GET. THE. COUNTER. SEATS. I don’t care if you have 10 people, have to go solo, whatever the case may be, get those seats. It’s truly a mesmerizing experience in itself just watching the chefs go about preparing the meat. You see them take out slabs of marbled ribeye to carefully measure the portions. You see how the charcoal gets loaded and dumped from the giant oven into the open grill. You see the blood dripping off the perfectly cooked steaks when it’s being cut for you. You see the chefs sometimes cooking too rare and adjusting on the fly. The food was amazing, and this concludes 2 meals with michelin stars in one day. No regrets. After this, we head home because we have an early morning tomorrow.
2/13
9:00 – 1:00 : Jurong Bird Park
1:45 – 2:15: Travel to Candlenut
2:15 – 4:00: Eat at Candlenut
4:00 – 8:00: Go home and chill
8:00 – 9:00: Eat at Song Fa Bak Kut Teh
9:00 – 9:45: Travel to Gardens by the Bay
9:45 – 11:30: Explore Gardens by the bay and boardwalk at night
Head home
You have a choice on how to get here, you can take a bus (which will likely be over an hour long) or just call a cab (probably 20 minutes). I’m not a morning person, so I’d happily pay a couple of dollars to wake up a bit later. Whatever you choose, get to the park as early as possible. People always talk about it, you may be skeptical, but you have to if you like avoiding crowds and the sun. Whatever you do, just make sure you have time to watch both shows (Kings of the Skies is at 10am and 4pm and High Flyer’s Show is at 11am and 3pm). Those are must sees since you will be constantly looking for action photos of these birds and you’re guaranteed them in these shows. Another advantage of going early is that you can start your day with these shows, so that you know where to index more of your time later. We also saw the hornbill (Bella) chit-chat. What made the experience here amazing was how we were so close to Bella and she had so much personality. Whenever she was fed worms, she’d offer it back to her trainer to show affection, but whenever she was fed grapes (her favorite treat) she’d just eat it. And you also saw how smart she was since she knew where the grape pocket was, and she just snuck her beak into that. One thing we did miss were some showings that were not available on weekdays (Birds Feeding and Flamingo Feeding). That is the tradeoff of crowd vs shows :(.
After the long morning we decided to go to our third straight michelin meal, Candlenut. This place specializes in Peranakan food, and this was to be my first Peranakan experience. Peranakan food is a blend of Chinese and Malay. We ordered the tasting menu and you can see a lot of effort is put in the presentation and I enjoyed the food. Maybe it’s something I have to get used to, but what this was IMO was very traditional dishes that you usually think of as homey and comfortable, and they just swapped the ingredients to premium quality. There’s just some mental block of homey comfort food should be cheap, simple, and delicious and in this case the comfort food was expensive, simple, and delicious. Sure it tasted better, but I’m not sure if it was worth the extra price tag. If price is no concern, this is a very enjoyable place. If it is, I’m not sold that it’s entirely worth it.
After resting at home for a bit, you guessed it, it was time to eat again. We decided to go for a little bit of a lighter meal, and I really wanted to make it 4 michelin stars in a row, but I had to put the ego aside since my stomach couldn’t handle it. We walked to a Bak Kut Teh shop. Bak Kut Teh is in its simplest definition, pork bone soup. There was a queue here, so we knew it was good. They make you order ahead of time while you’re in the queue and after 1 minute of sitting down, all your food is served. We shared one large pork bone soup because they have unlimited soup refills. I think we asked the server to give us a refill 6 times and after a while the waitress didn’t even have to be asked, she just came over and refilled it for us. We got some other dishes like veggies, pig trotters, chicken feet, but to be honest I would’ve just preferred to have the pork soup with a side of rice soaked in the delicious soup.
After this delicious meal, we head over to the Gardens by the Bay because while the attractions there are to be visited in the morning, the night views are the best from all the spectacular lighting. The key shots you want to get are one of the marina bay sands right in front of you, the lit up trees at the garden by the bay, and the view of the hotel and the art science center front the bridge. Coming here is the reason you came to Singapore, beautiful skyline by the water. After our fingers became sore from all the photos and selfies, we head home as the next day will be the most challenging day of all.
2/14
10:00 – 1:00 – Singapore Zoo
1:00 – 1:15 – Travel to New Ubin Seafood
1:15 – 3:00 – Eat at New Ubin Seafood
3:00 – 5:30: River Safari
5:30 – 6:30: Singapore Zoo
6:30 – 7:30: Chill and get some egg tarts at KFC
7:30 – 11:00: Night Safari
11:30 – 1:00: Eat at J.B Ah Meng Restaurant
Bright and early, or as early as us night owls can get up. We decided to go for the trifecta, all three zoos in one day. We did this because it’s kind of a pain to get to the zoo, it’s either a 30 minute cab ride, or over an hour of public transportation. To cut down on our costs (both financial and timewise), we opted for one day to knock them all out. We got our tickets online as the 4-day park hopper. If you don’t need trams, no need to get the special ticket that’s $10 extra. That will save you a bit of money and you can just buy the boat ride for $5 per person.
First we wanted to knock off some of the morning shows in the zoo. Having been to the bird park shows, we thought this would be a similar experience and didn’t want to miss a single show. The shows are Splash Safari (10:30 & 5pm), Animal Friends Show (11am & 4pm), Elephant Presentation (11:30am & 3:30pm), and Rainforest Fights Back (12:30pm & 2:30pm). The splash Safari is mainly a sea lion performing tricks and was pretty enjoyable. You get a little wet if you sit in the front row and I think it’s worth it. It’s nothing so wet that I’d not take my phone out or anything. The Animal Friends Show is reallyyyyy meant for kids. They only ask for kid volunteers and the whole time they are preaching kids to ask for dogs as pets vs parrots (since parrots take a lot to properly care for). If you’re over 14, I’d definitely opt out of seeing this show. The Elephant Presentation was cool since it was basically feeding time for the elephants. If you want to feed the elephants, you’ll have to answer some questions right first. One of the questions they asked is why do the elephants flap their ears and the answer is….. To cool themself off. Hope ya get to feed them unlike us :(. One aspect that I didn’t like about the elephant show was that it was in really broken English and that really hinders the experience. Hopefully the ranger rotates though. Lastly, the Rainforest Fights Back has a lot of the same birds as the ones you might’ve seen at the bird park flying, but one extremely memorable experience was seeing the peacock spread his feathers. For that, make sure you are in the front row since this happens at the VERY end of the show and the peacock will have its feathers spread for at least a couple of minutes after the show ends in which you are allowed to take some great pictures and selfies.
We spent some time visiting the neighboring exhibits before leaving for lunch (you’re allowed to leave and enter the park as long as you get stamped). We cabbed to a lunch place called New Ubin Seafood and the food here was pretty darn good. We got the garlic crab (I know fancy crab again) and the ribeye. The ribeye was so darn good, I was comparing it to the meal we had at Burnt Ends. It wasn’t as fatty, but it was so close. The downside of ordering these two dishes was that they came out at the same time, and we can only eat so fast :(. Eventually, you’re eating them a bit cold and it takes away from the taste. The ribeye comes with a lot of fried rice and these two dishes were more than enough for us. The crab here wasn’t quite as good as Sin Huat Seafood and that’s what made me appreciate that crab even more. The restaurant is a bit hard to find. If I recall, it’s on the 6th floor and it’s a little hidden, feel free to ask for directions. After devouring our food, we went back to the zoo, except this time we visited the river safari.
The river safari has one main show and that is Once Upon a River (11:30 & 4:30). The interesting thing about this one is that you get to feed capybara and beaver at the end of the show. The hornbill makes another appearance, but if you’ve done the hornbill chit-chat in the bird park, it won’t be that special to you. Sitting in front row helps let you wait in line to feed the pets at the end faster, so once again I’d recommend the front row. The star of the show, no question was the Amazon River Quest. You saw so many animals up and close and was just such a pleasant journey. We opted out of the boat resourvier tour since I don’t think you see animals (even though our ticket included the ride) and we were tight on time. We went about the rest of the river safari with some highlights being the pandas (red and normal), squirrel monkey forest, and the manatees (we saw them getting fed randomly!)
Time for the Zoo round two! We found out that it closes at 6:30 so we only had an hour remaining. We prioritized Wild Africa and the Butterfly Aviary. What we regret missing was Australia and the treetops trail since we didn’t see any of those animals in the other zoos. If you do not try to visit the Animal Friends Show, I think that would be perfect timing to see all the unique parts of the zoo.
We hadf an hour in between the night safari opening and the zoo closing so we decided to treat ourselves to a really famous snack, KFC portuguese egg tarts. I know I know, why go to a chain for food when I consider us a foodie. Well, this is the article that changed my perception of KFC portuguese eggtarts forever. Make sure you get there at 6:30ish because otherwise they close. They might run out of chicken, but fret not we have a spectacular dinner coming up so just snack here on these gorgeous egg tarts.
To enter the night safari, you’re supposed to go in during your time slot. When you buy your ticket, just choose 7:15. It’ll let you access at 7:15 and anytime after, so why not? You can technically begin entering the night safari at like 7:00 if you have an 7:15 ticket….so go do that. Some crucial tips, there are a couple of things to do here: take the tram (will be numbered tram 1 if you have a normal ticket) and this will last about 40 minutes, walk around the park (depending on pace could be 1 – 2 hours), and then watch the Creatures of the Night Show (7:15pm, 8:30pm, 9:30pm). What we did was the worst of all the worlds, we went to queue up for the show, but we got there a bit too late so they were going to let us in after missing about 5 minutes of the show already, so naturally we backed out. We then tried waiting in the tram, but realized we wouldn’t make it to the lion/tiger feeding session so then we went about walking our own way. Then we realized that they don’t offer it on weekdays?!?!!? So an hour in, we have not done anything :(. What I will suggest to everyone is, if you are there on a non-weekday, watch the 7:15 show by showing up to the night safari at 7 so you can get good seats. After that, go on the tram (the tram line gets longer and longer as the night goes on). After the tram, you can view the part on the walkable parts of the trails. If you are there on a weekend, I’d suggest 7:15 show -> walk to Lion lookout for feeding -> walk to tiger lookout -> go on the tram -> go back on the walking trail. Overall, this park was such a unique experience as you normally never get to see animals in their natural nocturnal habitat. I think they use lights that mirror what moonlight would be like to preserve the authenticity of the habitat. This also means that there’s only certain portions of each exhibit that is lit up, and if the animal isn’t there it’s sometimes hard to spot them, and definitely impossible to take photos of (no flashes please!!). If you’re super into photography, you might have to accept that many animals just will not show up on camera here, just relax and enjoy the animals.
J.B Ah Meng Restaurant really is such an unassuming restaurant. Doesn’t look that special or grand, but sit here for like 30 minutes and you’ll witness at least 5 cabs coming here to drop off locals. We got the white pepper crab, the chili clams, and the San Lou Bee Hoon. The bee hoon was very nice (we got the medium size for two people). Has this simple savory flavor. Great dish to start getting you on your way to being full in the meal (so you don’t have to break the bank on all the seafood items). The clams, omg wow. I normally don’t like clams that much and I’m so glad we got the medium size vs the small size. You get so much more value, and we struggled to finish it not because it wasn’t good, but because it was such a generous portion. Everything about it was perfect. I got to the point, even when there were empty shells, I picked it up with my chopsticks, put it in my mouth, and sucked all the sauce and juices because it was that dam good. I only stopped because my mouth was burning since it gets a bit spicy. For a person that doesn’t like clams to do that, I don’t think I need to say anymore. The crab also was amazing. The pepper slowly builds up and combined with the spice from the clams, I was constantly reaching back for the bee hoon to drown out the spice. Still didn’t match the first crab we had at Sin Huat Seafood, but was better than the New Ubin Seafood one. So #2 out of three really good crabs. I thought the price was extremely fair given the quality of the food and left feeling really full and happy about this place.
2/15
11:30 – 12:00: Eat at Liao Fan Hong Kong Soya Sauce
12:00 – 1:20: Go to pinnacle duxton skytop
1:45 – 2:15: Eat at Foong Kee
2:15 – 6:30: Chill at home
6:30 – 10:00: Watch Chingay 2019
10:00 – 10:45: Bus to Chomp Chomp Food Centre
10:45 – 12:15: Eat at Chomp Chomp Food Centre
Going to a hawker stall converted to a one star michelin restaurant puts a lot of pressure on the restaurant. It’s clear that there’s only one thing you really order there, and it’s the soy sauce chicken. The real question is do you get a half chicken or 2 chicken with rice. We opted for the option that maximized this heralded bird. The order seems to be streamlined quite well and they called our number within 5 minutes and we ate the chicken. It was really good. Was it worthy of a michelin star….I don’t know about that. Was it worth 7 bucks, **** yea it was. There was no piece that wasn’t juicy, tender, and soft. If you’re familiar with Costco chicken, think like 5 times more tender without any notion of strands of meat. I honestly have no idea how it’s possible to be this perfect. Normally you have to fight for the red meat, but this chicken was just perfect everywhere. No discrimination! The soy sauce complemented it well and obviously went well with the chicken. It didn’t seem fatty at all either, so seems like a dish I could eat every day of the week.
The skytop is kind of hard to reach. You have to go to tower G to buy tickets. Make sure you have a subway card though (since your entrance to the skytop requires a subway card). Once you’re there, you have this panorama of the city. You can see sentosa island, the ports, and the rest of the mainland. If you’re looking to see Gardens by the Bay or Marina Bay Sands, you will be disappointed. There are some buildings directly in the way of them. Overall, really enjoyed it as it was a great view and not crowded at all. Supposedly they limit it to 200 visitors per day (guessing since residents do live there).
Foong Kee is a place known for their char siu, and so we got an order of that. Having eaten there….I don’t know, I didn’t think it was the best char siu I’ve had. It wasn’t super fatty or super flavorful. I think if you’re looking for a good piece of meat without too much flavoring, then this place will be great for you. I personally, love them fatty char siu so I was expecting a little more flavor here.
Chingay 2019, man it’s what I expected, but yet not what I expected. The first question of should I go, yes you should go. It is interesting enough that I would do again given the time and money requirements. It ranges in cost based on what tickets you get and you definitely want to be front row if you can. At some portions of the show, people are standing and when that happens, you want to be on the railing with the best unobstructed view. Another tip is that sitting in the center section really does matter. Sometimes performers only perform once, and that will be in the center section. It’s kind of hard to see them perform from the other sections. Now that we have those tidbits, what exactly is Chingay you may ask. As I expected, it’s a bunch of amateurs representing the melting pot that is Singapore. As I didn’t expect, it’s a bunch of hobbyists in Singapore performing as well. For example there were the Harley Davis bikers, go-karters, soccer fans, etc. What if felt like was an opportunity for Singapore to showcase how diverse this country was, from the cultural side as well as the interests side. You had people from all demographics of all skill levels performing here. It was cool to see everyone decorated in elaborate costumes that reflected their background/interests.
Chomp Chomp Food Centre is the best hawker center in Singapore IMO. It was also the first hawker center I went to so I expected every other one to be like this (spoiler alert, they were not as good). You’re surrounded by groups of teenagers yelling orders at each other while they play PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PubG) on their phone, salesman trying to sell you food the moment you stare at their hawker stall through your peripheral vision, and a plethora of south east asian cuisine highlighting each regions’ indigenous food. You can’t go wrong with ordering anything here. You’re guaranteed both cheap and delicious. The way it works here is that you tell the owners where you sit after you place an order and they will deliver it to you. So the way to attack this is to find a table, reserve it, and then go to the stalls to order your food to your table. Also no need to clean up as there are people that help clean up the tables. The chicken wings from Good Luck were really simple and amazing. It was a full wing cooked to perfection and then some sweet glaze for flavor. Dixie really enjoyed the fried oyster omelette from Ang Sa Lee and said it was nostalgic to that of Taiwan’s. The Hokkien prawn mee from Ah Hock was good, but not a must have. The mutton satay skewers were also really good (forget the name of the booth though) and Dixie thought it was nostalgic of typical Malaysian food. Must’ve been marinated in some cumin sauce and then glazed with some sweet sauce right before it’s taken off the grill. Was so good we had to find an excuse to eat something else there and we chose pork. Yes, it was also amazing.
2/16
12:00 – 3:30: Lunch at Odette
8:45 – 10:00: Dinner at Keng Eng Kee Seafood
10:00 – 11:00: Go to casino and walk back
Head home
Odette is probably in the top 5 best meals I’ve had in my life. I want to say top 3 (with Tickets Akelarre as some other meals in that tier for me). I felt like the value of ambiance, service, and food fairly matched the cost of the meal. We went on a weekend so they only offered 6 course or 8 course for lunch and originally we wanted to do the 5 course they offer for lunch on weekdays, but it’s hard to get a reservation here so we took whatever they could offer. If you want to try this restaurant on a budget, go for lunch on a weekday and they will serve a S$128 4 course menu. Caution though, when you’re budgeting for this meal, it’s both on a financial and time dimension. This certainly isn’t your one hour lunch and not even your 2 hour lunch, it took us 3 and a half hours! When they say 8 courses, what they mean is like 8 real dishes and they don’t include the transitioning dishes that help cleanse your palate (which many restaurants would include as part of the tasting menu). Overall I think I counted around 15 dishes. Dish after dish combined the freshest and highest quality ingredients with beautiful execution. The ingredients were from a vast array of cuisines, including uni, pigeon, foie gras, caviar, truffle, scallop, shiitake, and so much more. One note that I have to make is if you set yourself a budget for this meal, when they ask if you would like some cheese (either a homemade truffle cheese or a cheese tasting); it’s going to be extra and they don’t warn you about it. It costs S$35 extra for the cheese. Was it worth it? Let’s just say that now in my day to day life, I tend to notice artisan cheese a bit more and pony up for it. We got to taste a lot of different kinds of cheese, both in taste and texture. The huge spectrum in texture and smell is at full display right in front of you. Our favorite one was a cheese called Ossau iraty. Not too stinky and a bit more firm that I normally like (just barely soft enough to spread it on some bread). Just sit back and enjoy the composition (and don’t go too crazy on the bread since this will be a long journey). Afterwards we went home very satisfied and very full. The whole walk back was just thinking about how great of a meal that was. After relaxing for 5 hours, we do what we do best, go eat again. This place is known for their chili crabs, but we had been having a lot of crab and we weren’t that hungry after our afternoon feast so we opted to pass on it. Got some shrimp, some veggies, and some rolls. The shrimp was really fresh and the whole meal was just good. Nothing too special there. I’d definitely get the chili crab next time I go there. After an eventful day of literally eating all day, we conclude our day.
2/17
11:15 – 12:15: Visit Chinatown temples (Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum and Sri Mariamman Temple)
12:15 – 1:00: Eat at Maxwell Food Centre
1:00 – 4:00: Chill at home
4:30 – 5:00: Eat at Sungei Road Laksa
5:00 – 6:30: Explore Haji Lane
6:30 – 8:45: Eat at Hong Lim Food Centre
8:45 – 10:00: Explore CIO Chinatown Point
Before heading to Singapore, I always thought there was just one ethnicity in Singapore. That couldn’t be more wrong. In the morning we go to a couple of temples and it’s amazing to see all of these cultures with their different religious buildings block after block. After immersing ourselves in that, we eat! Maxwell food centre is known for their hainanese chicken stands, so of course we had to try two of them (Heng Heng and Tian Tian). The latter is the more popular and I agree with why. It’s just a more flavorful and has a juicier chicken, but to be clear Heng Heng is no slouch either. It’s just Tian Tian is that good.
We went home after lunch and then began our snack. We had to try the laksa specifically at that time due to the business hours and we’re glad we made it when we did since we were the second to last bowl they served that day. It was pretty good and glad we tried it, but probably not something I’d go out of my way for. Wrapping that up we went to the famous Haji Lane. The rain just subsided, so there was less of a crowd than usual and it made the experience that much nicer. And by experience I mean taking hundreds of photos next to the photogenic contrast of building colors. You can eat and drink here, but I’d advise against it (unless you choose to get desserts, they looked really good here)., but what we spent most of our time doing is just walking into shops that were selling clothes, accessories, and random items like cards, board games, wallets, and other small trinkets. We saved our appetite and went to another hawker centre, Hong Lim.
The food here honestly was just homey. I don’t think anything really stood out here. We specifically came for Tai Wah Pork Noodle and it was good, not too special. When walking back home, we stopped by mall called CIO chinatown point. There are many shops to explore and of course plenty of food to eat. Even the famous Song Fa Bak Kut Teh had a location here! Living in the US, I miss shopping at asian stores like Giordano, so I made sure to get something there. After another exhausting day of eating and walking, we concluded our day.
2/18
11:30 – 12:15: Eat at Hong Lim Food Centre
12:15 – 12:45: Bus to Gardens by the bay
12:45 – 1:30: Enjoy the Supertree
1:30 – 3:00: Enjoy the Cloudforest
3:00 – 4:00: Enjoy the Flower Dome
4:00 – 4:30: Walk around the water in daylight for new perspective
4:30 – 5:00: Bus to Tiong Bahru Market
5:00 – 6:15: Eat at Tiong Bahru Market
6:15 – 6:40: Cab to Marina Barrage for sunset
6:40 – 7:30: Enjoy sunset
7:30 – 8:15: Bus to singapore flyer
8:15 – 9:00: Ride the singapore flyer
9:00 – 3am: Play poker at World Resorts Casino
Today marks the last real day in Singapore and there are some absolutely crucial sightseeing tasks still to be done! First, we eat. The hawker centre of the day is Hong Lim. We went to one of their more famous stalls (Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee) and it was a very heavy dish. The blood cockles were a bit too much for me, but the rest was good. Next we began what every Singapore itinerary must have, Gardens by the Bay. We walked to the Supertree and admired these giant fake trees (I think it’s worth visiting twice, one in the daylight and once at night). The cloudforest was amazing. You’re in this building with surrounded by AC….jk but if it’s a hot day, you’ll know what I mean. It has a giant waterfall in it and a lot of beautiful plantation (both fake and real). After that, we went to the flower dome. This is just an insanely concentrated botanical garden (and I much prefer this one over the first one we went to, once again probably because of AC for more than I care to admit). Pro tip: Great spot for photos in portrait mode!
For our last hawker centre, we went to Tiong Bahru Market. Be careful, because it seems like many of these hawker centers close kind of early, majority of the stands close earlier than 6pm. So if you have a specific shop in mind, might be best to come during lunch (when they are the busiest). We managed to get one of the stalls we were shooting for (Jian Bo Shui Kueh) and the chwee kueh was a very interesting delicious dish. Other dishes from other stalls weren’t really worth mentioning.
Afterwards we went to the Marina Barrage for sunset since it gives you a great view of Marina Bay Sands. Unfortunately we couldn’t make it quite on time (don’t trust the busses 🙁 ). The last thing to do on our bucket list was the Singapore Flyer. We opted for a night view and took a timelapse of ride. Once again, you’re going to be looking at the Marina Bay Sands and it’s absolutely stunning at the top. That concluded all of our Singapore bucket list except for Victor, he still hasn’t gotten a poker session in! So since it was the last day, Victor forgoed sleep to finally get a poker session in and after waiting 2 hours for a seat at the table, Victor finally gets to play a grand total of 2 hours due to one fish winning a 3 way all in after sucking out with a flush on the river against an overpair and a set. For his efforts, Victor booked a $100 win. Since we were sharing all of our expenses, Dixie was able to make $50 in her sleep!