Back to the Future

Singapore is one of our favorite cities in this crazy and diverse world. We were stoked to be heading here for 5 days. Geoff & Sara’s apartment (complete with 30m pool!) was a perfect home base and we were so grateful to be crashing there.

Luke would have been content spending 5 days in Changi Airport, and would still complain that it wasn’t enough! We’ve already raved about it previously, but nothing compares to free massage chairs, innovative art displays, spiral slides and butterfly gardens … all for free! Not to mention a wholegrain sandwich.

Readjusting to the cost of living in Singapore after spending a month in some of the cheapest countries in SE Asia is a little eye opening, but is really just the equivalent of being at home with a little cheaper food and a little more expensive beer. Geoff & Sara live in the awesome historic neighborhood of Joo Chiat, home to great architecture and a large array of eateries and cute craft stores. We were a little disappointed not to meet their neighbours directly, the North Korean Ambassador & family.

The idea was to spend these 5 days relaxing, catching up with family and enjoying eating food again, however, we still managed to pack a lot of new activities in as we rediscovered this amazing city. Have we mentioned we love it yet?

It was awesome having Geoff & Sara along as tour guides .. although at times we may have known a little more about the city than them! Hopefully we’ve added a few more regular hot spots to their every day lives 😉

Day 1 and we took the very clean and efficient MRT into Raffles Place to readjust to the big city life, had a wander then popped over to Sentosa Island. By taking an Uber we managed to avoid the small entrance fee incurred when you take the SkyTrain or cable car across (although we wish we could’ve taken the cable car, it looked awesome!). Sentosa Island is basically a mega complex, home to ‘ResortWorld’, Universal Studios, casino, luge, other small theme parks and has a plaza with all varieties of cuisine and shops. It is massive, and reminiscent of DisneyLand. Our attraction of choice was the SEA Aquarium, home to the world’s largest viewing window and over 100,000 marine animals.

Having always wondered what was inside the lotus flower outside of Marina Bay Sands but never wandered in, we were keen to check out the ‘Future World’ exhibition in the ArtScience Museum. It was a futuristic, innovative display, but Luke’s highlight was at the gift shop, with an inverted umbrella taking the money prize for the coolest product.

Gardens by the Bay is a must-do in any visit to Singapore. Whether you just have a day’s layover or a week, or even if you live in Singapore, Gardens by the Bay must be witnessed (especially at night!) at least once in your life! It was easy to convince Geoff & Sara to join us for their first time experiencing it and we managed to catch a stunning sunset across Singapore’s CBD from Marina Barage before the show.

The light show runs twice per night, 7:45pm and 8:45pm, and the choreography of the lights and music changes every few months. The current show was to the Star Wars theme track and it was amazing to lay under the Supergrove trees looking up at the illuminating lights and take in the atmosphere.

There is so much to do in the surrounding area at night that it’s a wonder we made it home. We wandered through the massive Marina Bay Sands complex, took a peek at the main casino floor and ended the night with street food overlooking the city, beautifully lit up at night.

We took a quick boat ride across to Pulau Ubin, an island which is closer to Malaysia than Singapore. Keen to check out the mountain bike tracks of the area, we spent a good hour sifting through dysfunctional bikes before we settled on the best of the worst and set off. Exercising while travelling is important, but also slightly impossible in a humid climate like Singapore. We were absolutely dripping with sweat, and after 5km Sara & Jelley decided to call it a day and let the boys head on the tackle the ‘double black’ mountain bike track. Halfway through, they were caught in a massive downpour of rain, and returned soaked but satisfied with the adventure.

We spent a lot of time walking around the city, eating the most incredible food and feeling at home in Singapore. One highlight meal was at Din Tai Fung, with Michelan Star truffle & soup injected dumplings, but the list of mouth-watering food we have had in Singapore is endless! It certainly helped that we had an appetite for the first time in 2 weeks and we were so happy to be able to enjoy it again. The local coffee, or Kopi as it’s locally called, is delicious and our new found love for the drink has carried on here in Malaysia.

Thanks again Geoff and Sara for an amazing time (if you ever get around to reading our blog haha), we can’t wait to visit again! It was so great exploring your home city, meeting more friends and experiencing your day-to-day life, and the introduction to Bollywood movies might be a gamechanger for our future choices.

We can’t wait to update our blog with our adventures here in Borneo – follow Jel’s instagram @jelleyfishing for realtime updates until we have the time and motivation to write again!

Until then,

A Kiwi & A Cali xoxo