Monday, April 29, 2013

RTW Trip: Day 60 (4/24) - Singapore



Day 60: Sin-Ga-Po’


The one hidden trick in using United mileage tickets (or any tickets) is that any stop less than 24 hours is considered a layover, and therefore a free day off during flight. Because of the high connectivity and proximity between Southeast Asia cities, it is hard to get a real layover in any city. However, for some reason that is unknown to anyone, almost all international flights leave India late at night. How Late? Well, my Singapore Airlines flight out of India to Singapore left at 12:15 am, and that was probably the earliest flight out of India I’ve ever taken. Well, because of this, my flight in Singapore lands at 8:15 am local time, and because of the advantages of night flying, Singapore has a flight to Melbourne at 9:00, and a flight to New York (through Frankfurt) at 11:55. So, being a person who loves to maximize utility, and doesn’t mind the prospect of a total flight time (counting layovers) of 46 hours, I took the decision to have two extra days in Singapore. I wouldn’t get to experience Singapore at night, but Singapore during the day isn’t all that bad.

I arrived in Singapore at 7:40, about half an hour earlier than the expected arrival time, fresh off of a 4-and-a-half hour flight aboard Singapore Airlines’ beautiful Boeing 777-300ER (probably the most efficient plane in the world). This was my first experience aboard Singapore Airlines, known as probably the pinnacle of commercial aviation. I was still in economy, but it had all the trappings that most airlines pass over. They had menus (there were only two options, but still). They gave complimentary wine and beer at the start of the flight when we were on the ground. They had the largest movie selection that I’ve seen (I’m no longer really impressed at the depth of South African Airways’ movie collection, as I guess the 100 options is kind of standard). My one quibble is that their video screen wasn’t a touch screen, which is strange. Still, their food was very good (for airline food). Their beer was very cold (often a problem on planes). They had more drink services than any flight I’ve been on when adjusted for length. Their seats had more room than most. All in all, it was a great flight.

My only issue was that it was way too short. Obviously, this isn’t their fault, but the distance between Mumbai and Singapore isn’t long enough to get a good sleep, especially when one is determined to watch Les Miserables (I fast forwarded through the more boring parts). I arrived in Singapore off of essentially two hours of sleep, but surprisingly awake, ready to experience the most unique city in the world.

Butterfly Park in an Airpot? Well, Anything Goes in Changi

Since I arrived early in Singapore, I decided to take some time to explore Changi airport. Like most things in Singapore, the airport is just plain unique and brilliant. I was in Changi’s T3, the newest of the airport’s three main terminals, and while there are certainly more glamorous, grander terminals with larger glass facades, those terminals are mostly soulless and empty. This is the opposite. All around the terminal are fountains, rivers, greenery, and other subtle reminders of how nice this place is. One of the hidden treats of the airport is the garden walking tour, as the three terminals house an Orchid Garden, a Cactus Garden, a Rose Garden, a Butterfly Garden and a few other gardens I’m forgetting. Only two are in T3, and only the Butterfly Garden appealed to me, so I went there and had scores of butterflies flutter by me. Around 9:15, I finally decided to escape from my dream world inside Changi airport and head for my Dad’s cousin’s flat in the heart of Singapore. Because I waited a good hour from when I arrived to leave, I encountered one of the true rarities in air travel: no line at immigration. Seriously. Zero line. I’m not sure why those people were even there, waiting for passengers to come through immigration. After a quick hop, skip and jump (escalators, mostly) to Singapore’s Changi MRT station, I entered the clean, efficient and always punctual Singapore MRT, off to Orchard Street.


I would have loved to sleep on the MRT, but the Singapore one is mostly outdoors on the path from Changi, so I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to view Singapore. What immediately struck me about the city was just how damn clean it was. I knew this already, but you kind of make yourself forgot just how clean clean can be. About an hour after my trip started, I landed outside the Orchard Road station, greeted by the only bad part of Singapore: the heat. It may because I was expecting it, or it may be because I had been to hotter places on this trip, but I actually was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t seem as hot as last time. Certainly, I was already sweating greatly after the 15-minute (really 10-minute, but I was misdirected) walk to the apartment, and certainly I was already patting myself on the back for packing not one, but two, changes of clothes, but it really wasn’t as bad as last time.

By the time I finished catching up with my Dad’s cousin, enjoying the incredible view from their beautiful flat high above the heart of Singapore, and bathing the sweat away after she generously let me have a shower to clean off, it was around eleven. I was dismayed, because the amount of time between 8:15 (my estimated arrival in Singapore) and 9:00 (my scheduled departure) is never as much as it really seems. We made plans to meet up again at the flat around 4:45, to leave for a dinner on the East Coast Seafood Center, which gave me a good five and a half hours to play with. I had seen most of the main sites in Singapore last time I came, so I knew I could relax. There was just one major hole in the sites I had seen, and it was a big one. I hadn’t visited the Marina Bay Sands Resort and Casino, a stunning, sprawling hotel and entertainment center in the heart of Singapore’s Bay.

The Marina Bay Sands

I took the MRT to the ‘HarborFront’ station, which opens out to the Marina Bay complex. I first went to the Gardens by the Bay, a beautiful botanical garden complex featuring multiple sections of Asian flora. By the time I finished, it was nearly 1PM, and I was getting increasingly hungry. From the Marina Bay, I took a cab to Clarke Quay (or more accurately, Boat Quay – but no one’s really heard of Boat Quay), the riverside walk up the Bay. I went to lunch at Riverfront Grille, a restaurant overlooking the river, one of the many on either side of the river. I ordered Crispy Calamari, which was essentially dried calamari, which was very, very good, and a Scallop in XO sauce. I posit that ‘XO’ is just what they write when they don’t know or want to convey what the sauce really is. It was fine, but not as good as the Crispy Calamari. I had long dreamed of being back in Singapore, eating a meal overlooking the Quay, and while it was a bit hotter and more than a bit emptier than I remember it (I, as do most people, usually ventured that side at night) being, it was still good to be back.

From there, I went back to the Marina Bay. Thankfully, the cabs were a lot more affordable than I remember them being, because my zig-zagging wasn’t really the most economical way to see what I saw. I wanted to go to the casino, partly because as a foreigner, I could walk past the sad locals who had to pay a $100 fee to enter the casino floor. Of course, had I known the amount that is gambled by everyone in that casino, I would have realized that a $100 fee isn’t really that large. I wanted to play some poker, but unlike US casino’s there aren’t small tables. The smallest table had a $10 ante, which is kind of ridiculous. I decided to go with $250, with a rule that if I fell below $150, I would leave. This put me as short stack, which ended up being no disadvantage. However, it took me a while to realize this. Apparently, Texas Hold ‘Em in Singapore is played in a Blackjack style, where the players at the table play against, and only against, the dealer. Basically, it takes bluffing out of the game. I had no idea this was the case for the first three hands or so, which caused the other two older Asians at the table to ask me if I knew how to play. Of course, I didn’t show myself of knowing after the effing dealer Rivered me twice in a row. I left with about $175, which considering I didn’t know what the game was, wasn’t all that bad.

The sight of a strange version of Texas Hold 'Em, and also some of my money

After I finished losing money in the casino, I decided to go spend some more over at the hotel. I was smart, though, in foregoing the normal observatory deck experience for a drink at the rooftop bar instead. While it sounds extravagant, the $20 scotch isn’t that bad considering the view is included in the price, and considering it costs $15 to just go to the observatory deck on itself. So, basically, I was paying the view for $15, and getting my scotch for $5. After my Mom and I utilized a similar loophole at the Menara KL, I realized that this should be standard operating procedure at any observatory deck. The view from the top of the Marina Bay was quite stunning, giving me the best view of Singapore possible since the Marina Bay Sands is located across the Bay from the rest of downtown Singapore. I sipped my scotch slowly, knowing that this was about as good as I could have imagined my first day in Singapore going.

After I finished with the observatory tower, I decided to venture back over to the Clarke Quay area, to check out an old haunt from my last trip, the micro-brewery Brewerks, at the end of Clarke Quay. This time, I decided to take the MRT there as I had some time. The beers were nice, a great way to relax the afternoon away. I soon left and took a cab back to the flat, where I had another shower (again, despite it being less hot than normal, it was still way too hot for me to be totally comfortable). We soon left to pick up her husband on the way to the East Coast Seafood Center.

Good Ol' Clarke Quay

More than anything, I was looking forward to a meal at the East Coast Seafood Center, a string of seafood restaurants on the sea on the southeast side of Singapore. Being near Changi, it is a perfect place to go right before heading over to the airport, and serves as a great plane-spotting point, as the planes fly over the seafood center on their descent into Singapore.

We went to Jumbo seafood, one of the two main seafood restaurants in the center (the other is Long Beach Seafood – they both have essentially the same menu and about the same recognition and reviews), and we had a nice little feast. First was bean and tofu (much better than I expected), prawn curry and ginger fish. And finally, the main course, with two black-pepper crabs, the large crustaceans pasted with black-pepper sauce. Despite it seemingly being an easy to make dish, nowhere on earth is it as good as it is in Singapore. Nowhere on earth can you get that food, in that setting. There was no better way to end my day in Singapore than with a black pepper crab. Of course, as I went back to Changi airport and used their peerless wi-fi, I remembered that there was no better way to enter into the 1st World part of the trip (Singapore, Australia, Japan) than Changi Airport and Singapore Airlines.

About Me

I am a man who will go by the moniker dmstorm22, or StormyD, but not really StormyD. I'll talk about sports, mainly football, sometimes TV, sometimes other random things, sometimes even bring out some lists (a lot, lot, lot of lists). Enjoy.