Singapore

I had the chance to go to Singapore twice recently. The first time was in June for one week, and the second time in the last two weeks. It was for work, but all in all, I still had almost 3 full week-ends to discover the city properly.

Singapore is really incredible. It's full of surprises, with gigantic skyscrapers, mind-blowing structures and some ancient places hidden inside the districts (although not as frequently as what you can find in Japan, for example).

It mixes many asian cultures. The official language is English, but many others are spoken everywhere (chinese, indian, malay, indonesian, etc.). Food is available in abundance and diversity¹. The city is really busy during the day (a lot less at night in my opinion), and everything seems to change quite often (eg. governement and companies are not afraid to tear down a building to build another one 10 years later). Men presence is omnipresent: new lands are created on the sea, and nature is tightly contained. It's fascinating, even though the country is an environmental aberration (overuse of air conditioning, for example).

There's no season, and it's always the same weather: 28-32°C (probably around 40°C felt), warm, extremely humid, and cloudy with occasional rains or thunderstorms. Even at night (which starts around 19:30), it will still be warm (just 2-3°C cooler if you are lucky). You could be in short and t-shirt all year, and if you stay 30 min outside, you'll inevitably sweat.

There are tunnels and malls everywhere, so if you want to avoid the heat, you just have to go inside a building to cool down², "thanks to" the overabondance of AC³.

Finally, Singapore is really, really, safe. As a man, I don't feel unsafe most of the time, but still, you can feel the difference there. It can be 3:00 at night and you'll never feel threatened. You can forget something and go back one day later and find it again. It's when you go back home that you can really grasp how nice it is to walk so peacefully.

Tips

• Foodcourts (gathering of stalls serving a few different meals each) are everywhere. Some of them can be a bit dodgy — you will have a rating on each stall, from C to A. From what I've understood, even a A is not necessarily clean. However, I never got sick (but I never tried a C either).
• Grab a tourist SIM at the airport (you'll need your passport as a foreigner). For a cheap 12 SGD (~8 EUR), you'll get 100GB of data for 7 days. I recommend the M1 plans - for iPhone users, you can also get one as an eSim.
• You can manage without cash, but still, I would recommend to withdraw 20-40 SGD for a week to eat in the cheap foodcourts (many of them don't accept credit cards). As a Singaporean, I don't think it's as necessary thanks to other types of payments (like Nets), but for a tourist, you'll find yourself blocked if you don't have a little bit of cash. This is a surprise, because there are so many payment methods available everywhere.
• You don't need to buy city transport tickets (subway or bus). Just use your contactless credit card at the entries and exits, and you'll be debited at the end of the month (or week, I don't really know) automatically. This is so handy.
• Taxis are cheap. Going from the airport to the city center is like 20 SGD (14 EUR). In some places, you'll find one really easily, but it's not always the case at certain moments of the day. There are some applications to do that, but it seemed a bit of a pain to use as a foreigner.
• Restaurants don't show the final prices in the menus. You'll have to add some taxes at the end (I would say around 15%-20%). I'm not sure it's everywhere, but it happens often.
• I never tipped for anything. I didn't feel like I was supposed to. Which is nice⁴.
• Meals can vary a lot in price. In the foodcourts, you can usually find something around 4 SGD (2.5 EUR). In "normal" restaurants, it's more around 15-25 SGD. But it can also be way higher.
• The Singaporean Dollar is very interesting for us Europeans (1 SGD is around 0.66 EUR). It reduces the costs significantly at the time of this writing. Life is not cheap in Singapore, so this helps.
• Buy some Tiger Balms. You can find the white and red for 3-5 SGD (2-3 EUR) each. Which is 4-5 times cheaper than in France.

Places

Some places I went to:

• Marina Bay Sands: the 3-towers skyscraper with a "boat" at the top, and probably the most famous building in Singapore. I went to "Cé La Vi" rooftop, which has a nice view on Gardens By The Bay. Go to the mall nearby (The Shoppe at Marina Bay Sands) to climb to the Skydeck and watch the light show during the evening. The ArtScience Museum is a pretty building too.
• Buddha Tooth Relic Temple: a brand new Buddhist temple that does not look new. The interior is really nice, and there's an interesting museum inside.
• Chinatown: very nice neighbourhood with lots of restaurants, close to the previous temple.
• Thian Hock Keng Temple: this temple is surrounded by skyscrapers in a moody district to walk in.
• Gardens By The Bay: a park near the CBD, with artificial supertrees (the skyway at the top of the tree gives a nice view around) and two domes to visit. I really love this place. It's unique. There's also a great foodcourt in the park called "Satay By The Bay".
• Jewel: it's an artificial park in the center of the airport. They built a huge fountain coming from the ceiling… it's crazy and superb at the same time.
• Zoo: I wouldn't recommend this. My trip and safaris in Tanzania have probably destroyed any interest I could have in a zoo.
• Haw Par Villa: it's a bit outside the city center. It was designed by the family who invented the Tiger Balm onguent. Creepy as hell⁵, but worth a visit.
• Botanic Gardens: a big park loved by Singopereans and families. It's ok.
• Southern Ridges: a long walk in the south of the city. I started from Kent Ridges until the Harbourfront MRT station. The section between Kent Ridges to Alexandra Arch is boring. The part after Henderson Waves (to the MRT station) is not interesting either. But from Alexandra Arch (included) and Henderson Waves (included), it's really great.
• CBD and Lau Pau Sat: a famous foodcourt in the CBD (Central Business District), surrounded by high towers and business(wo)men.
• 1-Altitude: one of the highest tower with a rooftop. Panoramic view of Singapore.

There are many other places I still need to do (Little India, Pulau Ubin, a few temples, MacRichie, etc.). And I still didn't try a Kaya toast breakfast… That will be for another time!