Traveling to Singapore Pt. 1
Thoughts from first time in Singapore
Singapore has always been a travel destination for me and I was thrilled to visit the city as the first leg of the trip. To be honest, I didn’t know much about the country except for the fact that the people who’ve been there say it’s a very expensive place and to expect to pay a ton of money to visit.
I’ll take you step by step through my trip from travel prep to lodging and dining options. I kept track of how much we spent day to day so that should give you some idea of what to expect in terms of $$. Hopefully this is helpful when planning your own trip. Comment below with any questions or remarks!
Travel Preparation
One of the first items on my to-do list before the trip can actually happen was to look up Singapore Covid travel restrictions. Singapore has pretty clear cut rules around this. If you are fully vaxxed, you can enter as long as you can show proof. I just showed my laminated vaccine card that had my name, date of birth, vaccine name, and both vaccine administered date. If you’re not fully vaxxed, you are not able to enter the country.
Second, I didn’t need a visa since I was coming from the U.S. All I needed was my passport. (Make sure its valid for at least 6 months)
Last, I filed out a SG Arrival Card. You can fill this out online up to 3 days before your departure date OR fill it out after you land at immigration.
To summarize:
*If you have a U.S. passport. For a list of countries that need require visa, please visit here.
**To fill out online
Flights
We flew out of Los Angeles. The trip consisted of Singapore and Bali and we were able to book the whole trip with Singapore Air. There was a layover in Narita on the way to Singapore but no stops on the way home. There is a lot to talk about just on my experience with the flights and airports but I’ll save that for another post!
First Day
We arrived in Singapore 1:15AM local time. The immigration process was fairly quick. We filled out our SG arrival card in 5 minutes and the line for immigration was not that long. Once we got our checked luggage, we downloaded the Grab (Uber for SE Asia) app on our phones and were able to call a ride pretty quickly. I wasn’t surprised by the quick connectivity of the airport Wifi and download speeds since Singapore is known to be one of the most internet connected countries in the world.
We were wide awake and ready to rock, but the only problem was that nothing was open 😅. We checked into our hotel, Hotel G, around 2:30AM.
Hotel G is a budget friendly hotel that is close to all the places we wanted to visit. It’s also close to a MRT station so it was easy for us to hop on and use the metro to get around.
Fast forward about 5 hours, we finally left the hotel to explore! Of course the first thing we did was to eat some food, specifically dim sum. We walked about 10 minutes to Dim Sum Haus near our hotel. Highly recommend trying at least one dim sum spot when visiting Singapore. To be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of dim sum before the trip; but after eating here, I’m willing to eat some chicken feet once in a while now.
MRT
Confession time. I have this weird obsession of riding the public transportation of every city I visit. I have no idea how this came about but it’s just something I need to experience so matter how terrible the transportation system is. So I dragged my girlfriend to get a couple of MRT tourist passes. For SG$20, you can use this pass to ride the metro and bus services unlimited times in 1 day. There are also the options to get a 2-day or 3-day passes.
We walked over to the nearest station, and I have to say, I was blown away. The MRT metro system is by far the cleanest and sleekest metro I have ever experienced. Every station we went to was spotless and not a single homeless person in sight. Here was also the first time I’ve seen a glass panel wall at the platform so that no one can fall on to the tracks. Not to mention the metro cars themselves were very spacious and clean. I can only hope we can something like this back home.
I got my fix in and now we were ready to head to our first tourist spot.
Arab Street & Sultan Mosque
Arab Street is a very known as a very touristy location but we did not care at all. We walked around up and down the streets looking at the boutique and street art shops. It was full of middle eastern restaurants and cafes, each with very colorful decorations and flair. We arrived around 11AM when it wasn’t packed with tourists. My girlfriend was easily able to get all the Instagram pictures she wanted 😁.
I was sweating through my t-shirt within 3 minutes of walking around outside. The weather was very cloudy, around 85F with 80% humidity. I thought I knew humidity but this was no ordinary humidity. I wish I brought another t-shirt with me that I could’ve changed into. Luckily, a few moments later, it started pouring which helped me cool down.
Orchard Road
Next stop on our adventure was Orchard Road. It’s a couple of city blocks in a very affluent part of town that is lined with expensive hotels and department stores full of luxury brands. Safe to say this was my girlfriend’s favorite part of Singapore. Every department store building was at least 10 stories of intersecting escalators, each leading to another floor full of luxury brand stores. One could easily spend a year and not walk into the same shop twice. We walked through a couple of the malls and window shopped. This was around 1PM and it was packed full of tourists. One highlight I’d like to mention here is the Library@Orchard. It’s distinct bookshelves make it a very popular spot to take pictures (quietly).
Chinatown
It was about that time again. We were hungry and ready to stuff our faces with food (again). We ended up heading to Chinatown because we wanted to head to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Nearby was the Maxwell Food Centre. We walked in and was immediately hit with a hundred different aromas that were emanating from the delicious food being cooked from vendors. I couldn’t pick just one stall so I ended up getting food from 3 different vendors and I spent about a total of SG$15. For that price, we still ended up getting a large amount of food and couldn’t finish it all between the both of us. We got the Hainan chicken and the Singaporean chicken curry.
Once our bellies were full, we walked across the street and visited the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple around 3:30PM. We got lucky because a Buddhist ceremony was happening when we got there and we got to witness firsthand the Buddhist monks chanting in unison. The monks were chanting in front of 3 massive Buddha statues that looked like they were made of gold. The chants were mesmerizing and hypnotic. The walls of the temple are packed with small Buddha figurines. And when I say packed, I mean there was not a single open real estate on the wall. There were thousands of these small figures attached to the every nook and cranny and each was tagged with a number. The rest of the temple was still open to the public while the ceremony was going on and we headed upstairs.
Walking around the temple is free, except for the praying room area on the third floor. There is a museum on the second floor of the temple and it was full of interesting Buddha statues and relics. We quietly did a lap and took pictures where we could. At the end, we donated some money for good luck and we were on our way. This was definitely the highlight of the day and I recommend any traveler to stop by the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple when visiting Singapore.
Old Hill Street Police Station
It was around 5PM and the jet lag was hitting us hard. We grabbed some coffee along the way to stay awake as long as possible. We slowly meandered towards Old Hill Street Police Station. This is a historical building with its key feature being the window have been painted with shades of rainbow colors. We didn’t spend too much time here. We took some pictures and walked back to our hotel. The coffee only kept me up a little longer and I was too tired to do anything else.
We walked back and crashed around 630PM. And that was it for the first day! We hit all the places we wanted plus more. To give you an idea of how much we spent, I broke it down here:
Not too shabby for a day in Singapore! Stay tuned, I’ll go over my next day at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore in my next post.
Places we missed
There were places we put on our itinerary that we ended up not going to. I’ll list them here just in case you are curious.
Mr. Stork - Rooftop restaurant & bar that has a great view of Singapore skyline
ATLAS - Another popular restaurant bar known for their cocktails and vibe.
Fort Canning Park - Historic park in the middle of Singapore with sprawling lawns