Singapore Recommendations

Spending less than twenty-four hours in Singapore certainly doesn’t make me an expert on the small city-state. But, I did stay long enough and explore far enough to get a pretty decent idea about Singapore, at least the central downtown area.

Singapore is incredibly clean, modern, well organized and easy to get around. It has a lot of interesting modern architecture, worthwhile museums and world-class shopping. The city and shopping areas are easily walkable which make it an easy place to explore in a short period of time, although it‘s also oppressively hot (good news: every building has powerful a/c). Other parts of the island are supposedly very nice and might be worth a side trip if you visit and have more time than I did.

Here are a few of the places and things I enjoyed during my brief stay in Singapore:

• Asian Civilizations Museum - a very nice, informative, and interesting museum with great exhibits providing overviews and history on all the countries of Asia including China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Laos, and India. Definitely worth a trip, especially if you haven’t seen the rest of Asia yet, and maybe more so if you have.
• Boat Quay - a picturesque small waterfront area along the Singapore River with a couple dozen waterfront restaurants with outdoor seating. I didn’t eat there, but it was a nice area to walk through and the restaurants looked very good.
• Cavanaugh Bridge - one of a few bridges that cross the Singapore River, it’s probably the best because of it’s construction as well as it’s location. It’s not far from the Asian Civilizations Museum as well.
• Esplanade Theaters - Singapore’s take on creating it’s own version of waterfront theaters like Sydney’s Opera House. The Esplanade Theaters look like two huge armadillo shells which actually looks better than it sounds. The best location I found to see them was from the Padang (see below). They are definitely worth checking out and aren’t far from Raffles City.
• The Padang - A small but nice park that’s been around since the city was discovered by the British. It’s also home to Singapore’s Cricket Club and has good views of Raffles City and City Hall
• Orchard Road - the pinnacle of international shopping in Southeast Asia. Orchard Street has anything you could want in nearly every store you could want. It stretches for a few miles with mall upon mall of stores. It’s also a nice, tree lined street with a number of restaurants.
• Raffles Hotel - the original five star Singapore hotel. It remains very high end with an arcade of ultra-high end stores on its grounds. It looks like an old colonial hotel and is worth walking around, although pants are required for the lobby and most indoor areas.
• MRT - Singapore’s subway systems is very clean, highly efficient and goes just about everywhere, including the airport.
• Plaza Premium Lounge (airport) - Singapore’s airport is one of the best international airports I’ve visited and there is plenty to keep you entertained for any length layover. There are a boundless number of shops, restaurants and even a free movie theater showing recent (not first run, but within the last couple years at least) movies that are open to all. One of the better services available is a premium lounge that’s available to anyone. It’ costs about U.S. $15 for 5 hours of access which include a shower, food, soft drinks, and wireless or internet kiosk access. There’s a good size gym (workout clothes are provided for a fee) and massages or other treatments are available. You can purchase many of the services individually (i.e. shower) if you’re more pressed for time and only want a couple things.