TravelCD

Hello! Welcome to my in-depth experience in Singapore! I have a similar blog out about my time in Singapore, but it’s shorter (But still quite long) and won’t cover everything unlike this one, but if you want a shorter version about my time in Singapore, click here! I’ve been looking forward to writing this for a while, so let’s begin, shall we?

Social Media

A quick plug for my social media. If you enjoy my pictures, then you might enjoy my Instagram, where the majority of my pictures from Singapore have been posted and there will be more in the future! Click here for my Instagram! I will also be using my Threads app to talk about my adventures as it happens and more about my daily life which you can find on my Instagram! I have a new TikTok account where I’ll be mainly sharing the food and adventures I’ve had locally and abroad! If you want to check that out, click here! (Edited) Finally I have a new YouTube account which you can check out, if you just click here. ❤️

First Day

Anyway, let’s get stared! My first impression of Singapore was how beautiful it was, not in the nature sense, that will come up later, but in the buildings and the way they were designed and how much they stood out. As we were arriving at our destination, these were the buildings I laid my eyes on. 

The lotus science building, it must have taken ages to design! I hadn’t heard about this before I visited Singapore, so it was amazing to see! 

The way some of the nature was interwind with some of the buildings was also beautiful, and it felt like I was in a dream instead of reality! It really was living up to the reputation of Singapore, welcoming nature into its concrete jungle. Exactly the reason my parents wanted to visit Singapore, to see the Gardens By The Bay, which we will get into at a later point. 

The famous ship hotel! Marina Bay Sands, I had seen pictures of this and heard about it but seeing it in person is a whole different story! You can not really understand how giant it is or amazing the design of the ship on top really looks until you see it up close! Especially at night! 

One thing I noticed that I was surprised about is some of the buildings looked very similar to what we’d have in our cities and had this familiar feel about it and I remember asking my parents about it and then being told, some of it would feel familiar because Singapore used to be a British colony and I didn’t even think about that, but it made so much sense to me as to why some buildings felt so familiar! Usually when I am in a different country, everything just feels off, not what I am used too but different in a good way! However, coming so far away, don’t remember how long the flight was, but it was still incredibly long! It was strange and interesting to still feel that familiarity in certain areas! 

I’ll be honest, I don’t really remember what we did until when it started to go dark, and we headed out to look for some dinner. We walked along the riverside and I noticed some fish just casually swimming along. I don’t see fish that much in my home town, so it was fun to watch them. Even though I was an adult, I sometimes got too caught up in my childish spot-the-fish game that my parents would have to tell me to keep up with them, ha! 

We found an area by the riverside which was stock filled with so many restaurants, but the thing that caught our attention the most was the alive crabs in these cramped glass boxes, in the majority of the restaurants and there even looked like there was a shop full of them right next to one particular restaurant. 

I was of two minds, one I did feel a lot of sympathy for the crabs, but two, since eating crabs seemed like a big thing here, I did want to try it, but it was difficult seeing the live animal in front of you! And it seemed some people even had a full crab on their plate that they were digging into, not just a bit of meat but a full one, still with its shell on! I heard you could eat crab that way but I never really seen it and with the live crabs just the opposite side of the path, waiting for someone to pick them for their lunch, it didn’t feel right!  In the end, I copied my parents and ordered something different on the menu. 

We chose to sit outside at one of the restaurants that was right next to the water. It was very hot and humid even at night, so no need to go inside! I definitely was not used to this much heat! And it was so sweaty as well! I think Singapore is known for being incredibly humid, I did get used to it but only on the second to last day, ha! 

What I was also surprised at was how many people there were outside trying to get you to come into their restaurant, not only was it loud due to the mass of people eating outside next to the water, but also due to every single restaurant had someone trying to talk to you, to get you to choose their restaurant. I’ve seen this thing before, but not to this extent! We decided to look around, then go to the first restaurant we had seen. We did tell the women, who was trying to invite us to use their restaurant, that we’d come back, and I didn’t expect us too, but surprisingly we did. I suppose the restaurants all looked fairly similar, so we just decided to go with the one at the beginning of the path along the riverside. 

Gardens By The Bay

The stand-out of all the places we visited in Singapore was definitely the Gardens By The Bay. We went to see the Flower Dome, Cloud Forest, Supertree Grove, OCBC Skyway where you get to walk around on top of these popular green flowery structures, the Supertree’s, I guess that’s what they are called? They basically have a light show at night, which we went to a few times. 

I’ll talk about each one individually, personally I think my favourite was the Cloud Forest dome, mainly because of the fantastic waterfall they had inside, it was basically this giant green house dome like shape and there was a fantastic waterfall that you walked around. I personally think waterfalls are so pretty, so to have a man made one, that didn’t look out of place and seemed to fit the dome like area so well. Likewise, I also loved the OCBC skyway, it’s my other favourite, while I am a little afraid of heights, I still love the scenery you can see from above, that seems to roll on forever. It was beautiful, and I should have some photographs displayed on this blog because I don’t think my descriptions will be enough!

The flower dome was much more colourful than the other areas we visited. It was the type of place you’d expect hundreds of butterflies to be fluttering around. There was also a clear separation between what part of the dome was specifically for children to play around in and what part of the done was for the adults that actually wanted to admire the plants. They did have a lot of cool wooden statues that you could admire too, I especially loved the dragon statue. Ever since I was a kid I have always enjoyed anything to do with dragons, art, stories, clothes and my room is still dragon themed to this day, take that as you will ha!  

This was also where I noticed the Christmas decorations the most, that and when we went into Singapore’s theme park, but I’ll get into that later. Let me tell you there’s something so strange seeing Christmas decorations in such a hot climate, I mean, sure they celebrate Christmas but in my mind Christmas has always been a winter snowy cold fun event, so it’s definitely weird seeing it! 

I think what I loved the best about this dome is not only the statues, but the miniature gardens that looked straight out of a fantasy book or film! Some even had Lego structures, which reminded me of the theme park Lego Land that we have back in England. I’m sure other countries have a similar theme park, I used to go there a lot when I was a child and just get lost in my own fantasy. I remember there was this specific ride I enjoyed where you went around on this small boat and passed by Lego structures that depicted fairy tales and had motion senses on them and started to move as your boat passed them, I think Lego land was where I had my first Candy Floss too, Cotton Candy for Americans. Anyway, getting back on topic! The small gardens were amazing and if I was an artist I probably would just have wanted to sit there and draw them, there should be some picture of them below! 

What we also visited and regularly too was the Supertree Grove area. There was this wide bridge we had to cross to get to it, as well as a large shopping centre! Marina Mall, which always looked really cool as they had these rivers through the mall that just made everything look more exotic, I don’t think we went in any shops though as it all looked very expensive!

When we visited the Supertree Grove Area at night for the light show, sometimes we would also see bats zooming past, which I don’t often see, so that was a lot of fun too. When it was light outside I remember myself wondering around the bridge, looking for lizards, and sometimes I found really tiny ones. While we have lizards in the UK, in my area we basically have zero, so I always found them really interesting, since I only see them when I am away on holiday somewhere.  We did see this huge monitor lizards once thought that was pretty cool!

 The Supertrees are, as the name implies, super impressive! I do admire them more when the light show is going on or at a distance, though. Even the light show had some funny problems while trying to admire them, because they were so tall you had to look directly up at them and my neck would sometimes get tired! The light show was honestly fantastic! I didn’t realise before I went to one of the light shows that they actually play popular music and the lights react to the music, it was fantastic to see something like this on such an epic scale! It’s probably best to get there early, though, as we had problems finding a place to sit or even a good place to stand to watch it all. 

The Gardens By The Bay are definitely a must-see in Singapore! 

Nature Reserve

What we also enjoy is wildlife, my parents more so than me, but I still enjoy it, so one of the things we did was go to a Nature Reserve, I don’t remember seeing any other tourists, but we saw quite a lot of locals and there was an odd moment when we were going up this steep hill where we saw these elder women walking up the hill backwards. We decided to copy to see if it helped us walk up the steep hill, and I’m not sure if it helped to be honest.

From what I remember, it was very pretty, but the main thing that stood out to me was monkeys galore! Now and again we’d spot them in the trees, but we were lucky enough to just have a family of monkeys sit in our pathway! They had a baby as well, and we just stood there for ages with other people, taking pictures and videos! They didn’t seem bothered by our presence at all, and it was fun watching the baby monkey play around, especially. Furthermore, they were all so cute! If you like monkeys and happen to have the opportunity to visit Singapore, then I definitely recommend this nature reserve!

Someone showed us where a flying lemur was sleeping as well, which was even more amazing than the monkeys! It was the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, and I’ll put some pictures down below, what I also wasn’t expecting to see were turtles even in this fantastic small lake we passed, and as well as a very odd looking fungi! I still haven’t been able to identify it to this day, but if you happen to be an expert or knowledgeable on fungi, let me know! I’ll put an image of it down below as well! Unfortunately, some kids must have trampled on it afterwards because when we were coming back we couldn’t find it again  😦 

Singapore Zoo

Visiting a Zoo never really crossed my mind until my parents brought it up. I hadn’t been to one since I was a child, but this Zoo was special because it had these certain animals that I had never seen in the wild or in a Zoo and I believe in 2018 they were also still considered endangered, but they are not any more because thankfully their numbers are increasing, what are they? They are pandas! And they were adorable! We also saw a red panda as well, which I think they’re not actually related to Pandas despite their name. 

I did feel a little sorry for them being in this enclosure, I feel like I felt sorry for most animals I saw in the Zoo, I guess when I was a child I didn’t think about how the nature outside compared to being stuck in an enclosed area even if it was on the larger side. 

But I tried my best to enjoy my day and find out more about the animals since there were pieces of information scattered around the Zoo for you to read, which I liked. 

I also suppose I shouldn’t judge because I don’t know each and every animal’s circumstance for being in a Zoo, for all I know they could have been hand reared and couldn’t be released back into the wild or their habitats been mostly destroyed, so it’s too dangerous to release them, or they were rescued and will eventually be released, or other reasons as to why they have to stay and are in a Zoo.

I still enjoyed seeing the animals despite my concerns and apart from seeing the pandas, I think my favourite part was when we were able to go into this huge room and see underwater, where we saw the Manatees, watching them swim past and check us out, they were beautiful, just their movements in the water was so fluid, I feel like I could sit there and watch them forever. I feel like if I stared too much, I’d get hypnotised! Not only that, but I don’t think I can post videos on here, so I’ll release some videos of them and my time in the Zoo on Instagram. 

I also remember cute looking otters as well, otters are so cute, so I enjoyed seeing them up close! I do wish their enclosure could have been bigger, though. 

I have to say I don’t remember my visit to the Zoo much, so sorry there isn’t any more thoughts on this, but I think if you enjoy Zoo’s you’ll enjoy this. 

I have seen some videos from Zoos where they give their animals different things to keep them active and something different to play with, so I hope the same is for Singapore Zoos or those animals are going to get so bored, and I’ll feel even worse for them! 

Theme Park

We went to the Universal Singapore Theme park! I had no clue this existed, and I love theme parks, so as soon as I found out, I was like- I-am-going! I was so assistant on going, I was prepared to go by myself if my parents didn’t want to go with me, which was a big thing for me, since I didn’t usually do things by myself when I was abroad somewhere, though I now really enjoy travelling by myself and hope to do it more. Not only that, but I’m not sure I remember if I offered, but I was definitely willing to pay for my own ticket, however my parents decided to go with me and pay for the experience. 

I know that the majority of my travels abroad were because of my parents, so I am incredibly thankful to them and the experiences I’ve been able to have because of them. My first travel abroad by myself and that I paid for, was when I was 22 and when I thought I was ready to go abroad again, by myself, covid hit, and I was finally able to travel again by myself last year, I definitely love going places by myself, but it’s still nice to have a family holiday. 

So a big part of me was happy that they were coming with me. My inner child screamed with delight as we arrived at Singapore University, everything was so colourful, and I was excited to go on the rides. Yes, I’m an adult, but I never let go of my love for theme parks. However, despite loving theme parks, what I dislike about them is rollercoasters, I hate rollercoasters. I guess I just have this huge fear of falling out, that, and I have a medical condition where I can’t have very much pressure on my head, for example, if I move my head fast and the pressure changes it gives me headaches. So we did have a bit of an incident since my parents didn’t realise how much I hated them and was scared of getting on one, but I’ll get into that later. 

The main ride that I can remember is the Spider-Man simulation ride, which was pretty fantastic, where you were on a moving ride, wearing 3D glasses and had the 3D animation characters fighting around you, with your ride, shaking and moving sharply, sometimes getting so into it, you feel like debris was being thrown at you, or you are falling for a split second but Spider-Man’s web catching you, very much an adrenaline rush and reminded me how much I love simulation rides. 

I also enjoyed the food, especially trying something I had wanted to try for ages, it’s an American food that I had often seen in American media, and it just looked like something delicious to eat but very unhealthy ha. I tried a corn dog! We definitely don’t have these commonly in the UK, I don’t think I have seen corn dogs being sold in England, strangely I did see them being sold in a supermarket in Wales, I only saw them when I was about to pay, so I didn’t have time to even think about getting them, but it felt fairly random, ha! I do wish I’d got them now, though!

Anyway, I’ll get around to the incident with a rollercoaster that happened while I was at the Theme Park, basically you’ve got two know a couple of things, I hadn’t been to a theme park with my parents for many years, the last time was likely while I was at secondary school and while they knew I didn’t like rollercoasters, I am very sure they didn’t know the extent. I did make a point to not go on any rollercoasters when I was a child, but I never really told them how much I didn’t like them. 

So one – I hated rollercoasters since I tried my first rollercoaster when I was little, probably around seven or eight years old, I closed my eyes and pretty sure I cried.

Two – that hate and fear had only grown as I got older and didn’t vanish at all

Three – I have health anxiety, it’s a big issue for me sometimes, and I tend to worry about the worst case scenario too much as well. 

Anyway, at the time I didn’t realise they didn’t know about how much I hate rollercoasters, so when they suggested I try a rollercoaster, I just laughed it off, thinking they were joking until we started to walk towards the ride and I realised they were serious and right then quickly tried to get out of it but they, not realising how seriously I was taking this, wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I gave in. This is where my health anxiety started to kick in. Since I can’t have much pressure on my head, I started to imagine what could go wrong. The last time I accidentally had too much pressure there, I was going down a waterslide, and the headache was so severe that I had to close my eyes and I saw blacks spots appear before my eyes when I opened them, it was a bit scary, it was then I realised something was wrong, and I got myself checked out. 

I compared the rollercoaster and the waterslide in my mind and began to panic. If that happened when I went on the waterslide, then what would happen for this rollercoaster? I tried to bring up my concerns, but also trying not to let them know how my anxiety was rising and rising inside of me. My parents, however, seemed to think it was fine, but I couldn’t convince myself otherwise. The panic continued to build, with my Mum even commenting on how pale I looked. They tried to help me feel better by pointing out this was a kid ride, and the children queuing, which did the opposite since I felt incredibly embarrassed but the fear of my medical condition playing up and hurting me badly or worse was too consuming to let go off. 

My anxiety exploded out of me once we got on the ride, as soon as the rollercoaster turned sharply, out of pure fear of the incoming pain I thought was going to hit me or even worse, I started to cry, I felt like a child again, and it was pretty horrible, but I couldn’t stop, every twist and every drop, made the fear twist inside me. Thankfully, my fears didn’t come true, and I was fine, apart from feeling embarrassed about my overreaction. I cried a little more afterwards out of pure relief that nothing had happened. I also felt guilty since I didn’t feel like going on any more rides and my parents felt guilty over not taking me seriously beforehand when I’d told them I didn’t want to go on the rollercoaster, and I even felt more guilty over making them feel guilty! So that incident sobered everyone’s mood and we left. 

I’d say I really enjoyed the Spider-Man simulation and the food. I loved the theme park’s colours, it just makes I’m in some kind of children’s story book. I think my cons would be there didn’t seem to be as many rides as I expected, and I think we went in the wrong season as it felt a bit empty, so I feel like the atmosphere would have felt better with more people. 

If I ever get the chance to go back, I think I’d use the cable car to get there, I thought I could use it on the way back, but unfortunately it seemed to only go one way. The theme park is on this like mini island where you can get there by this train or the cable car. From the pictures, it looked like the cable car had a fantastic view, so I really wish I’d been able to try it. 

Singapore Food

Three words, I loved it! I am pretty sure I enjoyed everything I ate while I was in Singapore. I mostly had Ramen while I was there, but I also tried these fruits called Lychee that I’d never had before, and I really enjoyed them. I don’t actually remember what they tasted like, but I know I liked them, so if I get the chance to eat them again I definitely will, they have this reddish soft spiky shell and the fruit inside is white. 

I especially enjoyed the simple chicken Ramen, where I could just dip these breaded chicken into the Ramen, and it just tasted delicious! I had that a lot when I was there.

One thing I noticed, but I never tried is how much Durian there was everywhere, when ever we were near food markets, I saw Durians on sale and what I found funny, but I think it makes sense, considering how much they’re meant to smell, there were signs up on the trains, warning against bringing Durian on the trains. It felt a little funny just seeing something telling you to not bring a certain fruit on board, like “beware of the fruit” ha, but of course, considering how common they are over here, it makes sense. 

Now I’ll also say what I wanted to do, but I didn’t end up doing much of, before I went to Singapore I looked into what to check out in Singapore and what came up often, was Hawker Centres. They are essentially a centre of food stalls, and some are well known for certain food and are really popular. From what I remember, we only visited and ate at one Hawker Centre and one stall, if it were up to me, I would have gone to many different Hawker Centres and stalls, trying all the food out, but my parents, unfortunately weren’t that interested in it and I didn’t want to do it alone. 

So we only tried out one, we had this rather nice small rice and chicken meal. It was nice but nothing to shout at, I just wished I could try more and more time to choose.  

Now my absolutely favourite food that I tried, that I loved so much we even had it at the airport before we left, and I miss it so much! It was Laksa Soup, it’s like this slightly spicy tomatoe like soup with noodles and seafood! It was divine! Seriously! I even tried to find substitutes when I got back to the UK, no such luck! 

I even found some microwaveable Laksa, but it just didn’t taste the same! I loved it so much in Singapore, and it just makes me so sad that I can’t seem to recreate it! But yes, if you enjoy spicy food, seafoods, noodles, and you have the opportunity to try Laksa, then give it a go! 

Orchid Gardens

We also went to see the Orchid Gardens, it was very pretty, but I think I was flowered out by the end of it! As someone who thinks flowers are pretty but not too interested or knowledgable about them, it did get a bit tiresome after a while. I did enjoy taking a lot of photos of the orchids, though. 

I think we got to the Orchid Gardens by using a hop on and hop off bus, which are really useful to get around! There was a bus like this in Granada, Spain, and I personally wish I’d used it! I don’t think we used it any other time, though. 

I often found it kind of funny at how fascinated my parents were with the flowers and gardening. While I never really understood the interest, so they’d be talking about this rare plant and trying to remember the name of it, and I’m just shrugging my shoulders, wondering when we could move on and feeling like an uninterested child, you know when you’re like still a kid and your parents sometimes have an “adult” conversation that you just find super boring and go and amuse yourself, I felt like that with the plants being the other adults my parents were talking too, despite being 22 years old. 

My interest in plants and flowers don’t go beyond “Oh that looks pretty” But of course, I did enjoy my time in the Orchid garden, I can still appreciate it when flowers or gardens are beautiful. 

I don’t remember the orchid gardens that much, other than a few memories of pretty orchids, but if you love gardening and flowers, especially orchids, then this would be for you. 

So I can appreciate them but unlike my mum who likes flowers as gifts that she can put in the garden, I’d rather food or small quirky items or something like that, I think if I ever get a partner (Though unlikely due to my sexuality) and they want to give me some sort of gift, the first thing I say is, don’t give me flowers. 

Culture Shock

Now what I noticed that was strange for me, essentially things I’m not used too, whether the better or worse. I’m saying it now, I don’t see any negatives to be very honest! Anything I was surprised by, it was in a positive way!

The first thing I was surprised by was how friendly everyone was, don’t get me wrong, where I come from, we can be friendly, but I’m from the south of England, near London and we’re known for being more private, less likely to talk to strangers. For me, it’s more to do with anxiety, than anything else, worrying about me saying something stupid or does looking odd to the strangers but not sure what other Brits excuses are. So I keep to myself because I’m afraid of saying something silly and being awkward. 

Up north, it’s more known for being friendlier and more likely to talk to strangers. So I was incredibly surprised and wasn’t used to it when in Singapore, so many locals would ask if we needed assistance and were happy to help us out, without us even asking but just seeing us silly foreigners staring at the map, probably looking confused. 

Also, while we do have food stall areas, Singapore was chuck full of them! I definitely feel like Singapore was more focused on food than we are. Of course, I noticed that there were a lot more noodles and ramen dishes, that’s what you think about, when you think about Asian food, right? And it’s definitely true, I love that type of food, so I felt like I was in food heaven whenever we sat down to eat! There was also a lot of seafood on display, especially crab. I think I mostly had Asian food when I went to this British restaurant called Wagamamas, that does Asian inspired food, which is still great, but it’s always so much better when you eat the food in the country or continent even, that it originated from or even incredibly well known for. 

Another thing about the food that I was surprised at was how you ordered food in a lot of places, they gave you this tick menu, where they had different options as to how you’d want your food, for example, if you were having some kind of noodle dish, they give you options of the type of noodles and sauce, instead of just telling the waiter what you wanted, you’d just tick your options on the menu and just hand it to whoever was serving you. We have a restaurant that serves Asian inspired food in our town, that does this, so I assume other countries in Asia do this too. I really like this method, it feels very efficient! 

I also think Singapore in general feels cleaner than us, I did hear that they have very heavy fines for littering, so I suppose that’s the reason, their trains also seemed cleaner too! That’s not to say you’ll find litter and dirt everywhere here, but you do notice sometimes after riding on the London Underground, your hands will be a bit dusty or grubby and sometimes, depending on where you are, there will be some litter being left in lakes, ponds, etc. Singapore looked spotless to be honest, I think it may make most countries look a bit grubbier!

I also think I felt a lot safer in Singapore, than in the UK, you could walk out at night and feel completely safe, while back at home I’d always feel a bit uneasy walking home at night, and I’d avoid walking in parks at night as well, it’s common sense, but it felt like you didn’t need that in Singapore, a safer place where I don’t need to feel uneasy walking alone in the dark, such a lovely feeling! I feel completely safe out in the daytime by myself in the UK but at night, it always makes me nervous.

Conclusion

I loved my time in Singapore! I’d love to go back by myself one day, I doubt I’d be able to afford it though but, hey, if I am ever able to go back by myself, you’ll know I’ve made it! Ha! I especially loved the food and the architecture, which may be a common theme in places I go. 

I think the highlights were seeing the monkeys in the nature reserve, The Gardens By The Bay were amazing and well worth the trip and I loved the food, I’m crying that I can no longer have Laska on a regular basis! Noooo! It’s been quite a few years and I still miss you! 

So there you have it and if you read all this and made it this far, thank you so much! It took a very long time to write this and my computer is being so slow! I hope you enjoyed reading and if you’ve been to Singapore, let me know about your experience too!