Singapore Trip Report

Flying to Singapore

A couple of days before my trip to Singapore I got food poisoning and was feeling absolutely terrible. Fortunately enough I recovered fairly quickly and felt okayish on the day of my flight. The flight was great, because I flew Korean Air. They simply never disappoint! I also talked to an interesting Japanese businessman during the flight and during our stopover at Incheon. After arriving in Singapore I took a cab to my hotel. I'm pretty sure the taxi driver spoke English, but for some reason I couldn't understand what he was saying. I was later told that he must've spoken 'Singlish', some sort of mix between English and Chinese spoken amongst certain locals.

I stayed at a hotel called the Forest by Wangz. A little pricey, but definitely an amazing place! The staff is INSANELY friendly and after eating a great scrambled eggs with bacon breakfast I headed out to explore Singapore and meet with a friend of a friend called Hiroyuki for lunch. He took me for some local food. The food wasn't bad, but not exactly my thing. However I did really enjoy meeting Hiroyuki, which is most important anyway! Here's pictures of the food:

 Noodles with some pork and vegetables

Soup filled with dumplings

Singapore's Atmosphere

After lunch, I set out to explore Singapore. If you like nature, skyscrapers or a mix of them you're sure to love the way Singapore looks:

 Skyscrapers

 Very interestingly shaped skyscraper. Looks like there's some amazing penthouses!

 More skyscrapers

 Probably the most interesting looking skyscrapers I've ever seen

 Orchard shopping district

 Very cool looking shopping mall, Ion Orchard

 Chinese themed shopping mall in Orchard on the left

Overall I think Singapore's a beautiful city. There's a TON of nature and it's definitely called 'The Garden City' for a good reason. On top of that, I love skyscrapers and there's no shortage of those in Singapore either. Plus Singapore's skyscrapers look a lot cooler than the ones in Tokyo. I have a feeling that they can't be as creative in Tokyo due to earthquakes, because the skyscrapers in Hong Kong also look a lot less dull.

Food in Singapore

So Singapore's beautiful, but how about the food? Well... I was severely disappointed on this front. Especially the first week, I sometimes spent nearly an hour looking for a place with decent food. There's very very few healthy options in Singapore and the food doesn't taste particularly great either. I didn't really have any decent food for the entire first week. Supermarkets are even worse. Unless you don't mind cooking(which I do when travelling), there is absolutely NO healthy food apart from fruit in Singaporean supermarkets. Absolutely none!
Fortunately enough during the 2nd week I stayed in Singapore I ran into a few decent restaurants(mostly Korean and Japanese). There's quite some variety in Japanese food in Singapore and while it's weak at best compared to Japanese food in Japan, it's better than most Japanese food in western cities like London. I also happened to stumble onto the Marina Bay Sands resort on my very last day and actually found that there were some good restaurants there aswell. So I guess overall there probably is some good food in Singapore, you just have to really know where to look for it.
Last but not least I want to touch on Singaporean local food. Food courts are typical Singaporean places where there's a lot of tables where you can sit and eat and a lot of vendors selling food. It's generally very cheap and thus low quality. Not exactly my thing. The only true Singaporean food I ate is Chicken Rice, which was actually pretty good. Cheap, healthy and fairly tasty too. Here's the couple of pics I took of food:

 Chinese food at a food court

 Thai food at a restaurant

Pretty good chicken rice

The rest of my time in Singapore I spent handling a couple of business things through Skype and playing a bunch of online poker. The highlight of my trip however was meeting up with Vanessa, my friend in Singapore. I hadn't seen her for over a year so it was great to catch up with her. We went for dinner one day and then another she took me to the chicken rice place and we went shopping afterwards. Thanks for showing me around even though you were crazy busy with work, Vanessa!

Marina Bay Sands Resort Singapore

On my last day I went to the Marina Bay Sands resort, which has a rooftop with an amazing view of Singapore's skyline.

Shopping at Marina Bay Sands

Overall Thoughts

Overall Singapore's a beautiful city, but there's not a ton of stuff to do and I personally hate the food. I may be back for business at some point, but what this trip made me realize the most is how freaking amazing Japan is!!!