After our marathon flight from LAX, we were feeling OK. It was morning in Singapore so we felt like we should get out and see the sights while we were awake enough. We took a Grab from the airport to our hotel, the Conrad Centennial. I’ll have a review of the hotel in the next post.

We were able to check in at 9am which was great as we were able to put our luggage in the room and freshen up. After a quick bite to eat at the breakfast buffet (another surprise as I did not expect to be able to have breakfast on the day we checked in), we headed out to Gardens by the Bay.

We walked to the Gardens via the Helix Bridge and it was fairly easy to find the way using Google Maps.

We ended up buying the combo ticket for the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome. We walked through the Cloud Forest first. Thankfully there were elevators and escalators so my wife did not have to walk too many stairs with her ankle boot on.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed the Cloud Forest. I’m not really into botanical gardens, but the combo of the interesting layout with a waterfall and sculptures plus the views from the top over Singapore made it worth visiting.

From there, we moved on to the Flower Dome. It’s basically all on the ground so it was a bit less interesting to me. However, they did have a Japanese sakura display with cherry blossoms so that was kind of cool.

After our visit, I figured out how to get a cash advance from my CapOne Venture X card (I had to call and set up a PIN), so I grabbed some cash from the ATM at the entrance. We then took a Grab to Little India.

Unfortunately, we weren’t too enamored with Little India. There were some interesting buildings and temples, but my wife didn’t really find any local crafts or shops worth browsing. It was mostly tourist junk.

We cut our losses and took another Grab to Chinatown. We found it a bit more interesting.

It was also getting close to lunch time so we went to the Chinatown Food Center to get some chicken rice. I ended up getting it from this stall and while it was pretty good, I think the version on Singapore Airlines was actually better.

At this point, we were getting tired and it was very hot, so we took a Grab back to the hotel for a nap. I also went to the pool for a while.

That evening, we went to the Maxwell Food Center for dinner. I had pork wantons and soup dumplings. My wife had an oyster omelet. Both were very good but not amazing. I didn’t get a picture of our meals, but you can probably guess what wantons and dumplings look like.

The next morning, we were up early after a pretty good night’s sleep considering the time change. We had breakfast at the Conrad right when the restaurant opened and took a Grab to Siloso Beach on Sentosa Island. My wife wanted to look for shells. I found the beach kind of “Disneyish,” but at that hour there was nobody around so it definitely was peaceful (and not too hot).

We had no trouble getting a Grab back to the hotel. At that point, my wife was tired and her ankle was bothering her from the beach so she decided to rest while I went to some more tourist sights.

I first visited the National Museum. I went via MRT (really just to try it out and get out of the heat for 20 minutes). Of course, it was perfectly clean and efficient, just like everything in Singapore.

The National Museum was well-organized, with a large exhibit on the history of Singapore and a couple of other special exhibits (which were kind of boring if I’m honest). There was a cool light show exhibit that you could walk through and down.

From the museum, I walked all the way to Marina Bay Sands, which at around noon was probably a terrible idea. I sweated buckets, but at least I was working off a huge breakfast. I bought a ticket for the observation deck. Note that you can come after 5pm and go to the bar at the top called Ce La Vi. If you buy one drink, you can access the observation deck for free. Unfortunately, I was there at the wrong time so I paid S$32 to go up.

I didn’t wait too long for the elevator and the views were really good. You can basically walk all the way around and see every side of Singapore from there.

I took a Grab back to the hotel as I was basically melting by this point. As we had a credit to use, we went to the afternoon tea at the Conrad (more about that in the next post). Following that, it was still only around 2pm, so we took a Grab to visit a couple of craft stores that my wife had found in her exhaustive research (5 minutes of Googling). We ended up on Orchard Road and walked from one store to another. The skies opened up when we reached the last store so from there we took a Grab back to the hotel. Weirdly, it wasn’t even raining at the Conrad, about 2 miles away.

That night we went to Lau Pa Sat for dinner. It’s very touristy, but has lots of options. I had something called a Pork Noodle Set, which included noodles, dumplings and soup. My wife had Beef Noodle Soup. Both were good, but again, nothing amazing.

We ended up taking a taxi back to the hotel so I could burn some of my remaining Singapore dollars. The next morning we took a taxi to the airport around 5:40am to head to Siem Reap.

We enjoyed our two days in Singapore despite the heat and the thunderstorm. Getting around via Grab was easy and efficient. Although there’s a great MRT system, it probably makes more sense for tourists to walk or take a Grab than navigate the MRT everywhere as Grabs are relatively cheap and you can get from point to point more easily.

I felt like I saw most of what I wanted to see. It’s a very clean and organized place (there’s a reason one nickname is Disney with the death penalty) and very impressive to see in person. I’m not sure we need to go back anytime soon, but I’m glad we got to have a short visit to start off our trip.

Up Next: Conrad Centennial Singapore King Club Room Review

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