The Journey Begins - Singapore

Hi friends and family,

As some of you know already, I’ve embarked on a months-long travel expedition on the opposite side of the world. As of writing this, there are still many unknowns with the itinerary, but I plan to be in Southeast Asia for a little over a month before heading to Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia for a month and a half to two months. I’ll have my lovely girlfriend Melanie by my side for most of the adventures, and we’re planning on meeting up with some friends at various points along the way. The blog is a little behind real time already, but I’ll do my best to keep it as current as possible. This post is about Singapore, our first stop in Southeast Asia.

My travels began in Boston on the morning of Sunday, January 8. Mel and I got up at 5:30 in Boston to get to the airport for an 8am flight. We flew to New York, then Korea, and finally Singapore. The flight to Korea was 16 hours, the longest flight I’ve ever been on. It was pretty rough, but the seats had decent leg room and we were able to sleep for a good chunk of the flight.

We had a quick layover in Korea and had to run through the airport after getting through security again to make it on our flight. We slept for most of the flight and got into Singapore in the very early hours of January 10. We breezed through immigration and got a taxi to our hotel easily. Our hotel was barebones: one hard mattress taking up about half the room and a tiny bathroom. Thankfully we had AC since it was hot and extremely humid in Singapore.

Our first night we were able to sleep most of it since our flight got in late. The next morning we took the bus into the city and got breakfast at a café. We were impressed with the public transit system throughout the trip; the buses were always clean, timely, air-conditioned, and we could pay for them by tapping our credit cards, making them super easy. We walked around town for a bit after breakfast, picked up some coffees, and went to the Gardens by the Bay Park. The park is essentially a big garden with many natural plants and artificial creations that resemble nature. Some of the highlights are the Supertree Grove, with really tall futuristic looking trees, and the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest, which are greenhouses with exotic plants inside. Much of the park feels manufactured, but it was still enjoyable walking through and I liked that there was some green space in the middle of the city.

After touring the park, our big travel days caught up with us. We were feeling pretty tired so we went home to rest. We planned to take a quick nap before heading out and seeing the night safari, an attraction the zoo hosts at night, but we promptly feel asleep at 6pm and slept through the night.

The next day we explored the island of Sentosa, which felt like another ostentatious display of Singapore’s huge amount of wealth. The first stop on the metro over was for a Universal Studios theme park, which might as well have been in Florida. The crowd thinned out after that stop and we got off with far fewer passengers at the stop near the beach. Our surroundings made us feel like we were in a carnival; there were food trucks and tons of man-made attractions like bungee jump, simulated skydiving, and tiny manufactured islands for light shows and concerts. The beach was alright but the water was a little murky and there weren’t many people. The island felt tacky and underused. I’m guessing the Universal Studios part was a better option for families on vacation, but overall the island felt like a tourist trap.

In the evening, we visited the Skypark in the Marina Bay Sands hotel. The hotel has some wild architecture going on with three towers all connected at the top by a large ship, lying horizontally across them.

The Skypark is the observation deck at the top of the hotel where people can view the city. We walked through the incredibly grand inside of the hotel to take the elevator up. The views from the top were cool but the deck was crowded because only part of the ship was open for walking around, so everyone was confined to a small section. It was fun seeing the views from up top, but we would’ve preferred to enjoy them from the comfort of the restaurant on the level above (the ship on top had two levels) if we’d been able to make a reservation.

On our last full day in Singapore we checked out the Botanic Gardens. This was probably the highlight for me, as it felt like an oasis in the city. The country prides itself on being the “Garden City”, but we didn’t feel that much until we escaped the concrete jungle downtown area and made it to the Botanic Gardens. The city is hot, humid, and heavily developed. The gardens, in contrast, felt cooler and more open, which we very much appreciated after being cooped up in a tiny hotel room in the city. The gardens had lots of interesting plants and nice paths to walk along. The highlight for me was a serene pond with sloping hills leading down to it. We sat there for a while and watched the lily pads float along slowly, enjoying the peace and quiet.

In the afternoon, I went for a run along East Coast Park, near our hotel. It’s a decent park with paths for walking, running, and biking, BBQ areas, and beaches. The open space right along the ocean is nice, but one thing that takes away from it is all the cargo ships passing to the south in the Singapore Strait. It made the park less relaxing and beautiful for me.

On the day of our flight from Singapore to Phuket (I’ll write about Phuket next post), we got breakfast and then went to the airport early to see the attractions in the airport. The airport is unbelievably opulent with nice facilities everywhere and many attractions for people waiting for flights. The coolest one is a giant indoor waterfall that looks kind of like an hourglass. There were many other attractions that looked fun but most cost money so we skipped them.

We stopped in Singapore because it was a cheap way to fly into Southeast Asia. We didn’t have expectations for Singapore but came in with open minds, hoping to be enchanted by what it had to offer. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much for us, granted we mostly visited tourist attractions. Still, the more local parts of downtown and parks didn’t give us the brightest view of the country. I felt like the city was sterile and had lots of money, but there wasn’t much character to it. Who knows? It’s tough to get a good read on a place in such a short amount of time, but that’s my impression after a three-day visit. Regardless, I’m always happy to have visited a new place and it was just a stepping stone in the greater travels.

As always, I want to give a big thank you to everyone for taking the time to read this. I appreciate your interest in my travels and hope that this blog has given you a bit of a sense of what it’s been like. I can’t wait to catch up with you all again in person.

P.S. I have an international SIM card and I haven’t been able to receive texts with it. The situation might change in Fiji, New Zealand, or Australia, but in the meantime you can reach me via email (thomasdjones4@gmail.com), WhatsApp (you should still be able to text my American number, 860-558-4333, through that app), or Instagram (@tommydjones4).