Singapore

Preface: We're back in the States now, safely self-quarantining after a turbulent and uncertain couple of weeks. Going to finish out the blog, though, partly in the interest of completeness and partly in the interest of escapism.

So anyways, we landed in Singapore on the afternoon of March 12th after just a one-hour flight from KL. We took a quick look at the Jewel complex in the airport--an incredibly lush indoor jungle-mall surrounding a huge cylindrical waterfall--before taking public transportation to our Airbnb, a little bit east of the center of the city.

After a delicious wonton soup dinner right next to our place, we took a bus and train about 40 minutes to Gardens by the Bay, a super iconic public park with large-scale nature-themed art installations. The sun had just set as we got there, and we had a really nice evening wandering around, commenting on the seamless integration of the natural and urban worlds, and enjoying the warm night air. We even caught that night's light show in the Supertree Grove, which was impressively arranged to a series of opera hits, culminating in the Nessun Dorma aria from Turandot.

The following morning, after having some kaya toast for breakfast, we walked around Kampong Glam, a historically Muslim neighborhood that now lives side-by-side with a plethora of cute shops, restaurants, and bars. This was our first time just wandering around a big city since Saigon, and we had a really nice, relaxed time checking out Singapore's multiculturalism, admiring the beautiful and functional urban design, and marveling at everyone's adherence to the collective social order.

That said, we were still at a bit of a loss for what to actually do, so we decided to go to the aquarium, which we had heard was really cool. The aquarium is located on Sentosa, a kind of super-resort island just south of the city itself. We took a weird monorail to get there (opting to pass up another expensive and terrifyingly high cable car ride), and found ourselves in a huge Disney-esque plaza of stores, hotels, branded experiences, and attractions (including a Universal Studios theme park). As we had seen several times on our trip so far, this was a space designed to accommodate thousands of people but which was nearly empty because of the virus.

The aquarium itself lived up to its reputation, and we spent a really fun couple hours walking around and looking at the various marine life exhibits on display, including a gigantic "open ocean" tank with three manta rays. There wasn't really anything else that we wanted to do on Sentosa, though, so we just went back to our Airbnb to rest a little. Michelle took a short nap while Chandler went out, grabbed a beer in a nearby expat-dominated area, and did a little work.

That night, we walked around Little India for a while and ate incredibly delicious meal of dosa with lentils. Besides some restaurants, however, there wasn't too much activity in that area, partly because of the virus and partly because the it's more active during the daytime anyways. So we just returned home and went to bed early.

We kicked off our last morning with another delicious Singapore classic, Hainanese chicken rice and duck rice, before heading out to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. The gardens are actually a UNESCO World Heritage site and yet another example of Singapore's seamless integration of green space into the urban environment; we were super impressed at the mix of manicured nature and functional public park. We also visited the National Orchid Garden, which had orchids in an amazing array of colors and patterns. From there, we just went back to our Airbnb, gathered our things, and headed out to the airport to catch out flight to Bali.

Next up: Munduk

Gardens by the Bay

Kaya toast!

Haji Road, Kampong Glam

Just some casually awesome urban design

Singapore Aquarium

Delicious dosa

Orchids!