Big City Lights: Exploring Singapore
- Katie Miller
- Dec 10, 2023
- 8 min read
Day 13: Metro trekking the Garden City
The teenager was very much looking forward to this big city leg of our trip. As much as the parents love getting off the beaten path when it comes to exploring, the kids very much are still smitten with the tourist traps so we need to play a little balancing game in the itinerary. We planned to head to Sentosa Island for a good part of the day. This is like tourist central with all sorts of resorts and parks and beaches. I had hoped that we would do a 'luge' where you take a gondola up the hill and then drive a scooter car down a windy hill. Then we'd get some serious beach time in and maybe bike around the island. However, as we were walking across the boardwalk to the island, my kids saw the roller coasters. I had made jokes while planning with my husband, 'can you imagine going all the way to Asia and then going to a Universal Studios? Who would do that?!' Welp, after some begging and negotiating, this family would be doing just that, going to Universal Studios Singapore.
We happened to be arriving before the park even opened but the queue was forming to get into the park. I despise just about everything about amusement parks, the entry costs, food costs and time spent waiting in lines are my main gripes. However, I would be a good sport and enjoy the time at Universal Studios for the kids. They mainly wanted roller coasters. Even the 8 year old has gotten into them and she was very psyched to realize she was tall enough for all the rides in the park. As soon as we got into the park, we ventured to the roller coaster that they had been eyeing up from afar. They quickly jumped into line and we realized we needed a non-rider to hold the bags or put them in lockers (and needed singapore dollars for that, which we didn't have) so I had an excuse to find a partially shady bench and relax and research the park (because I clearly had not done this before we showed up) while they road the coasters. The next was a mummy-themed rollercoaster in 'Egypt' - this time I got selected to go on the ride with them. I don't want to be a total snooze of a mom, afterall. It was a bit scary/roller coaster thriller which I actually enjoyed a bit. Of course the kids weren't satisfied with the thrill level. The remainder or the roller coasters in the park were not living up to the hype of the first coasters they road, so they went back to ride those again. This time there was an hour wait which the adults have zero patience for. We sent the kids into the line on their own with their tracking devices attached and said we'd see them when they got done. They really liked that bit of independence. At that point, with the lines all long, the kids lost interest in being in the park, which was fine by me. We were off to the beach by like 2 pm. Not exactly a great bang for our buck.
The Sentosa island beaches are man-made, but was the closest/easiest beach to access in Singapore. The water was warm, the sky was clear, the sun was hot, it was a good day to be at the beach! We spent a couple of hours playing there and everyone was ready to go back to the hotel and get cleaned up and rest a bit.
That evening we planned to go to Gardens by the Bay for their Super Tree light show. Totally free and amazing spectacle. We wandered through the gardens until we found the super trees that would be the show.
We learned from our first outting that you never know when rain will hit in Singapore so we had our rain jackets just in case. And about 15 minutes before the show was set to start the clouds started to roll in. This time with some lightening. I don't know if being amonst giant metal trees is where you want to be in a lightening storm but I also wasn't planning on missing the show. Fortunately, it passed pretty quickly and we got to thoroughly enjoy the show. The music was brilliant and the trees were beautifully choreographed. The gardens were also all decked out for Christmas which was fun to see.
Day 14: Final Day in South East Asia
We had a last full day in Singapore since our flight didn't leave until 2 AM that night (so technically the next day). It would be a bittersweet day of packing to start the trek home with still some time to explore anything we wanted to see yet.
The Penn State football game was on in the AM and the husband was feeling a little under the weather with a sinus thing so we decided to have a girl-time adventure. I think showing my daughter that girls can go out on their own and have our own fun is an important lesson to learn. We love having daddy and brother along, but we girls can explore on our own too. We had breakfast at a nearby cafe and then took off in the metro to Little India. We wandered the streets and markets of little India feeling like we were visiting yet another country. So many flowers for sale, some made into necklaces. If we weren't going on a flight later that night I would have bought one. My daughter contemplated getting a beautiful Indian sari but when I told her we were going to have to ask for help the bashful girl changed her mind pretty quickly. As we walked the streets there were several henna shops and that seemed like a good idea so we stopped and both got a henna tattoo on our hand. Definitely a good mommy-daughter activity! Next the trick was navigating the busy streets and metro system without getting the ink residue all over ourselves.
The girl thinks she like the idea of malls and shopping so she wanted to head to a shopping district - orchard park, so we headed there on the metro next. The malls that we found there were quite a bit more luxurious than we can even enjoy browsing. Louis Vuitton did have a christmas tree house on display with a LV cartoon and stickers for christmas. Start them young, I guess? In the end, the mall really wasn't a very exciting place to be.
We headed back to the hotel to finish our packing and checkout of the hotel. They would keep our bags while we continued to explore the city for the remainder of the day.
My son decided we should just ride the metro and stop at as many random neighborhoods as we could - just exit the metro station, see what it's like and get back on the train (our pass was unlimited afterall). I liked the sense of adventure but my feet were also getting to their limit after 17 days of non-stop walking!
We started with going back to Gardens by the Bay. Although we had been there the previous day, we hadn't fully explored the gardens. It was a very beautiful area to wonder. We'd randomly stumble upon aquariums filled with interesting fish and other entertaining features. We found the kids area which had a fun playground/adventure course area which entertained the kids for a while and I gladly rested my feet.
Our next stop was at Chinatown. As we wandered through the streets of China, it wasn't quitely as vastly different feeling as Little India had been but was fun to see the variation in decorations and shops. A bit more of looking at food shops and wondering what exactly we were looking at. This was a pretty quick stop.
I had wanted to see one of the Merlion statues of Singapore, the limit was going to be how much effort we were willing to put into making this happen. The main Merlion statue park was listed as 'closed' on Google maps but it was the only one that seemed reasonable to try to visit (based on proximity to a metro stop). We wondered our way towards the 'closed' park in hopes we'd at least be able to get a glimpse of the statue. Our aimless wondering took us through some really fancy tunnels and walkways, where we once again feel fairly underdressed for the ocassion. As we arrive at Merlion park, we see why it's closed. The status itself is covered with scaffolding and billboards. There would be no Merlion spotting on this trip but it was a lovely view of the bay area.
We got to the airport tremendously early to give us enough time to explore the 'Jewel' of Singapore. The Jewel was a bit of a hike from the metro terminal but at least a clearly marked hike through multiple typical airport walkways. The Jewel itself is essentially a massive mall that is external but connected to the airport. The kicker is that there are additional activities in the Jewel that make it more appealing than a typical airport AND it has a massive waterfall in the middle which was extremely impressive. Our kids greatly enjoyed the Bouncing Net on the top level of the Jewel. At 9 pm at night, there are hardly any other kids there too. Every hour or so there was also a light and music show in the waterfall. We enjoyed that from the top level without many other people around us while the kids play. There wasn't much about this trip that I would label as 'romantic' but that moment may have been close!
Logistically we made a couple of small misteps that may or may not be useful to future travelers. First, we got dinner at a restaurant in the Jewel when there was a lounge 'landside' that we would have had access to for free food. Probably our most expensive meal of the entire trip else it may not have been worthy of mentioning. Also, we probably could have left our bags there while we explored the Jewel, instead we carried them around. There was an official luggage storage option in the mall but we think it would have cost like $50. Second, our Qatar Airways flight was eligible for early checkin at the Jewel. I don't know how you know if your flight is or is not eligible other than showing up at the 'early check in' desk or by looking at the flight boards in the airport itself. Of all the flights shown on the board when we checked, ours was the only one listed as eligible. By doing this earlier, we could have checked in prior to 3 hours before our flight and enjoyed the airport amenities (and lounges) earlier. When your flight is at 2 AM, checking in and settling into a lounge for a quick nap before 11 PM is a nice idea. There was so much activity at this airport, I'm pretty sure it's a 24x7 operation.
We napped at a lounge a bit before we boarded our flight to Doha, Qatar. This lounge had shower options which I must say are more appealing than I would have thought. We didn't use them but they would have definitely been a huge perk if we were connecting through on a long haul flight.
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