Thursday, December 17, 2015

Singapore Visitor's Sights

Attractions, Museums and Gardens
Areas to see: City centre, Chinatown, Little India.
Hotels to see: Raffles; Shangri-la (waterfalls); Hyatt (waterfall); Sheraton (waterfall); Marriott by Tang's department store (palm trees in lobby); Marina Bay

Gardens By The Bay. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Gardens By the Bay Flower Dome



Gardens by the Bay Flower Dome.
Photo by Trevor Sharot. Copyright.

Gardens By the Bay
Gardens By the Bay riverside walks
Night Safari
Zoo
Bird Park
Marina Bay Sands top floor
History Museum
Philatelic Stamp Museum
Peranakan Museum
Bridge, pedestrian, painted
Bridge, pedestrian, helix
Changi
Old Ford Factory
Fish head curry. Banana leaf. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Tours and Rides
Singapore Flyer
Duck tour
Sentosa Island
Hop on hop off bus. (Check whether you get a free bus tour from Changi or around the city by showing your Singapore Airlines ticket.)

MRT
A must see. Stunning stations include the busy and delaying multi-storey, multi-walkway Dhoby Ghaut station. Go to the latest station which opens Dec 27 2015, Cashew Road, and ride the loop where the windows suddenly go white and block the view as you pass within feet of the windows of skyscrapers built beside the stations and tracks.

Shopping
Orchard Road
Mustaphas (Western, Indian, large sizes)
Underground walk from ION to basements 1 and 2 from Orchard station to Ngee Ann City
Chinese department store in Chinatown

Special Restaurants and Foods
Fish Head curry and rice and curry served on a banana leaf in a restaurant in or near Little India such as Muthu's.
For a cheap meal, go to a hawker centre, a circle of fast food kiosks of various nationalities including Chinese and other Asians and usually a Western one and if you are lucky a fruit and justice bar, in the basement or top floor of most shopping malls.
For moderate to expensive fun at an informal place try IO.
For a special occasion, book drinks or dinner Raffles Hotel or at the top of Marina Bay. Or gourmet.
For tea time, try the rainbow cake. (See my earlier post.)
For a gourmet dinner, try the place I reviewed in an earlier post, where the chef makes surprise dishes for you (Fratini restaurant).You might also like the buzz of the waterside restaurants along Boat Quay and Clarke Quay. You can also dine on a boat.

Seasonal foods:
Moon cakes (autumn), all flavours, sold in restaurants, department stores, special shops which pop up, bakeries, markets, delis, even ice cream shops.

Moon cakes.

Chinese New Year - restaurants and clubs have New Year dinners, at which the main dish is a mixture of foods in a communal bowl eaten with chopsticks, starting by everybody tossing food in the air above the plate, called Yusheng. (See Wikipedia, Hungry Go Where and lots more sites.) Wear washable clothes.
See my previous posts on Singapore

Seasonal events
Formula 1
Great Singapore Sale
Chinese New Year (lights in streets and lion dances)
Boat trips to islands

Events:
Guided tours of museums.
(Talks. Join Friends of the Museum.)
Speakers' Groups. (See Toastmasters International website, find a club.)
Hash House Harriers. (Running through the jungle.)
See the free newspapers at the entrances to railway stations.
Buy The Straits Times. You may find a copy on your plane or in the airport lounge. Singapore daily newspapers are online.


Lions and lion dances, Chinese new year


Cassata Siciliana from IO italian Osteria.

Discounts -
see maps which are free from Changi airport and major hotels.
Bargains - fixed prices in some shops. But get a Chinese friend to negotiate bargains even in shops with fixed prices. If assistants follow you around, try looking keen to buy, asking price, then walking out and see if they chase after you offering a lower price.

Angela Lansbury has been a resident of Singapore for more than ten years.

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