And here I go…..

We flew from Seattle to Singapore via Seoul. In Seoul our connection was delayed by deicing, as it was in the midst of a snowstorm, something that happens very rarely in Seattle. However, upon getting off our plane, at around 1 am local time, you could still feel the tropical humidity that I was certainly now far away from home, and the weather here was like nothing I had experienced recently.

Entering the country, thre were still significant delays getting through immigration, mostly because their automated entry system was acting up, and there was a giant flux of tourists entering the country, even at 1 am. While in Seoul, my wife got a message from our pre arranged driver reminding us to upload our information to Singapore’s pre arrival approval site. Although being Americans we didn’t need visas for Singapore, we still had to provide our information to their website in order for us to get in the country, and probably cut down on our entry time significantly.

It appears these pre entry sites are going to become more common going forward in the post COVID world. I hear reports that Europe is setting up a similar site for tourists entering the Schengen Area. So, it appears the era of just waving my blue passport and getting in anywhere may be in the past.

We meet up with our pre arranged driver and headed to our hotel, the Pan Pacific on Orchard Road. It was a nice and central location, however, I now feel that pretty much anywhere in Singapore would meet that description.

In a city like Singapore, the transit system makes it so that you really have no need for a car. We were a couple blocks from a subway station, and all subway stations seem to have massive shopping malls attached. Within this mall was a Starbucks Coffee. From my sabbatical posts, one can derive that I essentially need my morning Starbucks fix wherever I travel.

I had downloaded the Grab app ahead of time thinking we might be using it extensively for this trip, but really only needed it to get back to the airport. Hence, the only times we actually needed a car on this trip was getting to and from the airport.

Our first day in town was designed to be a recovery day, after all, we arrived at 1 AM, hence we expected to accomplish nothing besides extensive napping. Yet, I feel this was our most productive day in the city. We ended up visiting the Gardens by the Bay Park as well as the adjacent botanical gardens

After the botanical gardens, we headed to the Marina Sands area, as it’s right next to the gardens. There I had the Lobster Macaroni and Cheese, I suppose I should have taken it as a sign that it was $50, quite a bit for lobster Mac, even accounting for the currency conversion, though I still was surprised to see the actual lobster to say hi.

It’s by this time just a little after noon and hot. Kind of reminds me of summers in the midwest, although for here, this is actually somewhat mild being it was February, don’t know how people can stand that kind of heat without extreme air conditioning.

After this it was time to head back to the hotel.

The following day, after our Starbucks run, we headed to Suntec City, another subway station with an attached shopping mall, for us to get on the Hop On/Hop Off bus tour. Something else I try to do in every city I visit, I suppose I should do a post about those at some time, and ended up doing a stop in Chinatown.

Note the dragon props in the last photo above, unbeknownst to us when we booked this trip, we were arriving during the Lunar New Year, going into the year of the dragon. This would be a big deal through the rest of our trip in Cambodia, which also has a large Chinese population, and Vietnam, where the new year lines up with their holiday of Tet.

We ended up in the Singapore botanical gardens, and from there walked back to the hotel, before having a fancy dinner that night in the area.

On our final day in Singapore we went to check out the Singapore Art Museum, which, unbeknownst to Apple Maps, was closed for renovations. They had a temporary location set up in the harbor area, but that was several kilometers away. To be cheep, we walked it, once again, not recommended given the heat, but we had places to be.

I was somewhat cranky when we got to the museum, but was put in a better mood by an animated tiger film they had, which was, well, life altering. Drugs are strictly illegal in Singapore, even going so far as sentencing people to death for dealing them, taking the war on drugs to a whole new level. However, I don’t see how it was possible for this film to be made without extensive use of controlled substances.

After all this it was time to move along to our next destination, Siem Reap Cambodia, where more adventure awaited.