Marina Bay, Singapore

We arrived in Singapore yesterday. Long story short, it was a bit of a nightmare with one flight being delayed by over three hours. Luckily we didn’t miss our connecting flight from Kuala Lumpur and made it to Singapore for the evening. We stayed at a budget hotel, no more than a basic but clean room with a private bathroom. Capsule pods were the same sort of price but of course were capsules not private rooms. Funnily enough, this small hotel room cost the same as the luxury golden hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Today was our first day exploring Singapore. We'd bought a travel card which gave us unlimited use on the MRT (Singapore’s equivalent to the London Underground) for the duration of our stay. The MRT was great and in fact just a better version of the underground. It had air con, was more spacious and included small details such as timings between stations, lights on the map in the carriage to indicate which direction the route was going and signs which lit up to show you which side to exit from etc. Very minor details but made travel so much easier!

Our first stop was Gardens by the Bay, a man-made nature park spanning an area of 250 acres, consisting of a diverse range of flora and fauna from across the world. It also contained a well known attraction called Supertree Grove, a complex of large metal tree structures. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the gardens which had many different areas to explore such as a cactus zone, silver garden, fruits and flowers, colonial garden and much more. After grabbing a bite to eat, we took a stroll around Marina Bay. Throughout the afternoon we visited the Marina Sands shopping centre, Merlion statue and Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Some may recognise this iconic hotel which looks like a ship on top of three skyscrapers. It's massive and an amazing piece of architecture although clearly was well out of our budget with room prices starting at £500 a night. The shopping centre was very upmarket with many designer shops and even a water feature running through it.Read more