Anthony and Katey Curnow

Leaving the air conditioned comfort of our apartment, the sun was already beaming through the Indonesian fire haze currently blanketing the city. The sweat beads began to form immediately. We were in search of a coffee shop close by, that looked super hipster, brewed their own coffee and potentially would provide a light breakfast. Closed for a private function. We backtracked half a block to a minimalist ‘beverage only’ establishment named ‘Apartment’. It’s white washed light wood Nordic styling had us breathing calmly in an instant, as we sipped our pure origin coffees from hand crafted heavy glazed ceramic mugs of pastel shades. It was lovely, our first ‘Melbourne style’ coffees in months. Not quite yet home, but close enough. ‘Think we’re going to like it here Kate!’ I said.

Continuing south on foot, we reached SunCity Plaza, one of the many many shopping centres that make up the city. We had a wonder through some of the shops, had a quick almond croissant and second coffee then jumped onto the train at Promenade and headed north to the Botanic Gardens.

Let me just take a minute to say a few things about Singapore and it’s public transport. It’s well designed, safe, clean, air conditioned and incredibly orderly - and I like order! On arrival to a station, the colour coded lines and numbered/named stations make it a breeze to navigate. We went to buy a ticket and the incredibly helpful staff advised us to just use our bankcards....what?! Yes, that’s right, you just tap your card and over the course of the day it’ll work out your fare depending on distances travelled. It’s a great way for irregular and limited use of the system. Now why on earth can’t Myki do that? In fact, why doesn’t every system just use your bank card and figure out using AI the best fare for you, decreasing in cost over time and amount of use.
Arriving to the platform, there are glass walls to protect you from danger (and lessen the amount of track jumpers), and lines on the floor indicating you to stand to the side to let people in and out of the carriage. It’s so civilised, orderly and it works. No indecent pushing or shoving, just the gentle ebb and flow of people.
On the train, television screens and lit up iterations of the map indicate which station is approaching, which side the platform will be on, and what features at each destination. It’s so informative! Now should you decide to see this public transport brilliance for yourselves, leave your durian at home. They’re illegal and so is eating and drinking in the system, or a big whopping fine of $500SGD for you.

I was most impressed at the end of our time at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, when Kate said ‘that’s one of the best gardens I’ve ever seen!’ And she’s got good reason to think that, with it being a UNESCO world heritage site. Founded in 1859, the garden continues to be developed and maintained to an absolutely immaculate level. You see staff up ladders picking out the yellow and dying leaves of vines on arbours. Surely the do that every single day... it was a magical few hours engrossed by tropical wonders. One of the highlights was most certainly the National Orchid Collection. Oh, and we even saw a little snake slither into the ferns; that was cool.

Here’s an interesting article regarding Singapore’s current status of having 47% of its island designated as green space. A percentage which continues to grow alongside its economy and population, with the conversion of rooftops to green roofs.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/singapore-greenest-city/index.html

By this stage we had shared a sandwich and drink overlooking Swan Lake, and so were quite peckish. We jumped on a train and headed for Orchard, a huge shopping strip west of downtown. We never actually saw the strip however, because we jumped off the train which deposits you directly from one perfectly air conditioned environwmt and into another - the new ION Orchard shopping centre. Full of glitz and glammer, this is the place we decided to go to a little bakery chain similar to Bread Top and try the Pork Floss bun. It is sweet, yet salty and has the consistency of fairy floss on the outside of its light and fluffy sweetened bread centre. Yum, I’ll be looking out for these at home.

Back to the station (Orchard Rd will have to wait until our next visit), we headed south to Singapore’s prize attraction - Gardens by The Bay! Approaching the gardens, the Marina Bay Sands looms above with its sci fi, space ship like structure adorning the top of the building. Cascading Bougainvilleas turn the white building shades of pink and purple. It really is quite the architectural feat, and somewhere I’d like to perhaps stay one day!

The Gardens by The Bay in a nutshell:
1 Floral Fantasy - the flower exhibit was tacky and not worth the money. The 15 minute 4D show at the end almost made up for it when we had feathers tickle our ankles and sprays of water thrown at our face.
2 Flower Dome - A huge spectacular of various zones and featuring lots of artwork interspersed amongst the gardens. Unfortunately they included purple Cordylines and hebes in the Australian section...
3 Cloud Forest - a massive volcanic like mountain covered in foliage. With exception of the queues, it feels more like a green theme park than a showcase of plants. Impressive none the less, and most pleasing at dusk when the lights came on as it appeared as if a Star Trek ship had landed on top of the mount.
We watched the light show with thousands of others beneath the Supergrove, then ran to a station to AVL the crowds, much like a trip to the footy.

Arriving at Boon Tat Street we found and ate at the ‘Best Satay’ stall. A few Tiger beers, 20 little skewers of meat and 6 prawns later our bellies were just satisfied. We dunked those delicious meat sticks in spicy, peanut sauce and pallet cleansed with a side if diced cucumber and red onion. Just delicious, tasty and fun to eat. The smoke filled street imbibed our clothes with the sweet and spicy smell.

19km later on foot, we arrived home to the apartment for a quick shower and cool down.

Then we ate more. Back to Adam’s Seafood Restaurant, the delicious place around the corner from our apartment, that we went to last night as well. A few more condensed milk iced coffees, parathas, and some greens, and we were ready for our beds. What a spectacular day Singapore provided. We most certainly do like it here...!Read more