Heyo, friends and fam!

Before you worry: yes, we’re actually visiting Singapore, not just the airport this time.

We have to admit that we aren’t city people, but as far as cities (or rather, city-states) go, Singapore is well-organized, clean, and interesting.

But before we get to the city itself, you’re going to have to indulge me with a review of the flight we took to get there. Or you could scroll down. The power is *literally* in your hands.
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Perry’s Travel Diary

Trying Singapore Airlines’ Business Class (fo’ free!)

If you’ve been reading since our first email, you may remember that I used United’s Excursionist Perk to add a free (no additional points needed!) business-class segment from Bali, Indonesia, to Singapore.

Singapore Airlines’ Business Class gets rave reviews, so I was super excited to have the opportunity to try it out on this two-and-a-half-hour flight in their Boeing 787.

It’s worth noting that you need to check which plane Singapore Airlines is flying on the Bali - Singapore route before getting excited about your business class service. The Boeing 787 features lie-flat seats and the full business-class experience that you’d get on a long-haul international flight (albeit truncated to fit the time constraints). Our flight on the way to Bali was on a Boeing 737-800 - a notably smaller plane that has regular, upright, domestic-style business class seats and service.

We checked in for our flight online, but we still needed to visit a Singapore Airlines check-in agent at the Denpasar Bali International Airport to have our vaccination cards and passports checked before being issued our boarding passes. Upon doing so, the agent invited us to visit the Premier Lounge. (Singapore Airlines does not have its own lounge at Denpasar.)

The lounge was a nice place to wait prior to our flight. I’d say that it was on par with Priority Pass lounges, but it’s nowhere near as nice as Singapore Airlines’ own lounges. There was a variety of seating with outlets, clean bathrooms, and a selection of food. The food on the flight is better, so this is a good place for a snack, not a full meal.

My favorite part of the lounge was this buffet label:

We’d like to know how many people tried to eat the fruit before the sign had to be added.

We boarded our flight and were greeted by very friendly flight attendants. Shortly after sitting down, I was served a glass of Champagne.

My lie-flat seat was outfitted with a pillow, bottle of water, headphones, two USB charging ports, an outlet, and a touch-screen TV with a remote, loaded with tons of content.

There was a printed menu with the meal and beverage options for the flight. Pete and I actually ordered our meals (which matched the menu exactly) the day before the flight. Your meal selection can be done online at the same time as check-in.

Meal service began shortly after takeoff. I tried the ginger beef entree. While the entree was okay, I was more impressed by what was served alongside it: seared ahi tuna (amazing), garlic bread (a solid favorite), and the most delicious bread pudding dessert I’ve ever had (it may not look like much, but trust me, it was fantastic). I also sampled a Singapore Sling, a classic fruity cocktail.

Once the flight was above 10,000 feet, there was also free wifi for business-class passengers. I briefly connected before deciding to tune in to Top Gun instead. (Unfortunately, the flight ended before I caught the last seven minutes. Does Tom Cruise get the girl? Someone let me know.)

The flight attendants were amazing and were willing to do whatever it took to make your flight great. I had a particularly demanding woman sitting behind me (look, she had some unbridled confidence to ask for a custom cocktail among other requests before takeoff as though this was her private jet), and the purser handled her as though it was nothing.

On the other hand, Pete and I were just thrilled to be there. When the flight attendant asked Pete if he wanted wine for dinner, Pete was all, “Yes!”

“Red or white?”

“Yes, absolutely!”

The flight attendant chuckled at Pete’s joke and enthusiasm and poured him whichever was her favorite.

Overall: Yes, Singapore Airlines is worth the hype. We were only upset that the flight ended.
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Pete’s Travel Diary

Chinatown Walking Tour

Originally divided into multiple cultural districts, in Singapore, you can find a wealth of imported cultural practices, religions, and foods. We find that the best method for getting the ins and outs of a new city is to go on a free walking tour (or more if you have time). We love a good walking tour! The tour guides are paid in tips and often have the inside scoop on the better places to eat or visit in the area. In Singapore, we went with Monster Day Tours.

We started with a walking tour of Singapore’s Chinatown where our guide, fluent in at least three languages, educated us on the history and start of Singapore. She toured us through Thian Hock Keng Temple and showed us the Chinatown hawker center with some tasty bites, as well as one of the original water wells used during Singapore’s early days.

I enjoyed this tour, particularly the temple, as there was a “Where’s Waldo” component: if you spot a bat within the rafters of the temple it is good luck. Indeed, there was at least one bat sighting.

We also learned the tales of why temple guards are painted on every door and why the entryways of the temple are elevated, like a hurdle, which I will retell (albeit heavily oversimplified). We were told that at some point in the distant past an Emperor had upset spirits and demons, and so he was advised to have guards at every door of his temple. He was advised that simply painting these door guardians on each door would suffice to trick these paranormal beings from causing trouble.

As for the door hurdles, it isn’t just to prevent flooding but to prevent spirits from crossing the threshold of the temple. Ghosts in Chinese lore suggest that they shuffle when they walk. They don’t float, they don’t jump, and they don’t lift their legs over objects. So if you want to keep ghosts out of your house, raise up the thresholds of the entrances… seems simple enough.

Next, the food! We visited the Chinatown hawker center on our own the day before as we sought Singapore’s first Michelin-starred hawker stand, also known as the cheapest Michelin-starred meal in the world. Liao Fan Hawker Chan still serves their Soya Sauce Chicken Rice from their hawker stand, but they close when they run out early in the day. We ate the same dish at their fast food restaurant across the street for S$6.90, about $2 more than at the hawker stand. It was a flavorful and simple chicken dish.

During the tour, we sampled Popiah, a Chinese dish. The best way I can describe this dish is a cross between a spring roll and a very small burrito. It was tasty.

The tour ended with a walk through the now-vibrant restaurant and shopping area that used to be Singapore’s red-light district. We visited the murals that convey various points in Singaporean history. The growth of Singapore’s economy, population, and standard of living in just the last 50 years is stunning.

Much more history was shared, but we don’t want to completely spoil the tour!
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Perry’s Travel Diary

Singapore City Walking Tour and Marina Bay Sands

Our second walking tour in Singapore covered the main modern sites of the city: the central business district, the original port, the post office turned luxury hotel, the Merlion statue and park, and many other locations.

Most of these sights are located on land that Singapore has reclaimed from the sea. Singapore has increased its land mass by over 20% since 1965, the same time period during which its population has doubled. They plan to increase their land by another 7-8% by 2030. As you can imagine, our tour guide noted that land reclamation efforts can be quite controversial, since they use sand and non-renewable resources in addition to the environmental impact.

There were two main highlights of our walking tour. First, we had an ice cream break where we tried a durian-flavored ice cream sandwich.

Durian, as previously noted, is a type of jackfruit that is notorious for its, well, unusual and persistent smell and flavor. To Perry, it smells like a sewer. To Pete, it smells like a natural gas leak. Either way, the smell concerned us every time we encountered it at a street market in Southeast Asia. And every hotel in the region will tell you in no uncertain terms at check-in that eating durian is not allowed, subject to a penalty that’s similar to the fee for smoking in a hotel room.

Suffice it to say we had not tried durian prior to this point. We thought that the ice cream might soften the flavor and make it palatable.

While ice cream does make everything better, I found the sewer smell still translated to an unpleasant aftertaste. Pete finished both of our ice cream bars. (He did not overly enjoy it but is principled so as to not waste ice cream.)

The second highlight was the discovery that the top of the former Supreme Court building has a tremendous, free view of the city. If you’d like to visit for yourself, it’s located here.​

After the tour, we walked to Marina Bay Sands, the famous three-towered luxury hotel, resort, and casino. The complex is huge, with over 2,500 hotel rooms and a huge luxury mall on the lower levels.

If you needed further proof that this place is ritzy, you can buy gold bars from a vending machine in the mall area.

The walk to Marina Bay Sands - like many in Singapore - felt incredibly safe despite the falling darkness. Tons of people were out jogging, exercising, and living their lives.

Many tourists want to head up to Marina Bay Sands’ weirdly-shaped skyway. We skipped it, but we heard a rumor that you can get up there for free if you intend to buy a cocktail at the bar. The cocktail may cost a dollar or two less than the tourist ticket to the top (and you also get a cocktail out of the deal).

Instead, we found that there was a great viewpoint overlooking Gardens By the Bay on the back side of the hotel. It’s located here, but we found it tricky to find the right elevator to get onto the bridge from inside the hotel. You may need to ask an employee for directions.

Gardens by the Bay

If you’ve seen photos of Singapore, you’ve probably seen photos of Gardens by the Bay, one of its major tourist attractions in the Marina Bay Sands area. It’s a gorgeous park to walk around. (That said, we don’t recommend walking to Gardens by the Bay from Lau Pa Sat Hawker Center, covered below, as we did. It’s a long, boring, and somewhat confusing walk. Take a bus or walk from Marina Bay Sands over the bridge and viewpoint linked above.)

At night, they have a free light show daily at 7:45 and 8:45 PM in the Supertree Grove - those iconic metal tree sculptures. The theme during our visit was “Retro Fever,” so we got to dance along with fantastic music from ABBA, the BeeGees, the Beatles, and a bunch of other favorites. We sat right below the trees for the best view.

Visiting Supertree Grove, including the light show, is free! You can find current show themes and timing here. During the day, you can pay to visit the conservatory or the walkway connecting the Supertree structures, but we decided to skip that.

The real reason we came here: Singapore’s street food

Lau Pa Sat: Our Favorite Hawker Center

After our explorations of Chinatown, both during the walking tour and on our own, we ate dinner at Lau Pa Sat hawker center. Lau Pa Sat has beautifully restored Victorian-style architecture and was our favorite hawker center to eat at during our week in Singapore.

We sampled Singapore’s national dish, Hainanese Chicken Rice. You might remember that we first ate this dish in Thailand at the Siam Paragon Food Court. After our tour guide went on about how the chicken was prepared by poaching, chilling, and then hanging, we needed to eat it again. Truthfully, I enjoyed this meal more than the Michelin-starred soya chicken. I had the Chicken Rice Set, which included sides of soup and bok choi, for S$7.50.

During the remainder of our trip, we also tried Indian food, hamburgers, and a couple of other noodle dishes at Lau Pa Sat. Everything was delicious. The beauty of Singapore’s hawker stands is that you can find so many different varieties of cuisine, and everyone can eat what they want!

For dessert, we tried a local favorite: Chendol, a bowl of shaved ice topped with sweet coconut milk, red beans, and green rice flour jelly. I ordered Mango Chendol, which adds - you guessed it - chunks of mango over top. As weird as this combination sounds to Westerners, it works and is pretty good. And since it includes beans and ice, I decided this was a healthy dessert - so I could eat the entire bowl. I’m right, right? (Please don’t write and tell me otherwise.) Chendol was S$2.50 at the Chinatown hawker center, but it was S$3.50-S$4.00 at Lau Pa Sat, depending on your choice of toppings.

Newton Hawker Center (of Crazy Rich Asians fame) and Orchard Road

If you haven’t seen Crazy Rich Asians yet, please stop reading this newsletter and go watch it.

Our third hawker center visit was to Newton Food Center - the famous location of that street food scene where Nick orders a somewhat absurd number of dishes for Rachel and their friends.

Yes, you can eat at the Michelin-starred stand that the Crazy Rich Asians characters gesture to.

We were in a weird food mood the night we ate here and ended up getting Pad Thai, but even that was tasty. I don’t think you can go wrong.

Newton Hawker Center is a short walk from the luxury shopping mall at Orchard Road. We headed there for our post-dinner entertainment: looking at things we can’t possibly afford (nor do we want, so that’s good).

When we walked by Valentino, Pete was struck with glee.

“Perry, I told you high-viz pink was going to be a thing!”

It’s true: when my suitcase broke a few days before, I told Pete I might like to get a new pink roller bag.

“Like, hunter’s pink? High-viz pink?” he asked me.

“No, like millennial pink. Rose gold.”

“Nah, Perry. You need hunter’s pink. It’s going to be a thing.”

Sure enough, Valentino’s entire store was full of mannequins wearing none other than hot, hot pink.

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Pete’s Travel Diary

Death of a Suitcase

About that broken suitcase...

En route from Bali to Singapore, Perry’s trusty Samsonite suitcase finally endured a crippling blow, as did my old and worn Teva sandals. The extendable handle of the luggage snapped in two. I cobbled it together quickly with a splint made from a plastic bag (and our hopes and dreams), and this got us to Singapore where we could procure slightly better repair products. Here we managed to use super glue from a 7-Eleven in combination with good ol’ duct tape to keep it running until we could get home. (Travel tip: keep a small roll of medical duct tape in your suitcase.) The suitcase survived until we made it home.

The Teva sandals were not so fortunate and quite beyond the hope of repair. They served me well for around 15 years and I stand by the brand’s durability. I truly showed the shoes no mercy, even going so far as to swim in them on occasion when there are sharp rocks at risk, and they lasted a long time.

Another Howdy?

Singapore, a trade hub and host to travelers of all sorts, naturally has its own luggage repair business which can conduct warranty repairs to Samsonite luggage along with a myriad of other brand names. We traveled across town to find this shop, and while they were unable to fix our suitcase on the spot (they did not have the parts in stock and could not ship them within our short time frame), they were still very nice and polite.

More peculiarly, as we were on the way to the repair shop, we walked past a man guarding a parking lot wearing a cowboy hat. He said, “Howdy,” as we walked by, and I responded reflexively with the same.

It wasn’t until we were halfway down the block when it occurred to us that we had just been Howdy’d by someone thousands of miles from any place that typically employs the greeting. We puzzled ourselves joyfully over this as we proceeded. There were scarcely any other Americans in Southeast Asia, let alone anyone who says howdy.

On the return trip, the mysterious cowboy was gone and so we never had the opportunity to learn his story. After a few months of pretty much only conversing with one another, it was refreshing to hear words we recognized. But how did he learn to howdy? We will never know.

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Itinerary

Hotel

Bad Hotel

This next bit is a firmly negative review. It’s not all sunshine and relaxation in the life of an adventurer, but our pitfalls are hopefully to your benefit.

We’ll keep it brief: steer clear of this hotel. We only share the link so that you might one day confirm you are not booking them by accident.

Plan to spend good money to stay somewhere decent, clean, and with honest business practices. Singapore is expensive, so budget generously and avoid the pitfalls of our thriftier approach here. We paid more than $80 USD per night and this resulted in a harrowing, foul experience with no sleep for 6 days.

A bad hotel can just about ruin a vacation. We, fortunately, overcame the sleep deprivation and foul conditions and found enjoyment in Singapore… just not in our hotel.

Good Hotel

Crowne Plaza Changi Airport - The night before our flight out we stayed at the Crowne Plaza Changi Airport using a free night certificate from our IHG Platinum Credit Card. Highly recommend. There’s a comfy bed and a nice bathroom complete with a full viewing window for guests. (Why this is a popular form of hotel bathroom design we will never know.)

Be advised that the water from the tap is brackish here, and you will need to drink bottled water in the hotel. No way to avoid that one but the hotel is glad to provide it. (Note that tap water is drinkable everywhere else in Singapore.)

Food

I have to give a major kudos to my friend and former colleague, Dan Imamura, who sent us a list of his favorite places to eat in Singapore. Every single one was a hit! Most of these recs come from him.

Hawker Centers and Stands

• ​Lau Pa Sat Hawker Center​
• ​Newton Hawker Center
• ​Chinatown Hawker Center - Honestly, this one is dirtier than the other two. We don’t recommend it as highly as the others, but it’s highly likely you’ll end up here while exploring Chinatown. Try the popiah or the xiao long bao dumpling stand with the longest line.
• ​Liao Fan Hawker Chan - Michelin-starred soya chicken rice. May or may not be available in the Chinatown Hawker Center, too.

Restaurants

• ​Char - Barbecue pork belly.
• ​Din Tai Fung - Dumplings! Note that the location we visited at Suntec City was way overcrowded, but the food is great. There are multiple locations you can visit.
• ​Nur Fayidha - Cheap Indonesian eats near our hotel.

Chili Crab

We did not try Chili Crab while we were in Singapore, but there were three oft-repeated recommendations for where to eat it: Jumbo Seafood, Long Beach Seafood Restaurant, or East Coast Lagoon Food Village (aka East Coast Hawker Center).

Transportation

Singapore’s public transportation system is the best I’ve ever used.

First: All you have to do to board a subway or bus is tap your contactless credit card. You don’t have to buy tickets, you don’t have to buy tokens, and - best of all - you don’t have to buy reloadable cards that are useless in the next city.

Just tap your own credit card at the turnstile or post when you board and do the same when you disembark. (It’s important to tap your card when you exit so that you’re charged the correct fare. You will be overcharged if you don’t.)

I don’t know why this system isn’t everywhere. It’s genius.

Second: The entire public transportation is completely integrated with Google Maps. You can use Google Maps to get accurate directions and timetables. With buses, you can even see the location of the buses in real-time indicated on the map, so you always know that your bus is, in fact, coming. You can monitor your location so you know when you’re approaching your stop.

Third: Even if Google Maps fails for some reason, the buses all announce which station you’re at, even if a stop hasn’t been requested. My major problem with most other bus systems is that it’s impossible to count stops or discern your location when they don’t stop at each station (leading to very lost tourists). Not in Singapore - the busses will tell you. Some buses even include monitors that announce the stops in writing.

The entire system is spotlessly clean to boot.

All in all, I highly recommend any and all public transportation in Singapore. Our rides cost $1-3 per person per trip.

Do note that at the time of our trip, face masks were required on all buses and trains in Singapore (but strangely, they weren’t required in the airport or on planes).

Currency

Singapore uses the Singapore Dollar. You’ll find a variety of international ATMs located around the city, including at the airport, at bank locations, and in shopping malls.

We only needed cash for two things: food at hawker centers and tips for our walking tours. Credit cards are widely accepted for everything else, including public transportation, where they are the only option. You don’t need large quantities of cash.

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Perry’s Travel Tip of the Week

Duct tape and super glue

Since we already talked about our duct-tape-and-super-glue suitcase repair, let’s get right to it:

​You can buy a roll of pocket duct tape here, though this more expensive version is closer to what Pete carries.

We don’t carry super glue due to the risk of it leaking into our suitcase. It’s widely available in convenience stores around the world.

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All the best,

Pete and Perry

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