Today we stopped in Singapore, our first "normal" port since Cairns, 10 days ago. We were greeted by the marina bay hotel in the background, the one featured on Crazy Rich Asians, as we cruised in to the new cruise port.
I've been to Singapore 2x, both on business, both via the airport. Once with Intercontinental Hotels Group for a process reengineering conference (we stayed at the famous Singapore intercon for 12 days) in 2002 and the second time with my current company in 2018, the year I retired and transitioned to part-time. Both trips were amazing and I loved Singapore. I found it enchanting, inviting and engaging.
This trip didn't start out quite as well. The customs process was a modern antiquity. "Modern" because it was a brand new terminal and equipment. Antiquated because it was the same old process, 1×1 going through the line and talking to a customs agent. The lines were LONG to disembark, but we were luckily two of the first passengers to disembark, so it took us "only" 45 minutes to get thru the process. They could not handle the volume and it took too long to scan and fingerprint us. We also had to complete online paperwork the night before. It was long compared to all other ports, most of which we didn't even go thru a customs process. And short compared to some passengers who took 2-3 hrs to disembark. So we feel kind of lucky in that regard.
Another unfortunate factor, the weather, negatively impacted it due to intermittent torrential downpours and very overcast with a cloudy haze.
While in line, we were all chatting and agreed to join 2 other couples as we all wanted to see the same sights and weren't part of an excursion:
The marina bay hotel
The marina bay gardens
Chinatown
A Mosque
Shopping
Originally my wife and I were going to use the HOHO ( hop on hop off) to get everywhere, but the other couples convinced us to use the metro/subway.
Cheaper/easier, so that was an easy adjustment. We made it to the subway pretty quickly though it was quite the walk. I later heard that finding the HOHO was difficult and time consuming, so again, another good decision, albeit all luck.
The subway was CLEAN, well lit, safe and easily navigated. It was the first subway in years I was in that there were no homeless people. In fact, I didn't see any homeless in Singapore, so kudos to them for managing a very real and very difficult social issue. I highly recommend it (the subway, that is). BUT, if you don't have a credit card you can tap at the entrance, the easy process suddenly got hard, real hard. My wife's card could tap, mine couldn't. Same bank and same card, but mine didn't work. And they require each passenger to have their own distinct card. We wanted to buy an all day pass. $10 sgd, or about $7 usd. But they only sell those at certain stations, not the terminal at the cruise port. Soooo, I followed my wife thru the gate and was prepared to plead ignorance if I got caught. It wasn't a far stretch.
We got to the main station to purchase an all day pass, but they only accept SGD cash, no credit cards. Shocking!! No ATM around so we decided to walk thereafter or take cabs. It's a very walkable city, so that didn't bother me.
We went to the Marina Bay Hotel first. $26 sgd adult each, which worked out to about $18 usd. Not bad. Other cities have charged much more for their version of a sky tower. And the views were spectacular. We were up about 60 floors.
By the time we're were done, it was already 12:15, so we decided to do the gardens later and head over to chinatown. We found a restaurant and ordered all our favorites. Duck, chicken, fried rice, a pork / noodle appetizer. It was all good, but I've had better. Most importantly, it was authentic. Everyone else in the restaurant was asian. While eating it poured rain outside so it was good we deferred the gardens.
After lunch, we headed to a Mosque. I had been to the Mosque on a previous visit, but not into the Mosque. This time I went in. So creative, so colorful and so different than anything Jewish or Christian.
After that we were close by shopping and apparently it was the place to be as we ran into many other people from our ship. We bought some chatzchys, nothing big. Another storm ran thru and we waited it out.
After that, my wife and I decided to head to the gardens, so we separated from the other 2 couples who wanted to shop more. But on the way back, we realized we couldn't do the gardens and make the cultural event show on board at 6:30, so we decided to skip the gardens. But I hear they are spectacular, and only about $40 usd pp to attend 2 sections. A buddy of mine went and I'll look at his pics tomorrow. We got some good pics of the gardens from the hotel observation deck, but nothing up close.
I enjoyed seeing all the diverse architecture as well as the murals, some in the most unusual places that I found myself looking down every alley just to see if there were other murals. Very well done and very representative of the indigenous and early settlers of Singapore.
Getting back on board was about the same cluster as getting off. I won't belabor the point. Once on board, a quick change into more comfortable clothes and we went to the show. It was great. They had 3 "teams" of dancers, Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian. All the styles were different and yet shared the bright colors, upbeat tempo and terrific choreography
It's time now for this guy to hit the hay. My wife decided to eat dinner after the show and then go in the hot tub. I'm still so full from lunch I decided to skip a meal. Yup, not kidding. When you're now accustomed to eating every hour, the break was nice.
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