Before arriving in Singapore I had heard a couple of things about this island country. One that it was very clean and two the shopping is amazing… Well I am glad to report that both are very true statements. To be completely honest, Singapore was nothing what I thought it was going to be like. It was a major city with nothing but contemporary high-rise buildings and modern architecture. And every other building was a multi story mall… it was fantastic and dangerous all at the same time.
So what is the first thing you do in the land of many many malls… well shop of course! However, I was good and only made one purchase, a beautiful blue silk cocktail dress with a floral puffy sleeve detail that is very unique and different. I’m telling you… I am going to have to change the places I go out to in New York so I have a reason to wear all these cocktail dresses I now own. It is going to be so strange when this is all over and I do not have to get dressed up every night!
Anyways back to Singapore… That night we took the shuttle bus to Orchard Road, which reminded me of a combination of the Las Vegas strip and 5th Avenue in New York. It was stunning with all the lights and designer shop windows lining the streets, however if you didn’t bring your black American Express card to charge everything to, stores here were a little (major understatement) expensive. Not wanting to torture ourselves any more we hopped on the metro and made our way to Clarks Key for dinner. Clarks Key reminded me a lot of Downtown Disney in Orlando; very clean, very perfect, very “magical” feeling with twinkle lights in all the trees and river boats covered in flowers floating by… We found a brew pub with a great selection of beers that they brew onsite so we claimed an outdoor table and got to sampling beer and conquering our hunger. It was a great night was good food, good beer, good atmosphere and good company but we called it quits on the early side because we had a date with the botanical gardens bright and early!
As the saying goes, “the early bird gets the worm” well in this case the early world travelers get breakfast at the Singapore botanical gardens. With only one day left in Singapore we were off the ship before sunrise (I wish I was joking) and on our way to see the botanical gardens and national orchid garden, which were both absolutely stunning! The national orchid garden was the main attraction within the greater botanical gardens so we walked around and said hello to the swans and watched all the little old men and women doing their morning group work outs before we explored the hundreds of different kinds of orchids on display. Because we got to the gardens so early we had the entire place to ourselves and it was a nice change of pace to be surrounded by green and natural beauty. Before we left we grabbed breakfast at the cute little café located at the information center then hopped in a cab to hit up our next destination, the Raffles Hotel.
For those of you who may not have heard of the Raffles Hotel, it is a beautiful, old, majestic hotel where the now standard cocktail, the Singapore Sling, was first created. It is a total tourist trap, but the “it” thing to do is go to the Raffles Hotel and sip on the signature drink either in the Billiards Room or at the hotels Long Bar. Unfortunately, the early world traveler may get breakfast, but a cocktail at 10AM is another story… So I am sad to report we did not get the opportunity to pay the $30 American dollars they charge per cocktail, but we did snap a few photos and get to say we have been to the famous Raffles Hotel!
Our last and final stop in Singapore was another total tourist trap, taking a picture with the Merlion fountain in front of the downtown skyline. We literally just jumped out of our cab took a photo and jumped back in our cab again. Never the less, it was another must see on the list of things to do your first time in Singapore and now I can say, “I have been there and done that!”
