Thought I’d get that out of the way first. After a tiring first day (with barely any sleep), we made up for it by only getting up around 10:30am. And by the time we were out, it was already noon.
But today, the skies were clear and sunny.
We were ready for brunch
But despite the plethora of eateries and cafes, ‘the vegetarian’ (my friend Ramesh) found nothing to his taste. So we decided to go to Little India.
Rochor CentreThis is how apartment households in Singapore hang clothes out to dry
While the guys headed to Little India, I instead went to Sim Lim Square – Singapore’s famous IT mall.
Being a Sunday, few stores were closed but you still had plenty open.
I was looking for a good tripod and the Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS USM I lens. Most stores didn’t have the latter in stock anymore but I did get a chance to try out the non-IS variant.
Taken on the 70-200 f2.8; these are unprocessed & only cropped — very impressed with the image quality!
Several shops I entered asked me why I needed the IS version and suggested that I simply go in for the non-IS version and buy a good tripod instead. Something I did give deep consideration later.
SIm Lim Square isn’t as big as Funan Digital Life mall — but still offers quite a lot
A few smaller shops did say they had the lens and it “could be arranged,” but I decided not to deal with them. After all, Sim Lim is equivalent to Bangkok’s Pantip Plaza — you have tread carefully when shopping here. You can get ripped off, at the same while scoring some really good deals.
SNSD and other K-pop shown on laptops and TV screens was such a common sight
I had only made it to the second floor before my friends called and told me they were done with lunch. Since I had to catch up with them, I had to leave Sim Lim. Just like yesterday, I left disappointed knowing I couldn’t explore the mall in its entirety.
I grabbed a quick bite and made my way out.
As I stepped out and crossed the road in front of Sim Lim Square, I noticed crowds and street shops ahead of me.
… and street ‘performers’ like this guyTurns out I was now inside the Bugis Street Shopping centre
Bugis Street Shopping is the largest street shopping market in Singapore.
For me, it wasn’t really impressive. Not after you have visited Bangkok’s Chatuchak Weekend Market (or JJ Market). In fact, a lot of the merchandise sold here was from Thailand — which obviously meant it was slightly more pricier here.
The main entrance to Bugis StreetWe were really curious as to what this Iluma building wasI thought it was some boutique hotel
I had to get to Suntec City to meet up with my friends, but instead of taking of the MRT, I just walked.
I passed through another mall, this time — Bugis Junction.
K-pop star G.NA was going to be here in two days
Spotted at Bugis Square. It was F1 weekend after all.
Singapore’s roads aren’t this empty, just that traffic was diverted because of the race
After catching up with my friends, Ramesh made his way to the F1 tracks to begin his evening. While myself & Loi pondered what to do next. I had plans of going to Marina Bay Sand Casino to go up to the sky deck. When I had called them up earlier in the day, I was informed it was only open to visitors until 4pm, after which it would be off limits to non-guests.
We were inside CityLink Mall (yes, another mall in the area) when we decided to check out the HMV store.
Damn, Jay Park was in Singapore yesterday! (Jay Park is an K-pop star who’s going to be big worldwide… trust me)
By the time we stepped out of the HMV store, we already spent SGD150 (around Rs. 5,100) on official band t-shirts — and it was past 4pm. So I pushed Marina Bay Sands for tomorrow and headed to Suntec City mall instead.
This is just one section to Suntec City mall
After shopping some more at Suntec, we made our way back to Victoria Street where I had plans to show Loi the Bugis Street shopping centre.
The Singapore National Library building
But lay before us was Iluma — the alluding building which I assumed was a boutique hotel.
But upon closer inspection…… guess what…… it’s just another mall
But a funky one at that. Iluma is a pretty cool mall mostly targeting a younger crowd. Despite its appearance, we didn’t find the usual selection of high-end designer brands. Instead, we came across stores like this:
The merchandise on display was good enough to draw me & Loi in. Nearly half-an-hour later, we step out after having spent some dime on anime merchandise.
We window-shopped a bit more……. before stepping into another nerd’s toy haven
Inside the Otaku House was more anime merchandise; more necklaces and keychains (like the ones we bought from Comics Connection), to cosplay outfits and other props for rent or purchase.
But we sighed… and quietly walked out, reminding ourselves that we had already spent enough and would soon run of Singapore currency at this rate.
It didn’t stop us from exploring the mall still.
Pretty cool looking mall
The top-most floor houses what they claim to be Singapore’s largest arcade. And then there is the open roof top.
You get a nice view of the Bugis surroundings from up hereVictoria Street and Raffles Hospital in the distance
There are a few rooftop restaurants up here
As we made our way down, I realized iluma was one of the more unique malls in Singapore. Not only does it look cool, it really manages to cater to a young crowd with more affordable options compared to the rest of Singapore’s malls.
After we stepped out of iluma, I took Loi to the Bugis Street Chopping centre.
And by the time we were done with that, we were hungry. So we popped into the near by Burger King for a good ol’ beef burger
(Note: Beef burgers are a rarity in India due to religious sentiments so even McDs are too ‘chicken’ to serve beef burgers here).
Some of the anime merchandise we boughtiluma mall lights up at night
After this, we took the MRT to Orchard Road, our next destination.
I actually wanted to go back to Sim Lim Square, but Loi needed to meet his cousin — and since he didn’t have a local SIM, I had to tag along with him.
When we got to Orchard Road, we stepped right out to Ion Orchard mall.
There was some dance competition open to the publicAnd this fat dude was getting a lot of fake screams from the women… so he kept dancing
Orchard Road is Singapore’s famous shopping stretch (as if the rest of the city didn’t offer enough already), home to many star hotels and a very popular stop for tourists.
And boy, does this one-way road live up to its reputation!
Opposite ION Orchard, Lucky Plaza is very popular among Filipinos working in SingaporeNgee Ann City mall, the largest mall on Orchard RoadPopular for housing Japanese department store TakashimayaYou can get into Ngee Ann city to get to the underpass which comes out the other side of Orchard Road
Paragon, a high-end mall housing luxury brands like miu miu, Prada and more
Once Loi met up with his cousin, I was on my own to explore the rest of Orchard Road for some time.
I got back to the other side to continue from where I left off.
Next up, Mandarin GalleryYou’ll find a few street performers on Orchard Road… and for the love of god, do not taunt them like a few tourists did. They don’t like it.
This can be found in front of the Mandarin Gallery
This is the Singapore Tourism office where you can get info, maps, make reservations and suchCourts is a large multi-storey electronics storePretty innovative ad
This was a pretty cool looking mall
After this point, the malls slowly disappeared.
Crossed to the other side and made my way back
Tangs is a local department storeThe Orchard Road MRT station is connected to Wisma Atria mallIon Orchard, from across the road
After catching up with my friend Loi, we decided to see off his cousin at the bus stop and take one ourselves as we hadn’t done so yet.
My friend Loi with his cousin sister who studies in SingaporeThe buses use the same MRT cards
Since we didn’t really know where to get down, we just got off at the end of Orchard Road.
There were still more malls this side
As I looked at the map, we realized that Victoria Street wasn’t very far from where we were currently, so I asked Loi if we could just keep walking.
The School of the Arts Singapore campusWe passed by quite a lot of landmarks
It was nearing 11pm, so we stepped into a food court to have dinner and to quench our thirst with some beer.
Open 24 hours, Kopitiam has mostly Chinese and Pan-Asian fareWe weren’t really hungry so we just had roast duck and pork with our beer
After ‘dinner,’ we resumed our walk towards our hostel.
This was the Singapore Arts Museum
I couldn’t help but remind ourselves how good a location we chose to be stay in, given how close we were to a lot of what Singapore has to offer (especially if you a re shopaholic!).
Singapore Management University campus
The Bugis Street Shopping centre… closedSultan Mosque down the street
We were finally back in our room…. oh wait, we ran out of drinking water.
(Steps out again)
Once back from the nearby 7-Eleven I was finally done with day 2! As we checked out out our merchandise, we also counted how much we had already spent and soon realized we were running out of Singapore dollars.
We just had one more day left in Singapore, so it was either going to be Sentosa or the Singapore Zoo. I also wanted to hit the sky deck at Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino.
Since our flight was at 11:35pm (24/09/2010), we decided to leave directly from office and being a Friday evening, we had plans to leave earlier than usual. We checked the timings for the Vaayu Vajra airport shuttle buses & planned on taking bus number 8 or 8A in front of our offices on Sarjapur Road.
After just missing BIAL 8, we got BIAL 8A at around 5:35pm and made our way to Devanahalli. The ticket cost Rs. 180 (per person) and the journey took 2 hours. Once we reached Bangalore International Airport, it began to drizzle. We made our way in and then sat waiting for the Tiger Airways terminal to open.
Once the terminal did open, we were kind of surprised to see our boarding passes to be ones from Air India! Puzzled whether we were on the right flight or not, we did joke about how cheap an airline Tiger Airways was that they used leftover Air India boarding passes.
Since we were early, we had plenty of time to kill at the airport. We checked out the duty free, had a snack from the expensive options at BIAL and then tried going online using the free wi-fi… which didn’t work. Thankfully, I had my TATA Indicom Photon thumb drive and so I went online to do some more research on places we planned on seeing in Singapore, where to eat and what not.
It was also raining heavily outside but our flight wasn’t delayed by much nor was it cancelled, which was good news. By 11:35pm, we were in our seats. Now, we knew Tiger Airways was a budget carrier and wasn’t expecting much.
And it wasn’t much.
Seats were quite old and looked untidy, some push-back buttons wouldn’t work but hey… we reminded ourselves that we only paid around Rs. 4,500 ($100/€74) for this one way direct flight to Singapore. So we smiled to ourselves and sat back.
We were also quite hungry by this time and waited for the (paid) meals to be served. Though they had a menu with a few notable hot meal options, by the time the air hostesses arrived at our row we were only left with 2 options. In vegetarian – chana (chick peas) curry and rice and in non-veg – beef stew and bun. Since we were quite famished, we asked for both.
Ramesh, the vegetarian in our group, said it wasn’t very good; costs SGD6 (Rs. 200)The beef stew was quite good. But it came with only 1 bun which was a little too less for so much stew; costs SGD8 or SGD10 (Rs. 350) with a drinkIn my quest to try things I’ve never tasted before, I chose this drink. It was okay.
We avoided eating a complete meal at the Kingfisher Lounge at the airport because of how expensive it is but after having shelled out Rs. 500+ for the above food, it made better sense to eat from the airport itself before boarding the flight.
Anyway, our flight would land in 2 hours time and we thought about grabbing a bite at Changi Airport.
Yeah, about that.
When we landed, we did land at ‘Changi,’ but just like being told you would arrive at the pearly gates of heaven — and then take a swift left turn into hell, we actually disembarked at the budget terminal of Changi Airport. Okay it wasn’t hell or anything but it wasn’t much to write about either.
Basically a big warehouse turned airport terminal, the budget terminal at Changi had just about enough counters to cater to us “cheap” travellers. I was disappointed I couldn’t see one of the best airports in Asia but once again: Rs. 4,500… direct… we reached Singapore, safe and on-time.
We made our way out of the budget terminal and headed for the free shuttle bus to the main terminal to avail the MRT into the city.
Just past 7am, it was still dark at 6am
We boarded the bus and got down at Terminal 2…
… which obviously didn’t look like a warehouse.
We bought our MRT cards which cost SGD12 (Rs. 400/US$9) — SGD5 for the card and the remaining is credit — which is SGD7 (if you are that bad at math).
The Singapore Expo convention and exhibition center
We knew we had to switch trains at Tanah Merah station which is an interchange (we studied the MRT map during our research).
If you were wondering why Singapore is so clean (SGD1000 = Rs. 35000)(Taken on the Nokia E72)
We got down at Victoria station and walked straight towards the Bugis station (our hostel was in between the two). After asking a few passersby for directions, we walked past a blue mosque (which was a given landmark) and arrived at Jalan Kubor (‘jalan’ means ‘road’).
The main road is Victoria Street
We were staying at ABC Backpackers Hostel, a conveniently located and affordable hostel serving the essentials as far as we were concerned – great location, breakfast, internet, clean beds and clean bathrooms.
The hostel is on the extreme left
How much did it cost us? We booked in May, and for the F1 weekend it cost us Rs. 5200 ($116/€84). That’s for 3 people in a private room for 3 days and 2 nights in the heart of the city (pretty much) — around Rs. 1700 ($38/€27) per person for 2 nights at ABC Hostel.
We couldn’t check in to our room as it wasn’t available yet. So we kept our bags on the shelf rack, freshened up, had breakfast and then stepped out so as not to waste any time.
We first thought of heading to Sim Lim Square and then Little India, so after getting some directions, made our way down Victoria Street.
This was a fish pond at the Raffles Hospital
We took a right and stepped in to a convenience store to try and take a local SIM.
The black building is La Salle College of Arts Singapore
After getting our prepaid SIMs, we tried finding Sim Lim Square — Singapore’s famous electronics mall.
We did find it but given it was still 10am, most shops were yet to open. So we made our way to Little India instead.
Prepping up for Diwali celebrations
Sri Veeramakaliamman temple in Little India
We didn’t have the time to take up their challenge
We stopped by the famous Mustafa Centre shopping complex (which is open 24 hours) to see what they had on offer. Mustafa sells just about everything, from electronics to clothing and also houses a supermarket and a pharmacy. But we did find quite a lot of fake goods — mostly shoes — being sold at exorbitantly high prices. The Nikes were all wrapped in plastic and sorted based on size, and one look at them gave away their faux pas. Appalling how this “famous” store was getting away with fooling their customers.
After half-an-hour or so, and after checking from basement to the top floors, we left without buying anything.
And with that, Little India was done.
I wasn’t very happy with the photos I took. Granted the skies were grey but I never really had a chance to wait and click, it was all hurried. A lot of times I had to play catch-up as my friends would be ahead of me.
But we had to move on. Ramesh had to go pick up his F1 pass and we still had things to buy.
So we headed to the Farrer Park MRT station which is one of the two MRT stations that connect Little India.
My friend Loi feeling the need to cool his eyes in an underground station
The ticket collection point was the Swissotel The Stamford hotel which is attached to the mall.
My friend Ramesh with his ‘ticket’
Ramesh bought the Premier Walkabout ticket which cost him around Rs. 10,000. The ‘ticket’ is actually three badges (one for each day) and comes in a nice framed box, just so you can remind yourself how expensive it is to witness a Formula 1 event live.
Cafe Swiss at the Swissotel The Stamford
After collecting the ticket, we stepped out.
It began to rain at this point
We checked out the official merchandise store, which had apparel from all the major racing teams — all of which was very, very expensive. Like Rs. 3000-plus for a Ferrari t-shirt and such.
We also noticed Funan IT Mall, the other major electronics shopping destination, right ahead of us. So we went there next.
We passed by St. Andrews cathedral
Unlike Sim Lim Square, Funan is newer and lot more posh. That is not to say everything is a lot more expensive here, look around and you’re sure to find a lot good deals.
We had noted down a few good stores in Funan IT Mall, so we first went to TK Photo. I was in the market for a good tripod, an intervelometer and Ramesh wanted to pick up a Kata camera bag. Ramesh found what he wanted but I was spoilt by choice and realized I needed to do a bit more research before I could decide which model to go in for.
After TK Photo, we checked out a few more stores before heading up to the food court for lunch.
Lunch, for me and Loi at least. ‘The vegetarian’ didn’t find anything up here.The food court had mostly Chinese and local favourites
When we were done with our lunch, ‘the vegetarian’ had to go down to Subway to have his. This gave me some time to check out some more shops on the higher floors.
The first thing that caught my eye was a window full of Totoro plush toys!
The store had many more inside.
The grey-haired guy on the extreme right is the owner
I spoke to the owner who told me he has his sources in Japan for the goods and makes the pilgrimage to nerd-heaven quite often.
From Final Fantasy potions and collectibles to Metal Gear Solid figurines, this store had it all
If you love anime and video games, you’ll find a lot of stores catering to your geekdom on the top most floors of Funan IT mall.
This store was drawing a lot of peopleThen again, Street Fighter matches never fail to pull in a crowd
I then went down to John 3:16 Photo Supplies, a photography store I heard was one of the best in Singapore. It was quite busy and the guy running the place seemed like a really cool guy to talk to. He had a lot of the things I was planning on buying. But, my friends call and said they were done.
So I left, disappointed I couldn’t spend more time there. Actually, I was disappointed I could spend lot more time in Funan which seemed a lot better than Sim Lim Square.
Yes, Funan DigitalLife mall is a newer compared to Sim Lim Square but don’t assume it’s more expensive. It’s also managed by Capital Land, the Singapore-based real estate major that owns pretty much all the biggest malls in Singapore and other venues like Clarke Quay. So you’re not going to find a whole lot of grey market dealers like you would in Sim Lim Square.
After I caught up with my friends, we made our way back. We had yet to check in to our rooms.
It was still raining
Once we got back to ABC Hostel, we checked in to our private room which was cosy and clean enough for us to crash and trash with our luggage.
While we rested, Ramesh got ready to begin his F1 experience. Me & Loi didn’t have a lot of day left so we made our way out again.
This time, I suggested we just walk and check out our surroundings.
We were staying in the Kampong Glam neighbourhoodYou’ll find a lot of Arab, Indian and Persian eateries hereWe walked through the Malay Heritage Centre
We took a left off the main road after we asked a traffic policeman how to get to the marina, and walked across the bridge just to see where it would take us.
Ultimately we hit a dead end… and the whole section was blocked off for F1 events. So we walked back.
After walking by some impressive office buildings (which we were later asked not to photograph by the security personnel) we headed towards Suntec City.
You could see the races happening in the distance from up here
Though not new, Suntec City is a major real estate venture comprising of one of Singapore’s biggest malls (even today), several high-rise office towers and a huge convention and exhibition centre.
The only ‘race’ us mortals had a proper glimpse ofSuntec City also houses the ‘Fountain of Wealth’
Which comes on and lights up once completely dark
We walked out of Suntec City by this point still in search of the MRT station.
The F1 track passes through this stretch… so if you want to be this close to the track, stay at Marina Mandarin HotelThe path was blocked for pedestrians
Realizing we were nowhere near the MRT, we headed back into Suntec City Mall.
We sat down for evening tea at this awesome-looking food court.
Felt very Hogwarts-ish (Oh, those are not real books by the way)Tempted… but had to wait until dinner time
Once we did find City Hall MRT, we got down at Clarke Quay station to head to Singapore river where we planned to take the river cruise by boat.
Some rally being held at a park
After a bit of walking and asking around, we reached Singapore river.
Panorama comprised of 8 shots
The race was happening in the distance and one could hear the deafening sound of the engines. They were so loud (and so good) that I had to call up my friend back in India to give him the experience! (video coming soon)
We walked towards the bridge where lots of people were trying to catch a glimpse of the cars zipping past.
We got to the other side to get to the ticket counter for the River Cruise.
Panorama comprised of 6 shotsTickets for the boat ride cost SGD15 (Rs. 500/US$11/€8)Our rideThe ride would take us down the river and up into the marina
We’d pass a lot of of eateries, bars and clubs
It’s only after getting on this boat did I realize how much there was to Clarke Quay. I know the photos may not show much (video coming later) but the number of restaurants, bars, pubs, and clubs are just too many to mention. It’s no wonder Clarke Quay area is the night hotspot in Singapore.
The boat then took a turn and made its way back towards the marina.
The stunning Marina Bay Sands Casino and Hotel in the backgroundSingapore’s famous Merlion statueWe were finally out in the marinaThe Esplanade concert hallsPretty sure the guys behind Yas Hotel saw this and went: “We want that, but better!”Singapore Flyer — the tallest one in the worldAnd finally, the $5 billion Marina Bay Sands Casino & Hotel
I had the look of sheer disappointment at this point. Not that the building was ugly or anything. Just 2 nights ago, my favourite trance outfit Above & Beyond performed here, more specifically at the Avalon club — on top of those three towers — and I missed it because I only heard about it that prior weekend. I seriously considered preponing my flight to arrive in Singapore earlier just to see them at such an awesome venue! But the pains of cancelling and re-scheduling a flight at such short notice, that too with Tiger Airways’ non-existent customer support in India made me drop it. It wasn’t just Above & Beyond. Flo Rida, Steve Aoki, The Chemical Brothers, with many more and the ticket for one night was just Rs. 3k.
Sigh
Anyway, back to the photos…
It was time to head back
Clouds above Singapore were lit thanks to all the skyscrapersThe boat dropped us back to same pick-up point
There are three pick-up points (& ticket counters) for the river cruise along Singapore river and you can take mine and Loi’s word for it — taking the cruise at night is a must-do when in Singapore!
Back on land, it was time to head to Chinatown for dinner.
Chinatown wasn’t far from Clarke Quay.
The entrance to ChinatownSingapore Lantern Festival 2010 was on at this time
We straightaway headed to the ‘food street’ as we were hungry and thirsty!
Scores of hawkers & restaurants on either side, we finally sat down and first, ordered some chilled beers.
We placed our orders from multiple vendors.
Pork noodle soup & barbecued tiger prawns; finished off with some beef fried rice
It was around 11pm by the time we were done. We could have explored more of Chinatown but we were tired as hell, so we decided to head back ‘home’.
This was on display near one of the pedestrian over bridgesAnd I wasn’t the only amateur photographer there
We took the MRT from Chinatown and got back to Kampong Glam.
The nightlife was still buzzing in our areaSultan Mosque, the largest mosque in Singapore
Once back in the room and a quick hot shower later, I hit the sack. Recalling how much we covered on just our first day, it was a good, albeit a very tiring start to our trip.
I wasn’t thoroughly pleased with all the photos I took today. A lot of them came out blurry which made me want to pick up a good tripod all the more a bigger priority.
Regardless, this was day 1. 155 images (used out of 360 taken), slightly over 3000 words and more than a week to finish. Trying to complete this was as tiring as the day itself.
Now only 9 more days and 3600 more photos to go through.
I’ll upload the videos later.
I’m too tired…
P.S: If anyone is interested in what Ramesh saw at the F1 track on day 1, check out this post.
While the guys headed to Little India, I instead went to Sim Lim Square – Singapore’s famous IT mall.
Being a Sunday, few stores were closed but you still had plenty open.
I was looking for a good tripod and the Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS USM I lens. Most stores didn’t have the latter in stock anymore but I did get a chance to try out the non-IS variant.
Several shops I entered asked me why I needed the IS version and suggested that I simply go in for the non-IS version and buy a good tripod instead. Something I did give deep consideration later.
I grabbed a quick bite and made my way out.
Bugis Street Shopping is the largest street shopping market in Singapore.
For me, it wasn’t really impressive. Not after you have visited Bangkok’s Chatuchak Weekend Market (or JJ Market). In fact, a lot of the merchandise sold here was from Thailand — which obviously meant it was slightly more pricier here.
But lay before us was Iluma — the alluding building which I assumed was a boutique hotel.
The merchandise on display was good enough to draw me & Loi in. Nearly half-an-hour later, we step out after having spent some dime on anime merchandise.
And by the time we were done with that, we were hungry. So we popped into the near by Burger King for a good ol’ beef burger
After this point, the malls slowly disappeared.
As I looked at the map, we realized that Victoria Street wasn’t very far from where we were currently, so I asked Loi if we could just keep walking.
After ‘dinner,’ we resumed our walk towards our hostel.
I couldn’t help but remind ourselves how good a location we chose to be stay in, given how close we were to a lot of what Singapore has to offer (especially if you a re shopaholic!).
Once back from the nearby 7-Eleven I was finally done with day 2! As we checked out out our merchandise, we also counted how much we had already spent and soon realized we were running out of Singapore dollars.
