After a depressing yesterday, I got up knowing there was little I could do today. With my right hand slightly injured, enjoying the rides at Universal Studios Sentosa was ruled out. I couldn’t go to Marina Bay Sands either because I needed my 70-200mm lens, which I had to give for repair.
After freshening up, I sat at the dining table to have a cup of coffee. I picked up a newspaper and decided to actually read about what goes on in this tiny city state. I couldn’t help but notice the real estate property ads, not because of how good the properties looked, but mainly because just about every condominium advertised cost over a million dollars! And I thought to myself: “How on earth do the locals even afford to buy property here?”
Surely not everybody lives in the posh condos being advertised. That’s when I decided on what to do today – take the bus and see inner Singapore. Now, I didn’t know where exactly to go, but today I didn’t have anything else planned until I got the call from John 3:16 to come pick up my lens from their store.
I laid open my map of Singapore and just pointed to the centre of the island. My finger landed on some area called Bukit Timah. So Bukit Timah it was. Off to the nearest bus stop I went (the MRT doesn’t cover every nook and cranny of Singapore, thus the decision to ride the bus)
I hopped on a bus at around 12:30pm after an early lunchDidn’t seem like many were on their way to Buikt TimahI know wages in Singapore are obviously higher than say, India, but the cost of living here is extremely high too. Extremely high is also how you can describe most residential buildings. They have to be, developmental land is scarce in Singapore.I honestly had no clue if I was even on the right way or where to get down
These all looked like privately built apartment buildingsAnd they’re building moreThe Housing Development Board apartment buildings often look like that red and white building in the photoThat said, I did notice that there is still a lot of open land space still available. It’s just that government ensures there’s enough greenery in every district — which is nice.Looked like we were on an expressway to Bukit Timah
I didn’t really know where to get down, so when I saw a sign pointing to Bukit Timah Shopping Center, I got down at the next stop.
The area didn’t look that exciting. To the left was the construction of a new MRT station.I presumed malls in inner Singapore weren’t going to be as flashy as the ones in the CBD, but this was Bukit Timah PlazaWent all the way up to the food court/open area where the hawkers wereI don’t quite remember if this section was another part of the Bukit Timah Shopping Centre, but every floor had nothing but maid service businesses — most maids being from Indonesia and PhilippinesI was honestly quite bored hereI just walked around the area to soak up what life in these parts must be like. Not quite the residential area I hoped I would see, but it was okay.
Unlike the Geylang area, which has a sizable Malay population, I’m guessing inner Singapore has a lot more of citizens of Chinese descent
Just then my friend Aimee called, saying she might be coming to Orchard Road and that we could meet in the evening. But since I still had a few more hours to kill, I wondered how to spend it.
I hopped on a bus going towards the Orchard Road sideNanyang Girls High schoolDrove past what looked like a rather posh area. Very few people in Singapore live in villas.
The bus drove around and as it neared Orchard road, it passed by the Singapore Botanical Gardens. In a split second, I decided to get down at the very next bus stop.
Singapore’s Botanic Gardens wasn’t on my list-of-things-to-see actually… but I had to see something!
There is no entrance fee, it’s like a public parkIt’s a public park, but there are quite a few no-no’sI hadn’t even shot enough photographs today, so I needed to justify carrying my camera around
No feeding allowedThis is called the Swan LakeShot on my Canon 450D
Turtles
Sadly, because my telephoto lens was undergoing repair, I couldn’t zoom in much
Oh look Pacmen…
The Tembusu tree
I saw a way in
You have a few restaurants hereWent in hereThere’s a SG$5 (Rs.200/$3.8/€3) entry ticketDidn’t really know what to expect as I know as much about flowers as I do about neurology
Went inside this huge cage
Walked up towards that bungalow, named Burkill Hall
Orchids here are in honour of special guestsThis orchid was named in honour of Jean Chretien, former Prime Minister of CanadaGhastly looking flower…Oh that’s whyThis one is honour of Princess Masako of Japan
This one is in honour of some royals from QatarThese flowers were in honour of former Indian president K.R. Narayanan’s visit
The designs by Mother Nature I tell you
The plant was named in honour of the great Nelson Mandela
I left the VIP Orchid house
Sigh, even in Singapore there are idiots who do this
Went in here next
Coolhouse? Sounds promising!
Oh my god it was SO relaxing in here!It was so cool in here… Singapore’s humidity was killing me!But just then I get an SMS from Aimee informing me she’s on her way to Orchard Road. Damn, I had to leave this place.I quickened my paceBut I just had to stop to take a snap of myself
This is a park for everybodyThere’s even a huge picnic area
Dogs walk, humans jog… cats… sit and do nothing. Typical!
They have concerts here every week
I wasn’t the only photographer there
I was trying to figure out how to get out of the park
I was trying to get out as quickly as possible, Aimee had already reached Ion Orchard
I was finally out!
But this exit didn’t have a bus stop anywhere nearby, so I hailed a taxi and made it to ION Orchard mall.
Aimee, a reader turned dear friend, who was of great help to me in PhilippinesAimee introduced me to Daiso, and I quite liked the offerings. Picked up a mini-vaccum.
After checking out a few stores, we stepped out on to Orchard Road. I promised Aimee I would make her look good this time, as neither of us were happy with the photos I took of her in Manila.
So here’s Aimee at Orchard Road
Went in here to collect my ticket for the Chemical Brothers show after the Sunday raceAimee took thisWent to Ngee Ann City next
Here’s Aimee at Lucky Plaza, where I went to exchange some currency
Here’s Aimee going down an escalatorWe walked to Suntec City towers where Aimee’s fiance was waiting to meet usHere’s Aimee.. oh, the camera focused on the background. Oops.
The view from one of the floors at Suntec
Given how the day began, I quite liked how it eventually ended. I’m glad I visited the Singapore Botanic Gardens, it was actually quite nice! I hadn’t done much macro photography since my visit to the 2010 Lal Bagh Botanical Garden Flower Show and I liked how most of my photographs turned out today. It would have been nice if I had my 70-200mm lens but I wasn’t going to get it until tomorrow.
Once back in my area, I had dinner at the Malay Indian restaurant in my block. Had a few pratas and beef curry, cost SG$6.20 (Rs. 250/$4.7/€3.7)
I felt better knowing, despite my injury, I wasn’t going to leave Singapore without some great photos. I wasn’t going to give up. Tomorrow, I visit the Marina Bay Sands Casino – my first time gambling!
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.
The bus drove around and as it neared Orchard road, it passed by the Singapore Botanical Gardens. In a split second, I decided to get down at the very next bus stop.
