Singapore

Wednesday, May 17, 2023, Singapore

Despite having no natural resources, the city-state of Singapore has the third highest GDP per capita in the world. They also have the world’s busiest cargo seaport. And one of the world’s most stable economies with no foreign debt. It’s also a very expensive place to visit!

We had breakfast on the ship with Don and Katherine Winter, who had been to Singapore before. We made plans to sightsee with them and met up on Deck 5 to get off the ship once Singapore officials had given the OK, which was after our arrival at 1 pm. After hearing from Don about how efficient they were, we were surprised by a 45-minute long delay going through customs. 

The ship was berthed under a gondola that went to a theme park across the way, and we briefly discussed going there. Instead, we took a 20-minute ride share to the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel. This is the hotel with three high towers holding up a swimming pool platform on top. We gawked at the hotel for awhile, checked out the shopping levels and restaurants, then went outside to the pedestrian-friendly walkways and walked partway over the bridge across the river. There were lovely pools of lotus flowers, lots of museums and shopping, and lots of people. People sat and ate around another pool with boats taking shoppers on a short ride, avoiding the waterfall coming through a glass, cupped ceiling. We did quite a bit more walking than Don and Katherine. She was still recuperating from a bad fall the prior week. 

Marina Bay Sands Hotel

We decided to stay for the laser show, so started looking for a restaurant. We settled on an expensive burger joint in the hotel (Don’s choice). The highlight of this is when I noticed they had a vegan milkshake. It was called “black and white shake” or something like that. We figured it would have a few cake crumbles on top and decided to share one. This prompted Don and Katherine to order a Oreo milkshake. To our astonishment, our $20 milkshake (like I said, Singapore is expensive to visit) had a giant slice of multilayered chocolate cake sitting on top of it. The Winter’s milkshake had a giant-sized Oreo-like cookie on top. Though it could only go to our waistlines, it was delicious and worth it for its outrageousness and memorability. Thankfully the Winters helped us with our cake which was much bigger than the Oreo. 

After dinner we watched the nightly laser show, then caught a taxi back to the ship which wasn’t too expensive split 4 ways.

Thursday, May 28, 2023, Singapore

We woke up in Singapore and took a tour arranged by the ship. Our first stop was Chinatown, where we went to the oldest Chinese temple in the city, the Thian Hock Kheng temple complex dedicated to Mazu, the Sea Goddess. It was established in 1839 and a combo of Toaist and Buddhist motifs. We watched a temple worker hang our lit incense coil (for good luck) high in the rafters with a hooked, long wooden pole. We got a glimpse of monks enjoying their mid-day meal. 

Next, we took a riverboat ride on the Singapore River from the Clarke quay through the downtown skyscrapers and the lion fountain. We disembarked and got back on the bus, stopping at the Sultan Mosque and walking through the street food area. We spent some time at the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel, famous for inventing the Singapore Sling (which we sampled). 

When we arrived back at the pier, we stopped in at the information booth and got help ordering a taxi to take us to the Marina Bay Gardens. We took a short tour around the grounds, then walked some of it. The iconic “super trees” were a big attraction. It was gorgeous. We caught a taxi back in time to catch the ship before it left.

Super trees