Adventures of David and Paul: Singapore

The second stop on our 2024 Asia trip was Singapore. David has had a string of Singaporean friends from his time at Georgia Tech and with his soccer team in Atlanta, so he was excited to check out their home. We were also able to get great recommendations on things to do, see and eat from those friends. Special shout-out and thanks to Dian and Nelson!

One concern about traveling this close to the equator (Singapore is at 1.3° north) is the heat. Mixed with a coastal location and high humidity, visiting Singapore can be a little intimidating. We planned this trip to Asia in late February to coincide with the "less humid" time of year (just "oppressive" and not "miserable" humidity according to WeatherSpark). Overall, we're happy to report that the heat was not really a problem. It felt like a hot Georgia summer day. Even with the heat, we were often bouncing in and out of climate controlled locations and tended to avoid walking a lot at the hottest part of the day. This was made all the easier considering how good of a transit system Singapore has.

After the 6 hour flight from Seoul, we arrived at Changi airport in the afternoon. Immigration and customs was an extraordinarily easy process - it was automated and took about 30 seconds. Our bags were literally the first to come out on the conveyor belt. We made sure to stop by the impressive "jewel" waterfall before leaving the airport. We can see why this is considered the best airport on earth. It's very pretty!

We took the train into the city, which was fast, easy, and efficient. Our hotel, the Fullerton Hotel, is in the old British colonial post office building, and has an impressive atrium and fantastic location. It was still decorated for lunar new year, which was nice.

Yes, this is inside the airport.

This was our view of a rainy Singapore coming in for a landing.

Our first view stepping out of the subway station.

Our hotel room was pretty swanky. Singapore was by far the most expensive city we visited this trip.

By the time we checked-in, it was late afternoon... time for a cocktail! We noticed that Jigger and Pony, one of the top rated cocktail bars on earth, had a bar seating reservation available for opening time at 6pm. Lucky us! We took the train to the bar - it's located not far from our hotel in a very pleasant neighborhood on the south side of downtown that had a lot of 2 to 3 story buildings on narrow streets with lots of restaurants. The bar was well designed and not terribly expensive (since the dollar is strong right now), and we had some nice (but relatively weak) drinks. We left unsure why it's rated so highly, which became a common refrain from two Americans drinking their way around four Asian cities this trip.

From there we walked a short distance away to Sugo, another cocktail bar that we liked a lot more - in fact it might have been our favorite bar of the trip. It had a more relaxed atmosphere and great cocktails. The bartender had an almost American accent - he told us he grew up in Singapore but has American family, including a brother who owns a distillery in Leesburg VA. The bartenders take turns coming up with the weekly menu. I think this type of creative process is why we liked Sugo more than the more highly regarded but stuffy Jigger and Pony.

The river outside our hotel, with rain clouds.

A cool building in downtown.

A tomato-based cocktail at Jigger and Pony.

The neat architecture of the neighborhood.

It was a very pleasant area to walk around.

Lots of flowers in bloom - and lots of AC units.

This is the kind of tongue-in-cheek stuff that made Sugo special.

Golden kiwi cocktail at Sugo.

From Sugo we began meandering back toward our hotel, and there were plenty of things to look at. We happened past the Buddha tooth relic temple, which had lots of lanterns for lunar new year, and also walked past the Sri Mariamman temple. The whole area had dragon lights above the streets. We stopped in a small indoor food area (very common in Singapore) and had Thai Kha for dinner. It hit the spot, and Paul had a lemongrass drink which was nice. We continued north to the hotel via Clarke Quay. This is a very busy tourist restaurant area along the water. It was nice and very lively, but there were too many annoying restaurant staff trying to get people to eat in their restaurants. The weather was lovely - warm but breezy. We made it back to our hotel, wrapping up our first partial day in Singapore.