Singapore is the smallest country in Asia, with only a total land area of about 704 square kilometers including the reclaimed lands (
source: Wikipedia). Before its land reclamation, Singapore is actually smaller than Metro Manila. However, with an average income per capita of USD56,694 a year, it now ranked number 3 in the list of the world's richest countries, next to Luxembourg (2nd) and Qatar (1st) (
source: urbanpeek.com). Singapore is part of our KL-SG summer adventure this 2012.
For the SG leg of our summer escapades, we stayed at
Fragrance Hotel Selegie, a budget hotel located in Selegie Road, just a few minutes walk from
MRT Little India Station. Unlike the very spacious room we had in
Malaysia, this hotel has very small rooms, the double bed took up much of the room leaving a very small space for two people to move around. The CR/bathroom is also very small, less than two square meters if I guessed it right. Our accommodation here is included in our KL-SG package tour so I don't know the exact rate of this hotel but recent inquiry with Agoda showed a regular rate of USD200+ per night for a double room accommodation; promo rate on the other hand is less than USD100 (price checked as of posting date), a bit expensive considering the very small rooms they have.
Before we left for SG, I asked friends of SG's signature dish and the common reply I got is
hainanese chicken. I've tasted it here in the Philippines; for me, it's like our
chicken tinola (at least the one I tried) with no soup but rather with garlic-mayo dip. It isn't particularly appealing for me so I never tried it in SG, what I had was
fried rice and seafood IDK - typical chinese food...hehe! ;)
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| seafood fried rice and seafood IDK! ;) |
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| hotel's free set breakfast with coffee and a slice of bread - no rice...yay!! :( |
The City TourAside from air fare, hotel accommodation and airport-hotel-airport transfers which was part of our KL-SG package tour, our package also includes a half day tour around Singapore. This city tour includes a short stop in front of Raffles Hotel (for photo-ops...hehe!), Singapore river port, a Chinese temple and Chinatown (if a small Chinese store is considered the Chinatown), Qualitas Jewellery Factory as well as the Merlion Park. The city/photo tour lasted for about three hours, a bit boring but since it's an opportunity to wander around the city with free rides, why should I complain.;) And so I contented myself with taking photographs of some of the famous landmarks of Singapore. Here are some of the photos I took during the said free tour:
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| Raffles Hotel |
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| Singapore river port |
The driver/guide brought us here thinking we would be interested in availing river cruise; actually, he's offering us to avail it but no one from any of the three groups (our group, a couple and a solo traveler) he was touring that day availed (
Manong driver didn't earn extra from us, kurips?!? ...hehe!).
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| orchids, from the river port |
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| Chinese Temple |
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| Merlion and Singapore's skyscrapers |
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| Hotel Fullerton |
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| The Esplanade, also known as durian structure |
That's just about it with our first night, first half day in Singapore; nothing fancy, nothing extraordinary, boring you might say. And that's how I thought this trip would be too, boring all through out, but it's not! I cried here, not once...but twice! (
iyakin much...hahaha!) Till my next post... ;)
~ oo00oo ~
SG Summer Escapades 2012:* -
Accommodation, City Tour, Etc.* -
Sentosa Night Experience* - Singapore Flyer and the Glittering Cityscape
