A Short Visit to Singapore

Recently, I had an opportunity to visit Singapore on official purposes. However, I utilized the opportunity to visit the tourist attractions of Singapore. This post is a brief guide for all tourists who plan to visit Singapore and hope you will find it interesting and useful. It might be felt that the post might contain the topics which are relatively inclined towards the observations made by an Indian. Please treat them as my personal opinions.

To give a general introduction to Singapore, I have taken some text from Wikipedia. Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign city-state and island country in Southeast Asia. It lies off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula and is 137 kilometers (85 mi) north of the equator. Made up of the lozenge-shaped main island (widely known as Singapore Island and over 60 much smaller islets, the country is highly urbanized, with very little primary rain forest remaining. Its territory has consistently expanded through land reclamation. Singapore is one of the world's leading commercial hubs, with the fourth-biggest financial center and one of the five busiest ports. Singapore is highly diverse: 75 percent of the population are Chinese, followed by significant minorities of Malays, Indians, Eurasians, and others. This diversity is reflected in the country's four official languages — English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil — as well as in official policies that promote multiculturalism. Singapore has a tropical rain forest climate with no distinctive seasons, uniform temperature and pressure, high humidity, and abundant rainfall. Temperatures usually range from 22 to 35 °C. April and May are the hottest months, with the wetter monsoon season from November to January.

The important tourist spots (I feel) in Singapore are given as below.

• Sentosa Island - Songs of the sea show, The Merlion, Casino, Adventure World Water park, SEA Aquarium, Universal Studios, Cable car to Sentosa etc.
• Singapore Flyer
• Marina Bay Area
• Clarke Quay/Boat Quay
• River Safari, Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, Bird Park
• Famous for malls and shopping
• Cruises to adjacent resort islands in Indonesia
• Areas of Personal Interest - Hindu Temples, Little India, China town

The Sentosa Island is the primary tourist attraction at Singapore. I have not been to all the attractions on the Sentosa Island. The Songs of the sea is a live show with live cast, dramatic effects, lasers, water jets, music etc., generally happens in the evening. The Merlion is the Singapore’s mascot and is a creature with head of a lion and body of a fish. A huge Merlion replica is now open for visitors at Sentosa Island and visitors are allowed to go to the top of 37m high statue. The Universal Studios Singapore, the SEA Aquarium, Casino etc are all grouped to be under a single tourist attraction called “Resorts world sentosa”. Casinos are free to enter for tourists and people on Employment passes. The SEA Aquarium, which I have been to, is the World’s Largest Aquarium as recognized by the Guinness book of world records. It contains variety of underwater fish of all kinds including Manta rays, Stingrays, eels and sharks. It also contains the cross sectional replica of giant ship used by the Chinese explorer Zheng He. The Adventure world water park is a water based amusement park with rides. To reach Sentosa, there is public bus facility as well as a monorail that starts from the Vivo City mall. Also a cable car is available to reach Sentosa and it is a tourist attraction by itself. The following video shows the highlights of the Sentosa and SEA Aquarium. Make sure to turn on HD in the settings.

The Singapore Flyer is again the world’s largest observation wheel, standing at 165m height, offers a wide range of panoramic views of the island city and the Marina Bay. Speaking of the Marina bay, which the general attraction seen in any global advertisements related to Singapore, is an integrated resort fronting Marina Bay area of Singapore. The structure basically contains 3 55-storey towers with a marine ship structure connecting their roof tops. This iconic marvel is home of hotels, casino, shopping malls and restaurants. The SkyPark on the top has swimming pools and gardens for the customers of the hotel with one side of the ship allowed for public viewing. It gives a view of the marina Bay and the Singapore Downtown along with flower shaped Arts and Science museum. If you haven’t been to the Empire State in New York, this will be a good start. Watch the video below for more fun.

Singapore is famous for Shopping malls. There are shopping malls in almost every area in Singapore. For tourists, especially from India, plan to visit Mustafa center and dine in Anand Bhavan beside Mustafa Center. Apart from that, there are lot of shopping malls around the city. All major global brand outlets are present in the shopping malls. Almost all major malls have food courts with food stalls serving majority of Asian food including Indian, Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese etc. So if you are an Indian Vegetarian, you get it with no major search operation. Watch the video below that shows glimpses of Vivo City mall and the Clarke Quay. Vivo City Mall is also the point from which cruises start to take you to nearby islands like Batam etc. Make sure to turn On HD in settings if it’s not ON.

On the northern side of Singapore, there are few other attractions like the Singapore Zoo, the River Safari and the Night Safari. The river safari is basically a river based theme park that highlights various habitats of the major rivers of the worlds like Ganges, Nile, Amazon etc. Various types of fish and other living beings of these major rivers are the exhibits in this park. The Pandas are the major attraction in River Safari. The actual river safari is also available with boat ride in an Amazon River based theme with fish and other living beings moving around you/your boat. The night safari is another attraction where you are taken to safari in a van in the night and to see the animals in the night. The Singapore Zoo is the home of various animals of different parts of the world including the polar bear and the white tiger.

Other places of interest include the Little India and the China town which has large immigrants from India and China. You will get a feel that you are in India or China when you visit these places. Little India and China Town also has few Hindu Temples like the Srinivas Perumal temple, the Mariamman Temple etc which are very old. There is a huge Indian population, primarily from Tamil Nadu are making their living as human labor in Singapore. The fountain of wealth is another small attraction.

Overall, this city-state is mini-Asia from my view with people of multi regions, multi cultures and multi religions coexist with peace. This country is very secure and systematically managed in all aspects. The public transport is the general mode of transport with buses and the subways, popularly MRT (Mass Rapid Transit), being heavily utilized. Buy an ezLink card (prepaid card) and tap it whenever you enter/exit a bus or subway to get charged for that travel. The city is smart and highly developed. You should visit this place when you have opportunity.