Singapore impressions

I’ve been there for two weeks. There are definitely two dominant impressions you get right at the start. The city is very clean and it’s bloody humid. I mean bloody humid. It’s like metropolis-wide sauna. Thanks to the ocean there is no pollution in the air, something that’s killing me in Belgrade, every time I need to get out or use public transport.
One thing that also astonished me is that every building is air-conditioned to something like 18 degrees. It’s a miracle that you don’t get sick-cold every two days here – it’s 32 Celsius outside and as soon as you step in somewhere it’s 18–20. Do that several times a day (and you almost always have to) and things can get really nasty. Locals does not seem to mind this, but for me and other people from my company (both UK and Serbia) it was hard. Most people brought sweaters to work, because the working rooms are cooled to below 20 while server rooms are even lower, to something like 12–14. Chilling….

I was in the Rendezvous Hotel, which placed me in walking distance to a wide variety of interesting stuff. Orchard Road – the main shopping area is 1 min away. Lots of other malls are located near-by. 15-20mins away is the small bay with dozens of small restaurants offering what looks to me a very similar menus. Don’t get me wrong – there are hundred or more different meals with Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese etc flavors. To me they are not that much different – the most interesting stuff I found was the yummy combination of sweet and sour tastes. And the waiters in those restaurants are intercepting you while you walk, almost dragging you into their premises, showing menus with pictures in your face. Do not go there if you not in the good mood, you might punch someone. Believe me, they are worse than street salesmen.
I also ate far more fruits here than at home – for S$3–4 you can buy the plate with variety of different fruits, already cleaned and sliced. No hassle, pure joy.

This is Singapore – you can see how much is being built
Fruits in Kopitiam

One of my favourite meals from Kopitiam

Another funny thing: here, you have taxi queues, with dozens of people waiting for a cab ride. Something entirely out of space if you are from Belgrade where you have nothing similar, only bunch of people waiting for public transportation. :) Here, taxi seems like a regular public transport – I half expected to see a monthly taxi ticket desk. Cab is far from expensive here, but it’s unusual in any case. Also, do not even think to look for a cab after 10pm by waving on the streets. None of them stops – better look for a taxi stand, most easily found near the hotels. Or dial a cab – each vehicle has the number written on it. Just don’t wave to a cab with SMRT written on it; smrt in Serbian means death. :)
But whatever you do, in 10pm you will have a hard time to catch the ride. It’s quicker to use bus or MRT than taxi, but then you have to know which routes go where.

MRT = Mass Rapid Transit. Very clean, very efficient.

Every large metropolis is filled with shopping centers and Singapore is prime example of that. Centers are located one next to each other, in the underground passages, inside of large hotels – everywhere. One thing is striking – prices are not shown anywhere. You have to call the clerk and he will come with portable calculator and tell you the price. As soon as you see this happening, never accept first offer. Express your interest but don’t buy and you will hear the price drop. Ask for similar stuff and then say that previous thing is better, but… Another price drop. Start to leave and in more cases than not he will pull you for the sleeve telling you even lower price. I had several cases of dropping price from 25 to 18, 14 or even 12.
Personally, I hate such things. I don’t like to play price games. It only means that the damn thing is overpriced in the beginning and I’m only wasting time.

Funan – IT mall

Plaza Singapura mall
Raffles City mall

Shopping malls. Raffles City is really beautiful

When I go through the shops, I never buy anything in stores with annoying clerks calling you like you are their best friend. This is best witnessed in SimLim Square, where you can buy cheap cameras, computer parts and other IT stuff. Let me browse the shop myself, don’t follow me like hound dog. If I need you, I’ll call you. Example: a friend and I were looking for some camera bags and tripods and in one store they had really cool, inexpensive tripods. But the assistant was so obnoxious that we practically ran from there. In another store with kids stuff, two of us moved around for like 30 minutes. No one asked us anything – the cashier lady patiently waited. In the end, I bought the beautiful wooden praying mantis, even though I had no intention of buying anything – I was just keeping company to a friend who was actually looking for the present to his nephew.

Orchard Road - the shopping avenue of Singapore

Orchard Road – the place to shop

In the evenings, the heat and humidity worsen, but the city lights and nice arrangement of plants and trees shine in all its beauty. If you have a good camera with wide angle lenses, bring your tripod and make astonishing photos. Good places to shoot are around the Marina Bay. From Esplanade side you can shoot at Fullerton Hotel and many high towers around it, while from the Fullerton side you can shoot the Esplanade itself with another set of sparkling towers.

Great view from Espanade overthe Bay towards Fullerton Hotel

Singapore is a great place for night photography

In the end, this is one of the “nice to visit but I wouldn’t live there” places. The weather is really unbearable here and I did not slide not one 1% to getting used to it. Every time I went outside I melted. Other than that, it’s a really nice city, especially if you like oriental food and can enjoy the differences in them.
There are plenty of things to see, one of which is Sentosa Island, which I’ll cover in another post.

I posted way more photos on Flickr, so check them out there.

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Voices from the crowd, 15 so far

Hi, couple of points from a Singaporean:

1)There’s no way that in most buildings the temperature goes down to 18 degress due to airconditioning. Maybe some buildings, but definitely not all. 18 degrees is way too low!

2) Only in very few shopping centres are there no prices for goods. In Funan Centre and Sim Lim and other areas where there’s bargaining allowed will there then be no prices perhaps

3) The heat is worst from say about slightly before 12pm till say 3-4pm. After that, it actually cools like everywhere else. Going out from 12pm to 3pm is a killer. But nighttimes are actually much cooler.

4) Did you visit places like Little India, hawker centres (you seem to have only visited restaurants) and the HDB areas? This will show a different and unique sight of Singapore

5) We all hate the weather here :)

God bless

by nokiahandphone
1 month after the post

a great outlook and impression on my country, i agree with certain aspect of Singapore’s shop, such as the irritating clerk whom will follow you everywhere.. haha i hate that too. Anyway glad that you like Singapore.

by fleng
1 month after the post

Welcome to Singapore. If you have already left, I hope you had a great time here.

I share the same sentiments as you regarding the air-conditioning in buildings. People do get sick due to the abrupt change in temperature going in and out of buildings. Well, at least I do.

Besides the restaurants, I hope you tried the really good local fares at the various hawker centres and coffee shops. Chaep and good.

You took lots of great photos. Excellent.

I’m sure you know by now that many of the shops whose goods are without price tags will quote 1 price to tourists and another to locals. I’m glad you’ve been warned and taken the necessary action. I personally dislike such practices, but then again, this is not different from many other countries I have visited.

Hope you will come back again.

by Yamasam
1 month after the post

Wow, three comments in a row from Singaporeans. Was this post linked on some Sg-site maybe..? I have another post about Sentosa Island (also linked from the side of the post) hence I did not visit only restaurants. ;) There was not much time for visits, as I was actually in talks with the clients there (9-10am to 6-7pm every working day in their offices) but now that I have a grasp of how Sg looks and function, eventual next visit should be much more productive.

About the heat and air-con — maybe it wasn’t only 18 in the buildings and maybe it gets better in the evening, but it sure did not seem that way to me. I could easily spot foreigners in the street — all of them had sweat flowing from the top of head down. :)
At the same time, locals must be genetically used to this. I often went to lunch with the woman that works in the local branch of my company — she never showed any sign that heat and humidity gets to her. Never.

by Aleksandar
1 month after the post

Your photos are gorgeous! May I know what camera you’re using?

by xue
1 month after the post

Great post! I and I am a Singaporean too!

For your information, your post had been featured on Singapore’s favourite blogging bulletin website: Tomorrow.SG!

Glad to know that you liked your stay here in Singapore.

As for the humid weather and your Singaporean colleague, we are mostly used to the weather here, but I guessed you came in the time when Singapore’s humidity reaches the highest level (May-July).

Sometimes we can’t stand the weather too.

You came about Mid-June if I am not wrong, because I often pass by Raffles City to go to where I study, and therefore I know that they are having this Lego fair during that period of the month.

Anyway, it will be great to see you back in Singapore next time. =)

by Jasper
1 month after the post

Jasper, thanks for letting me know about the link. It’s great that it brings interesting people here to my blog. And yes, I was there June 7–21. Not sure if there would be a business need for me to get there again (I finished my job fairly quickly and successfully) but one never knows…

Xue, I have Canon Powershot S1 IS. Most of the night photographs are made with the help of the cheapest possible tripod I bought at Song Brothers (I think) for S$28 which allowed me to shoot ISO50. It takes the camera around 10-15s to finish the image capture at such low ISO value, but it’s worthwhile since there are no artefacts and images are crisp (no noise which you get when shooting at ISO400 or higher). S1 itself is great camera and with S2 now in stores I expect it to drop in prices making it a great buy. 10x optical zoom with IS is awesome thing to have and extractable display is very welcome when shooting with tripod — no need to bend to get the shot — just roll the display and look from above, standing normally.

Also, pay attention to small print on the right-hand side when you are looking at images on Flickr. They extract the meta information written into the JPEG format, one of which is camera info and with a click on “more properties” you can get more image information then you could possibly want to know. :) (I don’t undestand half the things displayed there)

Aleck — Your views on Singapore make an interesting read. Being a UK’er working out in Singapore I find the buildings also air-conditioned to the max. Maybe we just happen to work in a similar office?

Having been here for a while though Singapore warms to you and you get used to it’s little idiosyncracies. Except the humidity. I don’t think I could ever get used to that. Not even if you stick me in a block of ice and wheel me around.

Must have been strange being Serbian here. Singapore to me seems like a country where Communism suceeded and marries succinctly with controlled market forces. Interesting to see what will happen if democracy and freedom of speech ever really hit home here.

If I ever make it to Belgrade I might have to come say hi… :-)

by Davey Sarge
1 month after the post

Hi Aleksandar

You took really pretty pictures. I am glad that you enjoyed Singapore (somewhat?) :P

Perhaps next time if you ever come again, some locals might take you to other places that you have not visited? The Mandai Zoo is a great place– seeing that you so like dolphins, you probably love animals in general too.

ps: the weather is kind of shitty. Even us Singaporeans complain about it all the time. My personal belief is that it takes at least 6 months to acclimatise to the weather here if you come from temperate or cold regions.

by ahbohling
1 month after the post

Excellent description of your trip to our home.

I’m so glad that you have such a good impression about Singapore. The weather is bad but it’s pretty predictable like what some of my country men have stated. Choose the right time to step out of your hotel and you will have a better time strolling and shopping down the streets.

You did excellent photo shots, hope you will come back again. I’m very glad whenever someone praise my country because I feel so proud of being part of it.

Best Wishes.

by Dave
1 month after the post

Davey, being Serbian in Singapore is real eye-opener. It shows what can happen to a state when government is actually doing its best to make the life better for citizens. When that happens, I couldn’t care less is it communism, capitalism, monarchy, republic or whatever. I don’t know what it was 30 years ago, but what I’m seeing now is impressive.

Next I will try to find those makan places. :)

Hey,
Ive been to Singapore twice,I spent there over two months and
I find it as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Actually its my second favorite place after New York city,
Id go to Singapore again and I hope I will able to make that trip also with my boyfriend or another good buddies.

PS:cool pics anyways

by Mira
7 months after the post

Hey,
I’ve been a frequent visitor to your site. Been exploring on some of those CSS stuffs you posted and I’m still lousy at that actually…haha

nevertheless, nice to read about your post on Singapore. Yeah..the humid weather is unbearable even to us during the humid seasons. You may try visiting the HDB areas and visiting hawker centres to get the most of our the country. I love all your shots. It just made me feel proud as a Singaporean :)

Happy Chinese New Year to all who reads this post!

by Mingyi
7 months after the post

Hey you,

I have been to Singapore at least four times. The city is definitely pretty, safe and extremely clean. The locals are friendly & genuine. Luckily I didn’t encounter any shrewd or annoying sales people. If you ever get a chance to go back, find a sidewalk cafe on Orchard Road, just sit there and do some people watching. You’ll find notice how vibrant, productive, fast-paced yet relaxing this city truly is. I can’t say enough about this place. It’s one of my favorite cities (after London, England). Best of luck to you.

by Peter
8 months, 2 weeks after the post

Hey guys I’m from New Zealand here, just wanted to say that I visited Singapore a few months ago at New Years (2006 — 2007), the only place i’ve been overseas!! I was there for about 2 weeks on holiday and loved it heaps. I want to go back there and work if I could but I think they have started only hiring people from their own country or something. I loved the weather, everyone is saying how bad it is but it’s sunny all the time, well it actually rained heaps but was hot still! Everyone was friendly, maybe even more than people in my country, places were clean and it felt pretty safe overall. I loved the place, lovely cityscape (if you’ve been here you’ll notice that buildings are about 2 to 3 times taller!!) thought the girls were beautiful haha and generally loved the convience of everything. I went to everywhere, the markets, zoo, restaurants, this and that. The MRT is easy and efficient, you can get anywhere really fast.

Anyway just thought i’d mention it because it was a great experience. So go to Singapore ok.

by Dave
2 years, 1 month after the post

Singapore impressions

Voices from the crowd, 15 so far

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