Where to visit in Singapore?

I'll be going to Singapore for business tomorrow for a couple of days and with a bit of luck I will be free every day from around 5:30pm. Hoping that the weather isn't too bad because of the incoming typhoon I was hoping to do a little bit of sight seeing.

Does anybody have any recommendations for things to do at night that aren't too expensive and are fairly easy to get to with public transport? I will be staying close to East Coast Park.
 
I'll be going to Singapore for business tomorrow for a couple of days and with a bit of luck I will be free every day from around 5:30pm. Hoping that the weather isn't too bad because of the incoming typhoon I was hoping to do a little bit of sight seeing.

Does anybody have any recommendations for things to do at night that aren't too expensive and are fairly easy to get to with public transport? I will be staying close to East Coast Park.

Lucky you!
I would say go and watch F1 night race, but you're too early ...
If you find good places make sure to share with us as I will definitely go there in the next 2 years :)
 
Go up and have a drink in the boat perched on top of the towers, costs about $25 IIRC.
Sample the food lots of great stuff there, meals are 4-5$. Senosa's not that great, the worlds largest aquarium also aint worthwhile, I do like there bird aviary. Night safari is crap.
 
East Coast Park itself is very pleasant and the view over the Straits of Malacca with the world's busiest shipping lane is quite impressive. You can get some decent chili crab there as well.

Food is a big thing in Singapore in general. Try visiting Lau Pa Sat in the evening when they close the street for traffic and serve delicious satay which goes well with a jug of Tiger beer to cool down the tropical evening. This is not like the Dutch satay - it's grilled on wood and charcoal fire and there's a choice of meats and even prawns.

Gardens by the Bay are a good sight to see, and a stone's throw away from the iconic Marina Bay Sands resort and casino. If you like going out you can do worse than starting your evening at 1 Altitude which is the highest open air rooftop bar club anywhere. The night view over the city from 285 meters is spectacular. Then head down to Club Street and chill out at the Screening Room or Yin Yang.

If you like shopping you might check Orchard Road for your high end fare, but I suspect most guys would rather check the electronics and computing stuff at Sim Lim Square. It's a sizeable mall with maybe 200 shops that only sell that kind of stuff. Skip the ground and first 2 floors and the tourist baiters there - levels 3 - 6 have what you're looking for.

Speaking of Orchard, drop by Orchard Towers some evening. Most of the ladies there are looking for payment for their companionship (and whatever else you might want), but the mood is mellow, many of the clubs have live music, and you might have a perfectly fun time just having a few drinks and taking in the somewhat surreal atmosphere.
 
Go up and have a drink in the boat perched on top of the towers, costs about $25 IIRC.
Sample the food lots of great stuff there, meals are 4-5$. Senosa's not that great, the worlds largest aquarium also aint worthwhile, I do like there bird aviary. Night safari is crap.

You don't have to be a guest of the hotel to access that part?

I was thinking about doing the night safari but thanks for pointing out it's not good.
 
East Coast Park itself is very pleasant and the view over the Straits of Malacca with the world's busiest shipping lane is quite impressive. You can get some decent chili crab there as well.

Food is a big thing in Singapore in general. Try visiting Lau Pa Sat in the evening when they close the street for traffic and serve delicious satay which goes well with a jug of Tiger beer to cool down the tropical evening. This is not like the Dutch satay - it's grilled on wood and charcoal fire and there's a choice of meats and even prawns.

Gardens by the Bay are a good sight to see, and a stone's throw away from the iconic Marina Bay Sands resort and casino. If you like going out you can do worse than starting your evening at 1 Altitude which is the highest open air rooftop bar club anywhere. The night view over the city from 285 meters is spectacular. Then head down to Club Street and chill out at the Screening Room or Yin Yang.

If you like shopping you might check Orchard Road for your high end fare, but I suspect most guys would rather check the electronics and computing stuff at Sim Lim Square. It's a sizeable mall with maybe 200 shops that only sell that kind of stuff. Skip the ground and first 2 floors and the tourist baiters there - levels 3 - 6 have what you're looking for.

Speaking of Orchard, drop by Orchard Towers some evening. Most of the ladies there are looking for payment for their companionship (and whatever else you might want), but the mood is mellow, many of the clubs have live music, and you might have a perfectly fun time just having a few drinks and taking in the somewhat surreal atmosphere.

Ahh orchad towers... my boss took me there last time straight afteafter getting of the plane :') lots of beatiful woman but the begging for money really annoyed me. Maybe I'll give it another try if I don't find anything else to do.

I'll check out your recommendations. I'll skip the shopping though. Living in Japan there isn't really any reason for me to buy stuff abroad. The only things I sleep buy abroad are clothes because Japanese clothes generally don't fit that well on a western body hehe.
 
After getting dumping my stuff at the hotel I went straight to the Marina Bay Hotel sky deck. Awesome view, especially over the Malacca Straight. I was thinking about going to the Marina Bay Gardens after that as it's right next to the hotel but decided not to as I was getting Hungry. So I followed Florin's advice and walked over to Lau Pa Sat. The food was nice though it was a bit boring to sit there on my own while all the other people were having fun.

As Lau Pa Sat is only 800 meters from 1-Altitude I decide I wanted to check that place out as well but I got a bit confused by the "only 260 dollars for 1 bottle" signs so i decided to call it a day. The next three days I will be following a training course in that area so i will hop by tomorrow or the day after again. I also plan to check out Merlion (though i really really don't care lol) and gardens by the bay.

Hopefully I'll also find a normal place to have some drinks.

@zed: You mean marina bay hotel right? You can't have any drinks there. They got a restaurant but you can't just hop in there and it looks to cost a fortune.
 
http://www.asia-bars.com/2011/03/ku...t-bar-club-lounge-marina-bay-sands-singapore/
I just had a drink, I think thats it. Expensive & if you've already been up I wouldnt worry about going up again.

from the 4 animal things I went and saw, I rank them
bird park
zoo
aquarium
night zoo // it was dark, well duh but I didnt think it was gonna be that dark, > half of the stuff you couldnt actually see anything

personally I'ld go over to malaysia (been there 5x nice place) though the town just over the border, johu bahru is a shithole (worst place in malaysia) but if you can head up to malaka its nice, you prolly dont have the time though

for cheaper drinks I'ld go to chinatown
 
Go to Indonesia next and try crazy stuff at cheap oriprices.

- being purified magic
- eating frogs, grasshopper, dogs, plastic, mushrooms, etc
- enjoying candle ice, fried ice,
- fishing deep sea fish that looks like dinosaur

But you won't be able to freely drink alcohol. Generally it's banned to drink on public.
 
Aside from a couple of very overpriced bars you see in the "surface" (mostly in the bay area opposite to Marina Sands), the majority of the nightlife in Singapore is spent inside the malls.
The food zone in the malls that are open during the night is where you'll see young people chatting and having drinks.

It was really odd for me. The social life in "downtown" Singapore seems to be completely based off Consumerism. Each block seems to consist of a mall surrounded by apartment buildings, so their life revolves around... malls.

As for suggestions within the time you have, I'd say spend one of your late afternoons taking a walk along the seaside of Fullerton road and have a drink in one of the bars:
https://www.google.pt/maps/search/m...11238a8b9375:0x887869cf52abf5c4!6m1!1e1?hl=en

At night, take a visit to one of the malls that are open, just to see the real nightlife of Singapore, filled with people (within a mall..), just for curiosity.

Also, if you get the change, take a ride in the giant wheel, the Singapor Flyer:
https://www.google.pt/maps/place/Si...000000000000:0x7fb4e58ad9cd826e!6m1!1e1?hl=en


Leaving at 5:30p.m. everyday won't let you see any museums or parks, though. Sightseeing bus rides will also be rather limited.

P.S.: Very personal suggestion, avoid Little India like the plague.
 
I hear that the climate in Singapore is pretty punishing so perhaps hanging around indoors in air-conditioned malls is considered the better choice than sitting around sweating buckets outside?
 
I hear that the climate in Singapore is pretty punishing so perhaps hanging around indoors in air-conditioned malls is considered the better choice than sitting around sweating buckets outside?
true being on the equator its extremely humid, the worse I've ever had was at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Negara oldest rainforst in the world, 42c & 65% humidity = 66c heat index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_index
Just sitting down sweat was pouring off me & then I went hiking :LOL: though only a couple of hours, I saw a mouse deer though 1 meter away from me, beautiful

but yes in singapore crazy theres a lot of forest there right next to the main city. I done a 5 hour walk this one I think http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1023136 excellant maintained path, bridges, raised walkways etc through the forest yet in those 5 hours I saw maybe 5 people! even though theres millions only a couple of kilometers away.

Something else you might wanna check out is the most southern point of mainland asia is off the bottom of singapore at sentosa, or so its marketted (though I think its bollux cause its an island)
 
I'm thinking of going Singapore either next year or the year after as part of a larger Asian tour so some great advise in this thread! I particularly like the sound of that hike you did zed.
 
Stayed a couple of years in Sinky before moving up north.
Here's a few picks of mine, not really tailored to the B3D crowd but might be worth a look or two:

Tiong Bahru. Small, quaint neighborhood with unique (in SG) low-rise housing. The food court in the local market is a great sampler for Singaporean food. Open Door Policy serves fantastic western fare, on the same lane as BooksActually, an interesting bookstore with a focus towards literature. Rather close by is Zouk, Singapore's premier douchebag club.

re: Hawker food, skip Lau Pat Sat and go for Maxwell food court in the city- near Tanjong Pagar station.

Asian Civilizations Museum. Pretty much the only cultural site you'd want to visit in SG; everything else is kinda westward pandering and banal (Art Museum, 8Q, Art-Science Museum).
The National Gallery opens in October so it might be worth checking out if anything for the architecture, which is built into the old Supreme Court and City Hall buildings.

Skip the Singapore Flyer and head for Gardens by the Bay. IMHO the view from the OCBC Skyway is much nicer than on the Flyer. The 2 conservatories are worth visiting for their funky layout, architecture, and robust air-conditioning (lol) too.

Tanjong Beach Club. Really nice beach bar on Sentosa Island, picturesque enough to make you forget why you're doing this in SIN for 3x the price instead of Bali or Phuket. But to unwind on a sunny day it's good.

Boon Tong Kee Chicken rice. Don't leave Singapore without having this. Beats anything you'll have in Malaysia- nay, Melaka. As an ex-Malaccan, I'm pretty confident ;)
 
As Lau Pa Sat is only 800 meters from 1-Altitude I decide I wanted to check that place out as well but I got a bit confused by the "only 260 dollars for 1 bottle" signs so i decided to call it a day.

Ah I should've mentioned there are 2 queues at Altitude.. one is for private seats and bottle service for those who want to make it a night (and show off).
There's a shorter queue if you just want to pop upstairs and walk about freely for the cost of a cocktail. It's still like SGD 20 but the view IS nice as you actually look down on the Marina Bay skypool. Also a great spot for catching that hotel's daily laser show if you arrive early enough.

Zed, too bad you didn't like the Night Safari. I thought it was enjoyable in its own right but it is true that the other animal attractions have more to offer.
Speaking of hiking I should probably mention Pulau Ubin. It's a relatively untouched separate island between Singapore and Malaysia which offers a glimpse of what Singapore was like only a short 40 years ago (think mostly wooden housing and corrugated iron roofs and such). Most of the island is still covered with forest and you don't need a whole lot of luck to be able to spot boars, monkeys, snakes and the like. 15-minute boat transfers are just SGD 2.50 and leave all day from Changi Village (which itself is worth a visit as it offers good and inexpensive food and rather pleasant pubs with outside terraces).
 
Got back to Japan last Saturday. Unfortunately I didn't really got to see any other sights. I finished work around 6PM everyday so there wasn't really any time to get to the good places. In the end I ended up going for drinks with a local lady that I might one night and got on a random bus, got out at a random station and spent 4 hours walking to my hotel just to see something of the city on my last day.

Obviously I only had a little taste of Singapore and there are definitely many good things about the place but all in all I wouldn't trade it for Japan (though IMO Japan would be a much better place if it had a bit more western faces). Everybody is raving about the local food in Singapore but to be honest I didn't think it was really any better than Japan. I would actually say you can get better food for less in Japan. Not to mention in Japan you get free wet wipes or a towel to clean your hands and face where ever you go. In Singapore old man keep bother you for 1dollar for a bunch of shitty tissues. No free water/thee either like you get everywhere in Japan. Servers sucks as well, most of the people in stores give you as little as attention as possible. Some behemoth in the convenience store was talking in the phone all the time which rather pissed me off. That would never happen in Japan. Same goes for getting a seat somewhere during lunch hour. Total chaos in Singapore, nice quite, well arranged lines in Japan.

Outside of the local foodhalls food is pretty expensive and beer costs a fortune. Seriously, 11SGD for a pint? You can get all-you-can-drink for 90 minutes in Japan for a little more than that.

One of the fun things are the many cultures in Singapore. In Japan I sometimes get frustrated that 99.9% of the people living here are Japanese. They can get on your nerves from time to time but in Singapore you can just pick whoever you want to hang out with and everybody seems to mingle pretty well.

@pjbliverpool: Definitely don't forget to skip Japan! ;)
 
@pjbliverpool: Definitely don't forget to skip Japan! ;)

I'm assuming you meant I should go to Japan rather than skip it ;) In either case though Japan is definitely on my list, whether I do it on that trip or a seperate one though is an open quation atm. It depends how much time I can get off work and how long the rest of my trip is likely to take (which at this stage is just an ill formed idea rather than an actual plan - Iceland and the US East coast are next on the list before my return to Asia).
 
Oh boy, this thread is bringing me lots of great memories.

Last year in March I went with my girlfriend to Japan for 2 weeks, where I proposed (in Miyajima). We got married in September and our honeymoon was 20 days throughout Southeast Asia and Singapore.
This year, we're not leaving the country.. but it's for a great reason! We're expecting a baby in July :)
 
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