Despite not having traveled much outside the country, I can already say that Singapore is a favorite city of mine. I immediately fell in love with the place during my first trip there in 2009, and since then I have already dreamed of returning for another visit. Heck, I actually considered moving there someday. I don't know what it is, exactly, but there's just something about Singapore that just makes you want to keep coming back.
Is it the cultural diversity? The well above-average living conditions? Is it the cleanliness? I don't know--it is so difficult to pinpoint, exactly, but all I know is that there could only be one word to describe this tiny city-state: exceptional.
This blog post covers my recent trip to Singapore from September 15-19, to attend the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity 2012 held at the Suntec City Singapore. This blog post is a fairly-detailed account of what happened, so it may be a bit long. Read on and enjoy--I hope, in some way, that this blog post would actually inspire you to go and visit the place yourself. Enjoy!
(A note: "YourSingapore" is Singapore's official tourism slogan which had replaced the more-familiar "Uniquely Singapore" two years ago)
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| Waiting for our flight |
A lot of us who were going on this trip booked our flight as early as the first week of July. Although we were not expected to be there in Singapore until the morning or afternoon of the 15th of September, a lot of us had booked to leave on the evening of the 14th, a Friday, so that we would get to Singapore past midnight of the 15th so that we would have the whole day to explore Singapore. Unfortunately, however, this was not the case. I will explain that in a while.
Anyway, a lot of us had booked on JetStar Asia Airways, a Singapore-based low-cost carrier. At the time that we were booking our flights, this was actually one of the cheapest options we had, at $176 per person, round-trip. It was only a little bit more expensive than Tiger Airways (another Singapore-based low-cost carrier that had recently acquired a stake in Seair, a Filipino airline) and a few thousand pesos cheaper than local budget carriers Airphil Express and Cebu Pacific. Plus, JetStar was only one of the two airlines that had a schedule that would fit our preferences.
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| Our JetStar Asia flight was scheduled to depart at 9:10 pm |
Now here comes our dilemma: about a month before the trip, the University's School of Communications dean had given out waivers for our parents to sign, as well as where we were to stay (we were not allowed to pick our hotel--the professors picked the hotels for us; one hotel for the males and one for the females). We also had to pay for everything--the conference fee, the plane fare, hotel and whatnot--and included among those that were distributed to us were the amounts that we had to pay. Our hotel accommodation fee was $425 ($415 for the females), good for 5 days and 4 nights (September 15-19). The problem is, check-in time at the hotel wasn't until 2pm, and our flight was supposed to land at Singapore at 12:40am. We couldn't proceed immediately to the hotel even if we wanted to--unless we would be willing to shell out more money. Our professors, too, had arranged for us to be picked up from the hotel at 10am. Whoops. Looks like we were too excited.
We didn't have a choice, really, except to remain at Changi Airport's Terminal 1 from 1am to 10am. 9 freaking hours! Good thing Singapore's Changi Airport is huge and has a wide range of shops and restaurants. There's basically lots of things to do and lots of places to see. The thing is, though, our flight landed during the wee hours and we needed to sleep to prepare for the day ahead.
If you've watched a few episodes of The Amazing Race, you've probably seen instances when the teams get to the airport during the wee hours and they find out that the ticketing offices of the different airlines are still closed, so they find a random spot at the airport, sleep, and wait until the morning when the ticketing offices finally open. What we did was something like that, actually--we took the escalator up to the pre-departure area (before the check-in counters), picked out random bench-style chairs, and slept (or at least tired to--I only fell asleep twice; the first instance, I slept for around an hour, and the second instance I slept only for about half an hour).
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| A classmate trying to get some sleep |
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| ...and here's another one. |
During the times when I couldn't sleep, I just sat down and went online--luckily Changi Airport has free WiFi. Other times I would just walk around or just sit there. It was definitely the longest 9 hours of my life.
For breakfast (at around 5:30-6am) I went to 7-11 with a couple of classmates where I bought a banana muffin and a strawberry-flavored yogurt drink. Though there were a number of restaurants there (like KFC or Burger King), I didn't really feel like eating fastfood.
Finally, by 10am our guide (whom we called Ms. Kim) arrived at Terminal 1 to fetch the JetStar people (there were two JetStar Asia flights on the evening of the 14th--one that left at 9:10 and which most of us were on, and another that had a Singapore-Manila-Osaka-Manila-Singapore routing which left Manila at 9:25 pm). From T1 we boarded the train to get to T2, where our other classmates who were on the PAL flight (which left Manila at around 6am on the 15th) were waiting. From there, we boarded our bus that would finally take us to our hotel, and then made a quick stopover at the Budget Terminal to pick up those on the Cebu Pacific flight (that also left Manila at around the same time as the PAL flight did).
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| Inside the bus |
The males stayed at the Bayview Hotel Singapore, while the females stayed at the Hotel Royal @ Queens a few blocks away. I could not really compare the two, but based on what I've heard from some of my female classmates, I think the Bayview Hotel is actually a bit better on some aspects. For one, the Bayview Hotel provided adaptors to its guests free of charge, while the females had to pay SGD$10 if they wanted to borrow one from their hotel. We also had free internet connectivity via cable which was available upon request.
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| The Bayview Hotel Singapore's lobby |
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| The room which I shared with another classmate |
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| The modern and beautiful Singapore Management University (SMU) ampus near our hotel |
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| The Singapore Art Museum is also nearby |
First on the agenda after settling down (we were allowed to check in at around noon): lunch. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, we (the males) walked several blocks to a food court type of place called Sidewalk, located along Hill Street. The place had a variety of Asian food stalls that offered good variety of dishes to choose from.
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| On the way to Sidewalk |
After lunch we walked back to the hotel to get some rest. I didn't stay that long, however, since I figured now would be the best time to go and buy pasalubong (gifts) for my family back home.
I only had one place in mind: Orchard Road. For those who don't know, Orchard Road is Singapore's famous shopping street that is a must-visit for anyone travelling to Singapore. There are a number of malls here which carry various brands (whether local and foreign or cheap and expensive), as well as restaurants and food stalls. This place is bustling with activity especially on weekends. I was there on a Saturday and it was packed with people!
From the Bayview Hotel, I took the MRT from the Circle Line (the orange line) from the Bras Basah Station to the Dhoby Ghaut Interchange From there, I transferred to the red line to the Orchard Station, which has a direct access to the Ion Orchard Mall, one of the newer shopping malls in the area which opened in 2009.
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| At the Bras Basah Station |
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| Inside the Ion Orchard Mall |
One of the stores I went to (and where I got two shirts for my younger brother) was the two-level Uniqlo store at the Ion Orchard Mall. I was actually quite disappointed. I think the new Uniqlo store at the SM Mall of Asia is actually better, with a wider range of clothes, and at a cheaper price, too. I still ended up buying two shirts anyway.
Before I could even head back to the hotel to rest (I was already so tired--I walked around the different malls along Orchard Road), I ran into several of the guys at the MRT Station. They were on their way to check out the massive H&M store also at Orchard Road, which happens to be the first one in Southeast Asia. I decided to go along with them to check the place out myself.
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| The H&M store facade |
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| The mannequins |
The H&M store in Singapore is HUGE! It was definitely much, much bigger than the two-level H&M store I've been to along Canton Road in Hong Kong back in June. Three levels were dedicated entirely to women's clothing and accessories, while the fourth floor was split between mean's wear and children's wear. It was definitely overwhelming. I did manage to buy a long-sleeve shirt for myself (at SGD$17.90--definitely affordable compared to other famous brands out there!), and a tie to go along with it (also at SGD$17.90).
I had definitely stretched myself too thin that day--aside from getting very little sleep, I had spent almost the entire afternoon walking. After dropping by the H&M store and walking back to the Ion Orchard Mall (where we ran into some of our female classmates), I figured it was time to head back to the hotel to get some rest. I even had to decline an invitation by some of my classmates for dinner somewhere. Luckily, I was not alone on the way back to the hotel--several of the female classmates whom we had run into at Ion Orchard also wanted to head back to their hotel, so we then took the MRT back to the Bras Basah Station, where our hotels were close to.
Before reaching the hotel, I made a stopover at the nearby 7-11 store to quickly get something to eat. Aside from 7-11 there were also other establishments close to our hotel, such as Kopitiam (a popular food court chain), Wendy's, and The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. After that I was more than happy to be back at the hotel room--I had to get enough sleep to prepare for another exciting day ahead.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I will talk about our Universal Studios experience.
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