It was a long day of travelling made even longer by a delay to my flight from KL to Singapore but I eventually made it. Some family friends, the Wilsons had very kindly offered to put me up for the week I was in Singapore which was a lovely change from slumming it in various hostels and dorms. I arrived fairly late that evening, so after a delicious dinner I headed to bed for an early night.
The thing about Singapore is it is constantly changing. There is a constant cycle of knocking down, rebuilding and redeveloping buildings. As such there was a lot of the country that had changed beyond recognition, although it was great to head back to some places I could remember from when I was growing up there and see them again, sometimes in a different light.
I spent the weekend mainly just catching up on sleep and relaxing at the house, but on Sunday I went along to church, which actually seemed to have barely changed (at least in my mind), although it did feel a lot smaller than it had done when I was younger. On Monday I headed out to the Botanic Gardens, another place I had fairly vivid memories of. It's still a lovely place to go for a walk but parts of it have been substantially changed in the last 10 years. Having said that, there were still parts of it which seemed to be very similar to how I remember them such as the Swiss Granite Fountain (or the 'big rock ball fountain thing' as I remembered it), the Swan Lake and the outdoor concert stage. After wandering through the gardens I reached the other end and headed over to the house where I used to live. I was a bit surprised at how little it had changed, apart from a bit of a paint job and some new windows it was almost exactly as I remembered it. Next I headed over past the Serene Center (which looks the same from the outside but the only shop I saw that is the same is McDonald's) across the massive storm drain to a hawker center for lunch. One of my favourite things about Singapore has always been the food, you can get so many different cuisines all in one place. The highlight of it is definitely the Hawker Centre, I didn't really visit them much when I was younger but you can get tasty local food for as little as $3 (£1.50) a meal. They are basically big indoor markets with different stalls selling different styles of great food. After having my fill I headed over to the house I first lived in. I was even more surprised that this one was still there and apparently pretty much untouched, especially since many of the houses on the other side of the road are now all big and modern with glass-railinged balconies. It was a bit odd to retrace the routes I had travelled so long ago but great fun to discover how much of what I remember is accurate.
Next day I decided to walk along Orchard Road into the city centre. Orchard Road is mostly as I remember if a bit more upmarket and bigger than I can recall. I wasn't really in the mood for doing any shopping (and didn't really have the money to spend) so I basically just walked the length of it, but it was still fun to do. When I reached the other end I headed over to Raffles Hotel and indulged in an expensive cliché that I had never had the opportunity to experience when I was younger, a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar while throwing peanut shells on the floor. It was quite pricey but I loved the whole old-fashioned colonial atmosphere of it. After a single drink I left and walked over to the Singapore National Museum (which is free in the evenings) where they had some interesting exhibitions on the history of things like food and fashion in Singapore. Afterwards I headed out of the back of the museum and into Fort Canning park where I had a nice walk as the sun set. The only really vivid memory I have of Fort Canning is seeing in the new millenium there and watching the fireworks over the city as the clock struck midnight. From the park I headed down to Clarke Quay which used to be just a load of warehouses but is now a real vibrant hub of Singapore nightlife. From there I boarded a 'Hippo' boat and took a trip down the river to Marina Bay which has been MASSIVELY developed with the Esplanade theatres and the Marina Bay Sands casino and hotel. Some parts of the riverbanks haven't changed, but it definitely seemed to me to be a more lively and upmarket place than I remember. It was quite impressive to see the number of lights and the new buildings towering over the river. After the boat trip I treated myself to dinner on the river and then lazily caught a taxi back.
After a reasonably relaxed Wednesday morning I decided to do something a little more energetic and so after a stroll through the Botanic Garden I caught a taxi for the short ride up to MacRitchie Reservoir where I had a nice evening 12km-ish hike around the reservoir. Unfortunately I didn't realise that the last admission to the treetop walkway was quite as early as 4:45pm so I missed out on that but I still enjoyed the exercise and the views across the reservoir. I love the way you can be in a 100% developed country like Singapore and yet be walking through some serious rainforest. Apart from a bit of a shower it was a lovely walk, although I was a little on the tired side by the time I got back.
Before I went to Australia I wanted to send a few things back to the UK rather than take them with me (especially because of how ridiculous the Australian Customs can be), so because of this and the fact I still had some postcards I hadn't been able to send I decided to spend a day doing a bit of admin, sending some emails, doing some work and visiting the Post Office. This also gave me a day to rest before my last day in Singapore.
I decided that on Friday I'd like to be a little less lazy and actually spend most of the day out, so at 10am (shockingly early I know) I headed down to the main road to catch a taxi over to Kent Ridge Park which now lies on a walking trail called the Southern Ridges which goes all the way from West Coast Park up to Mt Faber and down to the Harbour Front. I decided not to do the whole trail but instead went through Kent Ridge Park, along the Canopy Walk, down to the new HortPark up into Telok Blangah along the walkway and then across the Henderson Waves to the top of Mt Faber. It was a lovely walk and it's great that you can now walk all the way across by just following trails (I heard somewhere it is the longest urban walking trail in the world or something). Once at the top of Mt Faber I had a nice lunch overlooking the harbour before splurging out on the cable car over to Sentosa. I can remember that when I was younger getting the cable car across to Sentosa was just about the most exciting day trip ever. It was great to relive it and to be able to see the harbour and the utterly ridiculous amount of development that is going on on Sentosa itself. When we used to live there it was relatively naff but great fun as a kid, now the government is pumping loads of money into it and almost all of it is completely unrecognisable. Where there used to be fairly quiet beaches and playing fields there are now huge resorts and swanky bars. There's now a casino resort and a Universal Studios park and they aren't stopping there; there's a huge section of the island that is just a massive building site. Having said that, it's still a fun place to go and there is a huge range of things to do (even if you do have to pay for pretty much everything). One part that I discovered has remained pretty much the same as 10 years ago is Fort Siloso, being a boy this was always one of my favourite places to go to (and my parents probably appreciated the fact that it is significantly cheaper than any other attraction) even through I didn't really appreciate all the history of the site. It was cool to go back and actually pay attention to the exhibitions and find the sights that I used to love are very much the same. Even though the beach is now quite a bit busier and built-up I still had a nice walk along the seafront and visited the 'Southernmost Point of Continental Asia' as well as a rather tasty cocktail. In the evening I also went to Underwater World to see the incredible range of sea-life and also to see the pink dolphins which was pretty fun. After a walk along the beach as the sun set I headed up towards the Merlion to see it in all it's lit-up glory before getting the cable car back to the mainland over the night skyline.
It may have only been a brief trip back to Singapore and I may not have done all the things I would ideally have liked to but it was a lovely relaxing trip and I loved being able to have a bit of a remenisce and see some of the places of my childhood.
You didn't go back to school.
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