Photo: Gate at Fort Canning

I’m in Singapore!! It took me about 20 hours to get here in total. The trip started with a 10 hour flight to Tokyo on ANA. The flight was actually pretty empty, I had the whole row to myself! And I gotta say, the ANA in-flight service was really great.

Goodbye Seattle!

After that, there was a 4-hour layover in Tokyo. I was super tired and took a nap while waiting for the flight. Finally, the 6 hour flight to Singapore. I slept for most of it, but caught some cool sights on the way in!

Waiting ships in the Singapore harbor

I arrived in Singapore at 7 am - which meant I had to stay awake another 12 hours if I didn’t want to be the victim of even-worse jet lag. This was officially day 1! My first tourist destination was the Jewel mall. Unfortunately, everything was closed because it was so early. I also spent an hour trying to get my SIM card working (that was not super fun to do while tired).

The fountain in Changi Jewel. It was too early for the water to be pouring…

Afterwards, I headed into the city center.

Some inspiring Singaporean architecture. Love that the dreadful corporate skyscrapers at least have some green!

The famous Marina Bay Sands hotel. It’s huge.

Lighthouse at Fort Canning.

Dinner: dumplings and soy milk at a hawker centre. I was an INSTANT fan of hawker centres

Sunset on the first night!

I checked into my hostel later that day. I ended up falling asleep at 8pm (not bad) and sleeping for 12 hours (expected tbh). The next day, I did some more exploring.

Singapore’s “Supertrees”

Ferris wheel in Marina Bay

Waffle with Kaya inside (Kaya is a coconut jam, pretty good!)

So: what’s the verdict so far? As a place to visit, I would say Singapore ranks pretty good. I love the diversity of the place: it is a vibrant melting pot of cultures, and you can find so many good food places to explore them all.

But you can tell Singapore is a planned city (which it is), and the areas dominated by corporate architecture feel inauthentic - even if they are crazy beautiful buildings. Where I think Singapore really shines is as a potential place to live! You can definitely enjoy a nice quality of life here, with access to all the staples of high-GDP living. And you will never run out of food to try :).