Category: Singapore

Another Southeast Asia trip, another set of flights through Singapore! It’s consistently voted the best airport in the world. While I would prefer to do security up front instead of at the gate, there are some pretty cool features in the airport so I can understand why it keeps winning.

For this trip, I had an awful time getting to Singapore. I was flying from DC to San Francisco, with a planned 3 hour layover and then the 17.5 hour flight to Singapore. The issues began almost immediately after we left the gate. We started to take off, then pulled off the runway. The pilot came on the intercom to inform us that we were having issues with a fuel pump and they wanted to check it before we left. When the maintenance crew came to look at it, they decided it was a problem, so we had to go back to a gate to get it fixed. Which meant waiting for a gate for another 20 minutes. Once we got to the gate, the fix was pretty quick, but then we didn’t take off again. Instead, the pilot came on the intercom again and said that when they redid the paperwork, it changed our weight limit, and were 8 people willing to give up their seats? The volunteers got off the plane. Then they took all the luggage off the plane and informed us it would be put on a different plane, also going to San Francisco. I have never been so glad that I don’t usually check luggage.

After all that, I watched my beautiful 3 hour layover tick down to 8 minutes, to get across basically the entire airport. San Francisco’s airport construction is still alive and well, and I did my best to sprint through the world’s longest hallway. I made it in the last minute before boarding closed, told them that we had landed and to please hold it for a few others who were getting off my same plane, and got on board, incredibly relieved to have made it.

When I finally got off in Singapore, I was in a fugue state, having spent nearly 24 hours straight on planes. I had a few hours to grab breakfast and nap in the lounge before I met Lucy and headed off to Brunei.

Thankfully, my other forays through Singapore went a little more smoothly. We also went back through Singapore on the way from Brunei to Hanoi, where we explored the butterfly garden!

It really is a beautiful airport.

My third and last visit to Singapore on this trip was also the one where I got to leave the airport! From Myanmar, I had a short flight back to Singapore, then a night in a hotel before I reversed my path back to DC. A few others were also heading through Singapore, so the five of us headed out for some sightseeing.

We started out with dinner at one of the hawker centers, which are one of Singapore’s best contributions to food and culture. It’s such a cool experience, and unlike last time when I was traveling solo, it was fun to go with a lot of people where everyone tried different dishes.

From there, we headed to the classics: the Merlion, Gardens By The Bay, Marina Sands. Most of us had been to Singapore but Jorge had not, so we tried to do a quick whirlwind tour to make sure he had seen all the most iconic places in Singapore. We even managed to catch the lights show at Gardens By The Bay, which is still one of my favorite things in the country!

Singapore remains one of the best places to transit through in Southeast Asia, and I’m sure I’ll be back at some point! I still have a lot of amazing places to visit in the region. Next time, though, I’m going to try to go in a slightly cooler season.

Happy travels!

Singapore feels like this amazing Asian utopian melting pot, with the meticulous organization (and prices) of a Disney theme park. As one of the main flight hubs in Southeast Asia, I had a stopover at the beginning of my trip and another at the end, so I got about two days in Singapore to explore!

My company has an office in Singapore, which is one of our main Asian hubs. Even though I wasn’t working on this trip, I did stop by the office to meet up with a few coworkers and see the amazing views of Marina Sands! It was so cool to meet up with people that I’ve spent years talking to on Zoom and Slack and email, and they had lots of recommendations for where I should go during my visit.

One of their top recommendations was Gardens by the Bay! It’s this amazing botanical garden, and they have the giant sculptures that look like trees that you’ve probably seen if you’ve seen any picture of Singapore. Or Crazy Rich Asians, which absolutely made Singapore look amazing and was some serious travel inspo. Anyway, every night they do a free light show where they play classical music and then project lights on the tree sculptures, and I thought it was going to be a little cheesy/touristy but it was amazing. I laid out on the grass and watched the sun set and it’s one of my favorite memories of my time in the city.

Singapore is also known for its ethnic neighborhoods! I stayed in Chinatown for my first night, and spent a lot of time wandering the Little India and Kampong Glam areas as well. Honestly, most of what I did during the day was just walk around, and it was such an incredible way to see the city. One of my coworkers told me that if you walked end to end in Singapore, it would be about one marathon of walking.

The other thing that really struck me while I was there was how futuristic it all felt! First of all, the metro was amazing and functional and so easy to use. The malls that I went into were incredibly fancy, like the Marina Sands one that had an actual canal with gondolas inside it? I low key wanted to ride one of the gondolas but they were done by the time I was in the right area.

I also did all the touristy things while I was there, like go to the Raffles Hotel and order a wildly overpriced Singapore Sling, and go take pictures of the Merlion. I ate lunch at a hawker center. As a warning, those do require cash, which was the only time I needed it while in the city. When I left the Gardens by the Bay, I came back out through Marina Sands and found that there was another dancing fountain show happening in front of the skyline. Sometimes it felt Disney, but in a way that just felt functional instead of fake.

I’ve been excited to visit Singapore for a long time, and it lived up to all my expectations! Such a cool city, and a great introduction to Southeast Asia. I’m looking forward to my next visit and will definitely add it to the itinerary on my next visit to the region.