Singapore abridged

Trip Positivies

1. Ate all my meals at local hawkers markets barring the first and last at the airport. Singapore hawkers rule!

2. Had sufficient variety of pork to realize that I love thee oh lil piglets.

3. Lunch and dinner always done with Tiger beer.

4. Outside of pork I managed to reduced populations of crab, squid and frog by one each.

5. First capsule hotel experience. Gotta be lucky to get d bottom pod and silent roomies 😊

6. Outdid the MRT tourist pass by travelling till my legs were numb.

7. Walked through the botanical gardens from the MRT station to Tanglin gate and back. Luckily the rains that day saved me from the humidity.

8. Actually picked up my socks and headed out on both nights for the Chinatown festival, Singapore Night fest and Heineken Cities fest.

9. Understood Selfies! Finally made use of the front camera. And yeah locals here use extendable poles to click selfies... 😖

Trip Negatives

1. Could not try out the weird food options.
2. Missed trying out ifly at Sentosa
3. Didn't try out the ultimate cars

4. Budget. Some planning could've saved 10-20%

Singapore Positives

1. Didn't see a single cop outside of those at the airport

2. Cutest kids on the planet. Period.

3. Happiest urban kids. Seen kiddos in many cities but never found them to be as cheerful n playful in public as those here. For eg. In India I would say that I've seen such genuinely happy kids in our villages.

4. Great civic sense. Everyone stands on the left of the escalator so that the right part is available to those in a hurry. 😲

5. Escalator speed. These are escalators on steroids compared to the ones back home. Goes to show how quick things seem to flow here.

Singapore Negatives

1. Everyone is heads down on their phone. Now that I think of it barely heard anyone on an actual call though.

2. Damn expensive for tourists esp the stay

3. Sentosa... Was just blah!

4. To walk on the left or right. People only walked randomly. I would assume this should have been sorted by now. The govt better address this with top priority ;)

5. People actually eat at McDonalds in front of hawkers market. Given the awesome street food with sufficient large doze of "this stuff will kill you" the only thing unique about McDs is the bun.

How and why?

I was motivated to salvage my second long weekend in August. So with a bit of time to go I targeted Singapore. The gods were kind and I boarded the flight from hyd to Chennai and then to Singapore. During the layovers I soon realized I am gonna be screwed coz the hotels were charging too much. What's worse is their checkin time is 2-3pm while I land at 4am. Additional day charges were gonna screw me further.

Before buckling up for Changai I had narrowed down to Adler hostel. On landing it showed to be sold out. So after a massive hunt I landed at Chic otel by around 8am. Luckily got a bottom pod which handled 6ft beasts. Saved.

All said and done this was a long overdue backpacking trip outside my comfort zone. Time to "do" some more.