A slightly over 2 hour flight from Bali and I’m back in Singapore for 5 days. Several people had told me that the half a day I had on the way south from Malaysia to Indonesia wasn’t enough (they were right) and so I was back, to spend the longest amount of time in one hotel since Adelaide in mid-December (it’s now the middle of March).

My flight arrived mid afternoon, and having booked a hotel near a metro station that was essentially on the one line from Changi airport, I’d arrived to find that due to engineering works, I would have to take a slightly more convoluted journey. An hour or so later, I had reached the hotel a 2 minute walk from Lavender station feeling quite pleased with myself for navigating the metro. You can pay for Singapore’s metro using contactless cards at the gate so no need to worry about getting tickets from anywhere (though there were manned ticket booths at the stations too).

After sort of unpacking and making use of the air con (low 30s and humid in Singapore), I headed out to Gardens By The Bay in the evening and by the time I’d got some food and meandered around, I’d inadvertently timed it very well for the Garden Rhapsody music and light show which happens every evening at 7.45pm and 8.45pm. I called it a night after that as it had been a fairly long travel day.

I started the next morning with a walk through nearby Kampong Glam. It was quite peaceful wandering through the narrow streets in the morning, this area comes to life in the evening.

Next up I headed to Raffles Hotel for the one drink I had to buy in Singapore, a Singapore Sling at the Long Bar. I was there by 11.30am and found only 2 people in front of me in the queue. Advantage of being a solo patron is that I ended up sat at the bar! Obviously it’s a thing to do here, and it certainly comes at a price (£31 for one drink including tax and tip), but it was pretty cool to be sat at the bar, sipping on the most expensive drink I’ve ever bought, and eating as many of the ‘free’ monkey nuts as I could manage. The queue was snaking round the corner when I left at 12.30pm.

I then wandered towards Little India, and stopped off at a hawker centre for a delicious laksa (£2.50!) for lunch. After spending the afternoon in the AC in the hotel room, I headed to Orchard Road, full of shopping malls, and a quick walk up the very pretty street of Emerald Hill. Back to Kampong Glam for dinner in the evening.

The next morning I went back to Gardens by the Bay to visit the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest. Tickets for both of these cost $46 SGD. I loved wandering around both of these and getting some houseplant and garden inspiration for when I’m back home!

After some chicken satay for lunch, I continued my botanical day by heading out to the Botanical Gardens. I’d planned this slightly poorly and arrived in the mid afternoon heat. After a very slow wander to a cafe in the centre of the gardens, I had an iced tea and slice of cake before calling it a day and heading back to the cool AC in the hotel.

One of the things I’ve been missing food-wise on my travels in Asia is cheese. And one of the missions I gave myself for Singapore was to find cheese (my other mission was to find shampoo/conditioner for curly hair, only partially successful). My cheese mission was successful and I put myself into a cheese coma!

I needed to walk off the cheese so I headed out to East Singapore in the afternoon, for a walk along the East Coast Beach, and through Katong and the very pretty Peranakan Houses. Not a lot of tourists make it out this way, and it was a very nice, peaceful walk through the neighbourhood and to the nearest MRT station to get me back to my hotel.

On my final day I decided to head to Sentosa Island. Sentosa is essentially an island resort for the city. There are gorgeous beaches here, as well as Universal Studios, an aquarium and a bunch of hotels. I took the monorail over and walked up the beach path to Siloso fort which is the remnants of one of the many forts which in the past fortified Singapore, and free to visit.

After a slow wander back along the beach (it was again a very hot day, I am hoping I will see some benefit from all the walking in the hot humidity when I get home and go running again…), I had Singapore chicken and rice for lunch before heading back to the mainland. There are heaps of shopping malls in Singapore, and whilst I still don’t have any room in my bag, I did enjoy wandering around some of those in the Marina Bay area. I got a bit excited about seeing an M&S Food – I just about resisted the Percy Pigs – for some reason they seem to import the milk from the UK which seems slightly mad…

It was definitely worth coming back to Singapore for a few days. Aside from the obvious tourists sights, I really enjoyed some of the quieter places in East Singapore too. It’s pretty expensive here though and a bit of a shock to the system after the last couple of months in SE Asia. You can keep costs down by eating at hawker centres and taking the metro/MRT (I’ve no idea how they work out the ticketing, I used my debit card at the gate each time I used the MRT which I did fairly extensively over my 5 nights here, and it cost me £10 in total which included getting to and from Changi airport). But definitely worth spending a few days here and I’m sure I’ll be back at some point, if only on a layover.