Tag: city break

Singapore

~ Cat ~ Leave a comment

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.

The Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay with Marina Bay Sands hotel in the background

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.

Sultan Mosque, Kampong Glam
The most expensive drink I’ve ever bought
A $4 bowl of laksa
Little India
Kampong Glam at dusk
Emerald Hill

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!

Considering the prices here, this plus my iced tea was only £25 – not bad!

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.

East Coast Beach
A very moody sky
Street Art in Katong
Sri Senpaga Vinayaga temple
Katong
Peranakan houses in Katong

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.

On Sentosa Island

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.

Mexico City Stopover

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On my way back from Cuba, I had a 3 day stopover in Mexico City – as I had a layover there anyway, I figured I might as well spend a couple of days there.

Mexico City, Ciudad de Mexico also stylised as CDMX, is the largest city in North America and is also at altitude – over 7,300 feet, which I hadn’t realised beforehand. The city is in a basin and surrounded by peaks and volcanoes which makes for an interesting descent into the airport.

I had arrived from Cuba in the early evening. I was staying at an Ibis Styles in Zona Rosa district. After a brief wander and a McDonalds (ordered in my faltering Spanish), I had an early night as I had an early start the following day for a guided tour around some of the main sights in the centre of the city.

I was met at the hotel by my guides and we took a local bus and then the Metro to the historic centre of Mexico City. We emerged from the metro onto the Zocalo, the main plaza in Mexico City. We visited the Templo Mayor and its museum which contains heaps of artefacts from the excavation of the site, and lots of history on the Mexica peoples. We popped into the cathedral briefly as mass was taking place, and then walked through the streets towards the Palacio de belles artes (Palace of Fine Arts) and Alameda Park. The trees all around the city had this gorgeous purple blossom (I visited in March 2019).

Cathedral; Beautiful blossom in Alameda Park

We then had authentic Mexican tacos for lunch (delicious) and visited Diego Rivera’s famous mural before heading to San Juan market to try some (less delicious) local delicacies including grasshoppers and ants. I can’t say I enjoyed them, but when in Rome…

Authentic Mexican tacos for lunch; Diego Rivera’s ‘Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park’

That was the end of the guided tour, and I took an Uber back to my hotel for a quick refresh before heading off down the Avenida Chapultepec towards Chapultepec Castle (featured as the starting point of series 2 of the BBC’s Race Across The World). I wandered around the castle and its grounds for the rest of the afternoon before heading back to the hotel for another early night.

The view down Avenida Chapultepec from Chapultepec Castle

The next day I had another guided tour – in the morning we took the metro out to the Basilica of Our Lady Guadalupe in the north of Mexico City. The site contains the Old Basilica and a Modern Basilica which was built in the 1970s as the Old Basilica was sinking due to the terrain on which CDMX is built. Following repairs, the Old Basilica is still open to the public to visit but the masses are mainly held in the Modern Basilica which can hold up to 10,000 people.

Old Basilica (left) and modern Basilica (right)

In the afternoon, we took a local bus about 25 miles outside of the city, to the Teotihuacán pyramids. The 2 main pyramids here are the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. I was quite surprised to find that we were allowed to scale both of them, as well as some of the smaller pyramids surrounding the site.

At Teotihuacán

We then went to a local obsidian shop, and stopped by a local hostelry where we tried pulque and tequila, and then went for dinner for some more genuine Mexican fare. After dinner we headed back to the city on the bus, and then I took the metro back to my hotel.

The next day was my final day in CDMX, though my flight wasn’t until late in the evening so I still had a full day to explore. I’d booked a ticket to the Frida Kahlo museum, and made my way there via the metro. The metro in Mexico City definitely has a reputation and as a solo female traveller I certainly had to have my wits about me. The front carriages on Metro trains are reserved for women and children only, and I used these when travelling on the metro by myself. I also wore my backpack on my front, as indeed many of the locals were doing. I didn’t feel unsafe, but I was well aware that I needed to look out for myself.

The Frida Kahlo museum is in her former house in Coyoacán, and is a bright azure blue. That, along with the queue, makes sure you can’t miss it! An incredibly interesting woman.

Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo Museum, Coyoacán, Mexico City

So, in summary, Mexico City was well worth a couple of days on a stopover. Lots of history, great food and loads of interesting things to see. Definitely recommend!

Iceland

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In March 2018 I took a short trip with a friend to Iceland. Flight time is approx 2 and a half hours from the UK – we flew from Manchester and arrived into some low cloud at Reykjavik’s Keflavik airport mid afternoon. After getting to the hotel, we had a bit of a wander around the local area to orientate ourselves, before having dinner and an expensive drink.

The next morning, the weather was much better and we could see some of the beautiful scenery that surrounds Reykjavik.

Views in Reykjavik

We had a long walk around Reykjavik, along the waterfront which has some interesting sculptures, and we visited the Aurora Northern Lights museum to learn about the Northern Lights, which we were hoping we’d be able to see in the evening.

After an expensive burger for lunch, we visited the Hallgrimskirka, which is the main church in Reykjavik. You can also climb up the bell tower and see some great 360o views of Reykjavik – I definitely recommend doing this if you visit Reykjavik. And I also recommend trying to get up high in any new place you visit – it gives such a great perspective on wherever you’re visiting.

Hallgrimskirka and views from the bell tower

We continued our wandering and ended up visiting the Icelandic Phallological Museum (ahem…)

After that, we meandered back to our hotel for a bit of a break and snooze, as we were heading out later in search of the Northern Lights. We were quite fortunate with a break in the weather on the day we were booked on the Northern Lights trip, the previous day’s trips were all cancelled due to the weather. We were picked up at around 10pm and were driven out of Reykjavik for around an hour towards Thingvellir National Park. We were looking for dark, clear skies, and we were so fortunate to get them. To the naked eye, you could see the sky shimmering a silver-ish colour, but when I cranked up to the right settings on my DSLR, it captured the greens and purples amazingly (if a little shakily as I didn’t have a tripod). I still reckon the Northern Lights are one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen, such an awe-inspiring sight.

Shaky Northern Lights

We were out until around 12.30am watching the skies, and then with an hour’s drive back to Reykjavik, it was a late night. Followed by an early morning as we were doing a full day Golden Circle tour – an absolute must do when you go to Iceland.

The first stop was at Geysir, which does exactly what it says on the tin. Not the most impressive geyser I’ve been to (humble brag…), but if you’ve not seen one before, it’s certainly a sight to behold. There were also some wonderfully blue pools in the area, and lots of steam coming from the ground, as you’d expect in a place with lots of geothermal activity.

At Geysir

The next stop was a Gullfoss Waterfall – an amazing sight, though it was absolutely freezing and blowing an absolute gale.

Gullfoss Waterfalls

The final stop of the day was back to Thingvellir National Park, which we were unable to fully appreciate when hunting for the Northern Lights. This is an important place in Iceland, it’s where the first parliament was held, and is also where 2 tectonic plates are moving away from each other, and you can literally see the crack in the earth.

Thingvellir National Park

After some more expensive drinks in the evening, we had an early night followed by an early morning as we had a very early flight back to the UK. Iceland makes for a great, if expensive, short break destination from the UK. If you’re going to see the Northern Lights, choose your dates wisely – the sky needs to be dark so better to go around the time of a new moon rather than a full moon, and also bear in mind the daylight hours in Iceland. It’s the furthest north I’ve been and especially in summer, there will be near-constant daylight. We went in March which has approx 12 hours of daylight and does mean it is dark enough in the late evening for viewing the Northern Lights. Do your research if seeing the Northern Lights is an important part of your visit. There are also some wonderful natural phenomenon to see here, it’s on a plate boundary so heaps of geothermal activity and barrenly beautiful scenery in and around Reykjavik. Definitely recommend!

Sevilla, it makes me happy…

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In 2018 my holiday plans were primarily to ‘cold’ places – Iceland, Alaska and Jersey (which can be, and was, warm but it wasn’t guaranteed!), so I figured that I needed a hot weather break before we headed into winter. I’d very briefly visited Seville in 2017 when I did a trip through Spain and Morocco, but we basically only had half a day there and it was so hot I could barely move, let alone see everything I wanted to see. So, it seemed like the perfect option for a long weekend break with a good friend who I met on a trip to New Zealand in 2014.

We flew from Gatwick and arrived in Sevilla in the late afternoon. It was cloudy but warm. After checking into our hotel we headed out for a wander towards the Plaza de España

Plaza de España – October 2018

The cloudy skies gave it a different ambience to 2017’s blue sky visit:

Plaza de España – September 2017

With the temperature in the high 20s rather than approaching 40, this time round it was a much more comfortable temperature for meandering through the streets and taking in the sights.

After wandering back around to the cathedral we found a nice tapas restaurant for dinner and a couple of drinks. Afterwards a walk through the city back to our hotel

Sevilla Cathedral by night

The next morning we headed over to the Bull Ring. Bull fighting remains a spectator sport in Sevilla, and you can go on a tour of the bull ring, as we did. It was very interesting to learn about the history of bull fighting in this part of Spain, and the arena itself is very impressive, but I can’t say I’d be rushing to see a live event

Sights at the Bullring

In the afternoon we went on a tour of the cathedral, which we had booked in advance. An immensely impressive building (the largest gothic church in the world) and a must-do when in Sevilla. I would also recommend climbing La Giralda, the clock tower, for some great views over Sevilla.

The intricacies of the cathedral ceiling; views from the clock tower over Sevilla

Afterwards we continued our wandering through the pretty streets of Sevilla before dinner, wine and local speciality tinto de verano (makes red wine drinkable in my opinion!).

The next day, with a slight hangover, we had a tour of the Alcazar, which again we’d booked in advance. It’s an enormous complex, both the buildings and the gardens, and you could easily spend hours there. Another must-do if you are in Sevilla.

At the Alcazar

After more tapas and wine in the evening, it was an early start the next morning for our flight back to Gatwick.

I would absolutely recommend Sevilla as a great short break destination. It does get extremely hot in this part of Spain, so great for visiting in Spring or Autumn – we went in mid October and it was still 30C. It’s a good idea to book ahead for the Cathedral and the Alcazar as they can get very busy, and it saves you queuing in the heat. Wandering around the pretty streets and enjoying wine and tapas is an ideal way to spend a long weekend.