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I recently finished a week long trip to Singapore to catch up with an old friend. When I told people that I was going there for a week, several people gave me a grimmaced look, and told me that I shouldn't stay there for longer than three days, and that I would be bored. I can safely tell you that I could have easily spent more than the week that I did, and I could happily do several weeks as a traveling nomad (especially if I was working).

Singapore does really well some of my favorite aspects of cities: greenery, public space, music/drinks/food, and discoverable nooks and cranies, as well as good public transport.

One of the first things that you'll notice when you begin walking around Singapore is that the city is very green. In fact, it's a Green City, and the only one in Asia, according to a sign in the Botanical Gardens. Back around 1971, they decided to become a Green City and began planting 10,000 saplings per year until 1990. As a result, the city is incredibly green, with a lot of natural shade in addition to the awnings and balconies that are required in a lot of spaces to provide protection from the sun and rain. Let me quickly share some photos of the greenery around the city and show off some of the cool architecture of the buildings.

Walking the City

This building is very fun to look at with the curvy layers of brown, along with the balcony level with trees and bushes. There are a lot of well architected buildings here to keep things interesting. It's not like cities that are just boring glass towers. It gives a sense that the city cares about how it looks and how the designs make life feel here. It's very interesting and fun to experience yourself and I really appreciated it.

This is the Parliament builiding and the domed building in the background is the former Supreme Court that is now a National Gallery. The National Gallery was a good stop to visit, though I will say that museums in Singapore are a bit pricey for what you get, but I did enjoy them and don't regret it.

Near the government buildings is this bench at a children's park, with messages about kindness and generocity. You see messages like this all over the city. In case you can't see it, some of the messages say “Listen without judgement,” “Gentle words heal,” “Give encouragement,” etc, but also in multiple languages. Singapore has English as an official language, but is very much multi-lingual and teaches multiple languages in the schools, with English now as the primary.

This was right outside the Asian Civilizations Museum that featured goods from a recovered ship wreck in a very cool, wavy presentation, like below! This day was a calm, not too warm day and people were enjoying the weather and shade before it got warmer. I really like the white pedestrian bridge going over the river. I love this arrangement of pottery to look like the ocean. The model ship is a model of the ship that they found and includes the ropes used to hold the wooden planks together, as they didn't use nails. It was so cool!

Ok, back to the green. This is such a cool building, literally covered in plants along the walls from top to bottom!

Botanical Gardens

I'm a huge fan of Botanical Gardens, so here are some photos from there.

This was the first thing that I saw in the Botanical Garden. It was trying to hunt for some food.

One thing that I noticed around the city is that there are a lot of sculptures in various places. I really liked this scupture of swans(?) a though they were taking off from the pond. I recall from one of the sign posts that, at some point, some of the plants were dying for an unknown reason so they drained the pond and discovered turtles eating the roots. They were relocated and plants started thriving again. The draining and refilling of the water also allowed for some seeds at the bottom to germinate.

I love gazebos! I didn't notice it at first, but there was a couple getting married or taking wedding photos here.

This is an area with a restaurant and coffee stand. I don't want to spoil too much of the gardens, but this is also what a typical walk looks like, with plenty of shade.

Now, probably for one of the things you were expecting to be first: the Sky Garden!

Sky Garden and Flower Dome

These amazingly lovely tree looking towers are structures specially for allowing plants to grow up them. The tickets to go up are a bit pricey, but you know you're going to do it.

These statues of the rabbit and dog holding cameras to take pictures are so cute!

Inside the flower dome, which is like a giant greenhouse tome with a mountain-looking waterfall covered in plants and featuring a Jurassic Park exhibition that I thought would be lame but was super-cool and had me going “dinosaurs!!!!!” One cool thing about the dome is the mist from the waterfall keeps the environment quite cool and it's a good bit warmer at the top. I really liked the dinosaur exhibit. They had good animatronics, but also some interesting information about the dinosaurs, including models of some of the smaller ones. It was a super fun stop.

I absolutely loved these flower pedal art works in this fountain.

Ok, now I'm getting really distracted, but there are a lot of good parks and walking trails to explore with great views. Here's one on the west side of the city center. You can find the trail near Henderson Waves on Google Maps.

Henderson Waves and trail

I'm not sure if this video will load, I need to find a good hosting option. Listen to all of the insects and birds. Walking the trail with sounds of birds and insects It was actually a bit warmer and a lot more humid here. There is a sky walkway, but it was damaged from some heavy rains, so ground trail it is!

I love benches. Photos of them make places feel more cozy and welcoming. Also, Evil Building ™?

More of Henderson Waves. I didn't get the best photos, but it does actually look like waves and these semi-circle spots has areas to sit and relax in the shade if the sun is already behind you.

Moar Evil Building!

Later that night, Atlas Bar/Hotel

Later that night I went with a local friend to go out for some drinks and take a peak at the Atlas Bar and Hotel. It's one of the top-rated spots in town and the building is designed in 1920's modernism / Art Deco style. It's so cool! I'd love to go back and actually get a drink there.

But first, some more cool statues.

And now the front of the Atlas Bar with the saoring Crane(?)

This whole building is so cool. I wish I had better photos, but there are statues at the top of the building, on the side, holding the world at waist level.

The inside is SO COOL! The entire thing from floor to cieling is a work of Art Deco. I could stay there for hours just looking at everything.

Walking around and seeing murals

After that we hit some of the bar streets and music scenes in Korea Town and nearby areas. Here are some of the murals and cool buildings that I got.

This one is like a glimpse of how things looked when Singapore was still much smaller. I like how they incorporated the actual shutter windows into the painted house's windows.

There is so much going on here, I love it.

A close-up of the message.

These were all at Haji Lane, where there's a ton of bars for nightlife. We even saw some younger folks gathered around an outside DJ and dancing. It was a very fun and happy vibe.

Here's another mural I found in China town

And then finally the next day we went to the beach at Sentosa, which is like an island with beaches, theme parks, etc. There are a lot of cool pieces of art work at the different beaches here. It was worth the trip, not just for the beach, but there are a lot of other activities on the island.

Unfortunately after this, it was time for me to move on, so of course I stopped by the Jewel at the airport on the way out. I wish I had had an extra hour or so to enjoy a coffee and the vibes there, but I had a few minutes.

I just went chronologically through my photos, but ther eare some things that I may have missed.

Eating out and other notes

Singapore can be quite pricey, but you can also each cheaply if you want, for \$6-$8 or less, at Hawker Centers. These are covered, open air centers with lots of food stalls. I didn't get any photos, but that's where I recommend for a variety of good food, cheaply.

Also, the public transit is great and spans a lot of the city. There are bike likes, but it's still pretty car-centric in design, though owning a car is super expensive so that helps cut down on congestion. But, if you do take a subway, don't bring a durian with you!

Singapore has a lot of smaller neighborhoods with plenty of opportunities to explore nooks and cranies, local areas, parks and green space. Sure, you can hit the main spots in a few days, but I'm of the opinion that if you are a traveler and have time, leaving after a few days would be a lot of missed opportunities. There's more than meets the eye, you just have to peak behind the curtain.

#singapore #travel #digitalnomad #travelphotography #urbanism #cities #cityscape #asia #bars #beach #slowdown