Singapore

We had two main things planned for in Singapore.  One was the Singapore Grand Prix, and the other was a night’s stay in the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, another one of Nev’s world wonders.  Due to the timing of the Grand Prix and our Hotel booking we ended up staying for a week, which seemed too long in my opinion, but we ended up making the most of it and we didn’t really get bored.

We arrived in Singapore quite late at night, Nev had made all the Hostel arrangements for Singapore, and in his usual quest to find the cheapest place to stay, he’d booked us in a 12 person dorm.  To be fair I think most of accommodation was fully booked due to the Grand Prix.  The Hostel had an amusing name, “The Beary Good Hostel”.  When we checked in we realised that the Beary Good Hostel played up to its name, there was a bizarre bear theme throughout.  In the reception and the communal areas, there were teddy bears everywhere of all different shapes and sizes.  The room wasn’t too bad, some of the beds were kind of segregated and it wasn’t just one big open space. 

We had a strange encounter with a Chinese guy who was one of our roomies.  His English was pretty appalling, but he was adamant that he wanted to tell us ‘his story’.  We got the kind of gist of what he was saying, he wasn’t happy with the Communist government and was trying to tell us that he and his family had been subject to beatings 15 years ago.  He was getting a bit frustrated that he couldn’t really get his point across so he reached for his rucksack.  He dug out what looked like some blood stained clothes, I looked at Nev and he looked back at me with the same perplexed expression.  The Chinese dude went onto explain that the items of clothing belonged to him and his mother and were from the time when they were beaten, 15 years ago.  I don’t know what’s weirder, carrying around blood stained clothes for 15 years, or launching into this story straight of the bat to a complete stranger.  We took his contact details and vowed that we’d meet up with him when we visited China.

The Beary Good Hostel was in China town, a cheap place to eat and drink.  Singapore is pretty expensive and as I’d spent an absolute fortune in America and Oz it was time to tighten the purse strings.  For most of our meals we ate around China Town and Little India we also ate some street food at various Hawker centres.  The food was good, with a wide variety of Asian food.  One particular highlight was when we visited the ultra posh Raffles Hotel, the birthplace of the Singapore Sling cocktail.  Ofcourse we had to sample the famous drink and it was delicious.   

Supping a Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel

The whole of Singapore was gearing up for the Grand Prix, it’s a night time street race, so loads of roads were closed while they set up the barriers and lighting which lead to traffic chaos.  The Grand Prix is a 3 day event, and it’s the biggest event in the Singapore calendar.  There’s a buzz about the city beforehand while the population of Singapore swells with Grand Prix fans from around the world.  It’s like a festival in some ways, a lot of bands and artists were playing in stages around the street circuit before and after the racing.  

We only had tickets for the main event but decided to be around for the warm up day, and for qualifying too.   We watched the cars spin round for warm up from a boat cruise.  We didn’t really have the best vantage point, the cars are very low to the ground and the barriers kind of blocked the view.  While we didn’t see the F1 cars, we could certainly hear them, the noise was deafening. 

For the qualifying day we decided to go up to the top of the Marina Bay Sands and watch from the viewing platform.  The view was pretty amazing, the Marina Bay Sands is opposite the street circuit and it looked spectacular lit up at night.  It was a cool way to watch the qualifying and we thought it would have been packed, but were surprised to find it relatively quiet.  You don’t know what’s going on though, and we accidently left before the qualifying had actually started.  The drivers had a few warm up laps each before qualifying and then had a break before the real thing.  This is what we saw, thinking it was all over when they went back to the pits.

For the main event we arrived a few hours before the start to get a good spot.  We got walkabout tickets, as the name suggests we could walk about the circuit area but weren’t entitled to a seat at any grand stands.  There were a few mini races and a procession lap before the Grand Prix.  The procession lap was mildly entertaining, the F1 drivers were driver round the track in a classic car while waving to the crowd. 

We chose our viewing position carefully.  They had small terraced stands positioned along a couple of the straights, we went for the stand that was right next one hairpin bend, thinking that we might get to see about 1 second of car as it whizzes past as opposed to 1/10^th of a second if we stood along the straight.  It was an amazing experience witnessing the incredible speeds the cars are capable of but it’s not really a great spectator sport, unless you are in a helicopter.  The cars are in your viewing window for a few seconds max, if you’re very lucky you may witness an overtaking, a car skidding off the track or even a crash, but it’s only a small portion of the circuit that you can actually see.  It’s quite hard to tell what’s going on, who is winning etc.  Although there were big screens up but you couldn’t hear any of the commentary, due to the extreme noise.  It might not have been a good spectator sport, but it was an incredible experience.  The cars look amazing, they were gleaming in the floodlit light, watching these high tech machines zip around the track with awesome acceleration was simply jaw dropping.  It really was an experience for all the senses, the smell of the burning rubber, and did I mention the noise?  You definitely need earplugs. 

There was some entertainment afterwards but as Linkin Park were headlining we decided to give it a miss and headed back to our Hostel shortly after the race had finished.     

As I mentioned before the other reason we were in Singapore was to visit the Marina Bay Sands.  Our visit was to include one night’s stay.    As we’d been staying in 12 person dorms with shared bathrooms it was a welcome break and we were really looking forward to a bit of luxury.

The Marina Bay Sands is a luxury Hotel and casino resort overlooking the Marina Bay and the Singapore skyline.  It is a strange looking building consisting of three identical buildings which are connected with what looks like a giant boat sat on the very top.  It is a massive building, if you could imagine three Gherkins (famous London building) next to each other with an Eiffel Tower sat across them, that’s the kind of scale of the Hotel.  The boat like structure on top is the Skypark, and is by far the most prominent part of the building.  The Skypark is what makes the Marina Bay sands.  Up the top they have a bar, restaurant, infinity swimming pool, and a viewing platform for non-residents.  The view is something else.  The first day we say the Marina Bay Sands I wasn’t too impressed with the structure, the Hotel buildings are fairly nice to look at, they’re slick and ultra modern but on their own wouldn’t really stand out from the crowd.  Even during my stay I was definitely underwhelmed by the architecture, to me it was just another fancy Hotel and was surprised that Nev had included the building in his list. 

It was a grower though, unlike the Mega Hotels in Vegas it wasn’t at all tacky but rather elegant and it has a great position at Marina Bay as there are no other tall buildings around, although I think a few are in the post. As Singapore is a relatively small city the Marina Bay Sands did feature a fair amount during our visit.  It took me until the Grand Prix day before I really started to like.  The Skypark lights resembled the Grand Prix chequered flags and the end of Grand Prix fireworks display was next to the Hotel.   It was obvious that it was a main focal point in Singapore, and on this particular night it looked pretty damn cool.

The Marina Bay Sands at Night

 

Our stay lived up to our expectations.  After slumming it in Hostels for a month it was a fantastic treat.  We checked in and proceeded straight to the Skypark.  The view really is outstanding, and what’s more you can see it all while having a swim.  The infinity swimming pool, as the name so suggests, is a rooftop swimming pool with the illusion that the water is going over the side of the building.  We spent the whole afternoon there, swimming around taking photos and had a few drinks.  

The Infinity Pool

There was a club night on in a nightclub called Avalon which was part of the Marina Bay Sands Complex.  Simian Mobile Disco, Kele (from Bloc Party) and Digitalism were playing, it was part of the build up to the Grand Prix.  The tickets were £40 in advance or £60 on the door which isnae cheap, especially for travellers who are on a budget.  We asked at the front desk what the dress code was, and they girl told us it was dress to impress.  I showed her what I intended to wear, and she kind of laughed and told me I would have to buy some shoes if I really wanted to go.  I was super keen and I even managed to persuade Nev which was no mean feat, but didn’t want to fork out £40 with the chance of getting knocked back with no refund.  We decided to wait until opening time and then check the queue.  I borrowed one of Nev’s shirts and changed the white shoe laces in my best trainers for black ones.  Looking smarter than I had done for a long time we went to check out Avalon.  Half the people in the queue had trainers and a bunch were wearing t-shirts, so much for the dress code.  We bought our tickets then headed for the club. 

We managed to blag it into the VIP area, it was fairly small and no way worth the £120 they were charging for a ticket, mental.  There were no free drinks and it was a tenner a beer!  We knew it would be expensive though so we had a few voddies before we left.  It had a crazy layout, every table had a vast array of different glasses, wine glasses , champagne flutes, fancy cocktail glasses etc.  You couldn’t sit down at any of these tables unless you were to order a bottle of Vodka or Champagne or a cocktail jug.  Nobody was sitting down because of this, it was quite a surreal sight, loads of empty tables with hundreds of glasses on them.  Not a very good system.

We only caught a few tracks of Simian Mobile’s DJ set, Kele was rubbish, but Digitalism rocked the place.  The Singaporeans were loving it, they were really going for it, I can only presume that they don’t get big name DJs often as it really seemed like a big deal to some of them.  The venue was cool too, it just opened up a couple of weeks before, and it showed.  It was super modern, the club was a crazy diamond like shape made out of glass.  It was situated on the water and reminded me a bit of the Renfrew Ferry.  We stayed until the end then made the short walk home to our Hotel.

Nice Shirts

The next day we spent a few hours in the morning up on the Skypark then checked out and moved back into our usual budget accommodation. 

After a week in Singapore it was time to move on.  Next stop Jakarta.