Holiday in Singapore (Plesiran ke Singapur)

I just wanna share about my story when I went to Singapore. Singapore is safe country that's why I want to go there only with my best friend named Ira, just 2 of us. The other reason was I felt tired with uncertain decision whether join or not from my other friends. And I didn't want this plan going to be delayed again because of their uncertainty.

Here we go. All the preparations were done. We are ready to fly to Singapore. Early morning we had arrived in Soekarno Hatta International Airport, went to check in counter. Boarding time was still 1 hour to go so we decided to have a breakfast first, took a selfie when waiting for food coming. Unexpected, time really run fast, we should be boarding now, but we hadn't done immigration check yet, huaaa.. Panic attack. It was not over, the immigration check queue was really long. Allahu akbar, please don’t let us late and missed the plane. I felt my life reduced by 10 years, haha. Sure we weren’t late, if we were late my story will end soon. Hihi. Thanks to many other passengers that were later than us. We were not alone. Haha.

Day 1 - Sept 27th 2013

Landing at Changi

When first landing in Changi International Airport, what were we doing first was take a photo, haha, just kidding, forget it, sure we had to do immigration check again, but before that we had to fill disembarkation form first and later this form had to be collected to officer. After done immigration check, we immediately went to MRT station Changi located in Terminal 2. We didn’t have to take airport skytrain that connect each terminal because our plane landed in Terminal 2. Eiits before that don’t forget to take brochure and map of Singapore, it will be very helpful later. Heading to MRT station, as I said in my previous blog post, better to buy STP (Singapore Tourist Pass) ticket so we can use it as much as we want, without have to fear remaining balance in our MRT ticket (EZ-link) is not enough. I bought for 3 days pass, because we just have 3 days holiday in here, huhuu.

See the map

I am a little lazy to tell about my journey step by step, that’s old style I think. Hihi. How about I tell you guys about fun, funny, strange, great experiences in my 1^st day in Singapore? That sound better, right? So let’s begin.

MRT station

Honestly it’s my first time riding MRT, so does Ira. But we don’t have difficulty to ride it, signboard everywhere as I said, and we have map of Singapore MRT taken from the airport, the map is very easy to read. Although this wasn’t my first time go to Singapore, my previous trip to Singapore was when I was in high school, had a field trip to Singapore and Malaysia, surely used travel agent cause it was school event. As I said this was my first time riding MRT, but I had felt like pro cause it’s very easy you know. Hihi. Ok, my another first experience is joining Friday praying, I and Ira totally forgot that today was Friday. One of destination today is Sultan mosque, because it’s praying time and we were near that mosque, we decided to pray first before continuing to next destination, we decided to “shalat jamaah” in there. I didn’t realize going to join Friday praying because the first there were many woman in there, second I thought this mosque usually did khotbah before pray (oddity started from here). I didn’t stop thinking when the ustadz was doing khotbah “why we didn’t pray first? praying is the main, right?” After khotbah we did 2 rakaat praying. Then after that I realize that we did Friday praying, today was Friday. Speechless.

Istana Kampoeng Glam

Friday praying at Mesjid Sultan

Area Mesjid Sultan

One of many restaurants around Mesjid Sultan

After Friday praying we had felt hungry, fortunately there are many halal restaurants in there, but almost of them were full people that had finished praying. We entered one restaurant that seem good, saw list of food and surely the price too. The food price is ok, but why price of the drink is so expensive (5SGD = 45rb, Errr), finally we decided to not order drink, haha. But suddenly there was a mister in next table that seems saw us didn’t buy a drink, and suddenly ordered drink for us (do we look so sad mister? Eat without drinking, hiks hiks). It’s so embarrassing, but that mister look so kind and he told us to just drink it, he treat us. Huaa, thank you so much mister! *still embarrassing, oh my god* -,-

After eating, we went to hostel to check in and just drop the bags then continuing our journey again because this day was not over yet. We were going to Cavenagh Bridge, Anderson Bridge, Merlion park, Esplanade, The Helix Bridge, Art Science Museum, Marina Bay Sand, Garden by the Bay on foot (wait I mean from Raffles place MRT not from our hostel), haha. Seem crazy? No for sure. Those places are close to each other, although a bit tired too, but no other option if we wanted to see all those places. We had so much fun to see those entire place, they are awesome. My favorite place today is Garden by the bay, at night the light is so beautiful (please see how beautiful they are in the picture). Today was closed by watching Wonderful Marina Bay Show; this show is awesome, using water + light + sound to tell us a story by unusual way. Anyway there should be other place (Marina barrage) that we wanted to see, but Ira condition wasn’t really good and it was already 8.30 pm, so we decided to back to the Hostel, took a shower and slept.

Cavenagh Bridge

Around Cavenagh Bridge

in Ira's behind is Anderson Bridge

Fullerton Hotel underpass

Merlion Park

Merlion Park

Esplanade

The Helix Bridge

Art Science Museum

Singapore Night Scenery from Marina Bay Sand

Garden By The Bay

SuperTree in Garden By The Bay

Marina Bay Sand

Wonderful Marina Bay Show

Day 2 - Sept 28th 2013

Today we were going to Sentosa Island. We’ll spend all day there. And the main topic is Universal Studio. We were going to have fun in Universal Studio. Yeeyy. It hard to tell how fun we were, you should try it by yourself guys. You can see how happy we were in USS from the picture. :D

USS at noon, and at night we saw Song of the Sea show (pay) and Story of the Crane Bird show (free), still in Sentosa Island. Both of them are really awesome show. Still use water, light, song, but for Song of the sea they have additional: actor and actress plus fire and firewall, and for Story of the Crane Bird, they use crane that is designed as a bird plus firewall too. Today was more fun.

Song of the sea

Story of the Crane Bird

Lake of Dream

Aquarium Panel

Bye Sentosa

Day 3 - Sept 29th 2013, last day. :(

This morning heavy rain fell. Today schedule must be delayed, that means our itinerary was in a mess. *cry*. We continued our journey after checking out at 11am, it should be 8am in the itinerary. We’re heading to Singapore Botanical Garden and also National Orchid Garden. There are soooooo many various orchids in there, all of them are beautiful that’s why I thought to take all photo of them. So impressive! We didn’t miss to enter Cool House which designed like tropical forest, have tropical tree, little waterfall and cool weather just like in real tropical forest, perfect!

National Orchid garden entrance

Inside of National Orchid Garden

I never seen before

One of many orchid in National Orchid garden

Outside of Cool House

Inside of Cool House

Next I think we had to do some shopping, because it’s our last day in Singapore. We’re heading to Orchard by bus. There is must trying ice cream in Singapore, it is ‘Ice Cream Uncle’ many people often said, located in Orchard around Lucky Plaza, just 1 SGD. I think this uncle is truly famous, long queue when I got there. Ira shopping desire was still on, so we continued to next shopping place: Mustafa in Little India. When we got there, huaaa this place was so crowded, I decided to not go in but went to next location Chinese Garden. So we agree to separate for just 2 hours, and meet again in Bugis station. What to see in Chinese Garden? Pagoda, I really wanted to see it, but not just pagoda there are many other Chinese building there, just like I really were in China.

Ice cream uncle

Yummy

Twin Pagoda and Big Pagoda

Ira, how are you in this 2 hours? Wew, she brought so many shopping bags. And shopping continued in Bugis, now brought Singapore t-shirts for family. Oke done for the shopping. We are back to hostel to pick up the suitcase and go to the airport directly. Our flight was in early morning, so we decided to stay overnight at the airport because we were afraid will be late, the other reason was we want to explore Changi airport, because many people said that there’re so much to see in Changi. And that is true. There are 4 indoor parks in Terminal 2 that we visited (Enchanted Garden, Bamboo Garden, Orchid Garden, and Sunflower Garden), Entertainment deck: Movie Theater and gaming room, lounge that can be used to take a rest, and many other interesting place.