Touring Singapore: This is a Continuation of “Trip Report – A Private Jet Experience: Alone in First Class on ANA and Thai, Plus Singapore First, a Suite, a Villa, and Some Incredible Food Porn”

Past installments:

• Prologue: The decision-making and booking process
  
• Washington Dulles – Chicago in United First Class and the Greatest Airport Hotel Ever, the Intercontinental O’Hare
  
• Alone in First Class on ANA, Chicago-Tokyo
  
• Singapore Airlines First Class, Tokyo-Singapore
  
• JetQuay Planeside Pickup in Singapore
  
• Intercontinental Singapore Ambassador Suite

I wasn’t to bed until nearly 4am, the internet wasn’t working properly in my room and I needed to have the outsourced company that manages it for the hotel reset the connection. I had somehow gotten frozen out of my work server, and even after getting the internet going I still needed to get on Skype, call the office, and pull someone from IT out of a staff meeting in order to help me with it. Alright, I suppose I was self-centered and demanding. But I had been traveling for well over a day and probably didn’t have the patience I should have. Plus I couldn’t check my most pressing email from the lounge in Tokyo. It had been two business days, messages were certainly accumulating and most of all I had no idea what they were. I didn’t think I’d sleep well without knowing. So I got online for a bit, then finally crashed.

I woke up around 7:45am, went down to the lounge for some breakfast, while my wife continued to sleep. We hung around the hotel as we got up slowly, and managed to go check out Singapore for a bit in the afternoon.

First stop, though, was coffee. Had to have some coffee if we were going to stay up until a reasonable hour, jetlagged as we were.

I’ve never had much difficulty coming home from Asia. But going to Asia I’m usually up in the middle of the night. Not so much on this trip, probably because I fell asleep right away, got up at a normal hour, and forced myself to stay awake for the day. Still, I was dragging a bit.

We walked around and took in the city

And then went to Hock Lam Beef on China street for a bit of dinner.

While the next couple of days featured some absolutely fantastic gourmet meals, those will take on their own posts separately. For now, let’s just say I sampled many things.

Of course, we made a stop at the zoo.

We visited an ice cream place that we were told was not to miss, though honestly I wasn’t especially impressed.

The food stalls, of course, are what’s most famous. This was my favorite at the Old Airport Road hawker center:

But my absolute favorite dish was found at the East Coast Lagoon Food Village.

It was Roxy Laksa, and admittedly this is hardly my find, they are pretty famous. They’ve got a picture up of Martha Stewart eating there…

But it was just so darned good.

And a little beverage from the stall next door:

Mind you, the next two posts will actually be about food. Which is why I do enjoy Singapore. It’s not because, as some folks argue, it’s a “safe” introduction to Asia. I’ve certainly done “unsafe” Asia. It’s because there’s so much interesting to eat. There are other things to do of course (and not just the zoo), it’s worth more than connecting in the coolest airport on the planet, give the place at least a handful of days if you haven’t ever.