Welcome to Singapore
Alex's Tourist List
This weekend I am once again channeling my tourist energy and exploring the lovely city of Seoul, South Korea. In honor of the fact that I am getting ready to come home I thought this week would be a good time throw it back to what it was when I first moved to Singapore and was basically a tourist here. I received a suggestion from the one and only Jack Spiegler to do a post dedicated to my travel recs for Singapore. In the name of efficiency I will attempt to do both of these today. Let’s take it for the top.
Life
Not much to report on this front. With under 2 months left in Singapore I am starting to get a bit homesick because the idea of being able to drive a car again is very exciting. Also I would kill for a decent bagel at this point.
Work
Things at work have slowed down a bit now that the big presentation to the CEO is over. Unfortunately I was not able to attend the presentation because I am too low on the totem poll but when I spoke to the Director I was supporting they said it went really well. They recommend I pursue a a future role in strategic planning which I took as a compliment to my work but I have conflicting feeling about a future in that role.
After having a call with corporate HR I got my official role for Texas. Following in the footsteps of my uber successful sister, Sara, I am will be working as a cyber security analyst for Emerson’s DeltaV process automation software. For anyone not familiar with DeltaV it is essentially the software that ensures chemical plants run correctly. I am very excited to be working with DeltaV and learning a whole new set of skills.
The next few weeks will be spent prepping for my final presentation to the Tiger Team (Asia Pacific Leadership Team) and then transitioning my work over to whoever picks up my responsibilities when I leave.
Travel
On August 1st, 2022 the gang and I left St Louis after a week at corporate and set course for the tropical island nation of Singapore. The journey was long and featured stop overs in Denver and San Fransisco before the 16 hour flight on United Airlines Flight #01 that eventually took us to Singapore.
We took off on a Friday but because of timezones (aka time portals) we landed on a Sunday. We packed ourselves and our plethora of bags into a big van and made the journey from the Changi airport on the East Coast to our condo on the West Coast. The drive over felt like a scene out of Crazy Rich Asians and I was awestruck but the high rises and unique architecture. Upon arriving at the condo we were greeted by our HR rep Rei and our housing agent Peggy.
Our condo building is a brand new development and the first weeks living there were great because most people hadn’t moved in yet. The building has a sky garden which I use for reading, 3 different pools, a gym, and steam rooms. I have come to dislike this building a bit because the location sucks but that said I really can’t complain all that much. Except the walls are dummy thin and I can hear my neighbors kids crying all the time.
After dropping our stuff of it was straight to the grocery store and the hawker for some non-airplane food.
Hawker food slaps the first time you have it and the fact that it only costs like $3 USD is icing on the rice cake. After getting settled, Peggy and Rei went back to their Sunday and we were left to figure life out and get settled. Since our building was brand new there was no wifi for the first week so we had to live like neanderthals and talk to each other… The first few days of work were a coffee fueled haze of information overload, site tours (there are 5 Emerson sites in Singapore), and dealing with the jet lag. Plus Rei ended up getting covid so we had to quarantine since covid was still a thing people worried about back in August 2022.
After our first week of work was over it was time to explore and be tourists.
Our first stops were the Orchard Ion Mall to see what all the designer stores were about and to get some lunch. After lunch we went to go see the botanical gardens which are huge and really pretty.
When we were done looking at real trees it was time to take the blue line over to the fake super trees over at the gardens by the bay.
Singapore is basically just one giant mall so after the super trees we went inside the Marina Bay Sands hotel and mall in order to grab some food at the bougie hawker center in the basement (not pictured). After dinner it was back to the super trees for the nightly light shows. They also do nightly light shows a the Marina which is like the Bellagio hotel in Vegas but I only have videos from that and I’m not going to subject y’all to that.
Our second week in Singapore happened to be Singaporean National Day aka Singapore 4th of July (August 9th). Since this fell on a Tuesday this year we decided to go downtown to have a picnic and watch the fireworks.
The rest of week 2 of work was mostly spent doing compliance training and trying to meet the rest of my team. Fortunately no covid exposures during week 2 so for weekend 2 we were ready to do the Singaporean equivalent of rage.
We went out in Clarke Quay (Pronounced Key) where we found out that Singaporeans really don’t go hard so we settled for bar with decent overpriced drinks but a free cover band. After a disappointing Friday night it was off to do more site seeing around the Marina on Saturday.
The day started at the Art Science Museum which has some cool exhibits and then we went to see our friend the Merlion because ya know tourists. That Saturday happened to be the opening day of the premier league so after site seeing I walked over to Club street and went to the Arsenal Supporters Bar aka Barsenal (naming shout out to Kathryn).
I met these 3 guys the first night but they never came back so instead I made friends with a 65-70 year old British dude named Jim and his wife Gina. Jim and I befriended a 65 year old British/French dude named Steve. The 4 of us watch games together because we are the only white dudes at this bar and the Asian/Indian fans don’t really want to talk to us. I made friends with a British kid my age named Cal who was here for University but I think he got deported because he came to a few games but then disappeared without a trace or word of goodbye.
Back when I could still run, Val and I would go jogging at the Pandan reservoir - a five mile loop trail by our condo. Here we got to see some local wildlife.
There’s a lot of other really cool stuff here in Singapore like Sentosa or Pulau Ubin but I don’t have great pictures of those instead please enjoy some cool photos of the skyline at night.
This concludes most of the really touristy things to do here and I think 5-6 days is the right amount of time to really see all that Singapore has to offer. Below or some of my favorite places in case anyone is planning a trip.
Sightseeing
Marina Bay Sands (MBS)
nightly light shows on the Marina
Gardens by the bay
Nightly light shows
F1 Pit lane
Merlion
Singapore flyer
Helix Bridge
Changi Jewel
Orchard Ion
Mt Faber cable car to Sentosa
Sentosa
Outdoor Areas
Alexandria Trail
Henderson Waves
East Coast Park
Central Water Catchment - Treetop walk
Botanical Gardens
East Coast Park Labrador Park
Biking Trail from Marina Barrage that goes all the way through East coast park to Changi Airpot
Fort Canning Park
Pulau Ubin
Museums
Art Science
Asian Civilization
Nightlight Areas
Boat Quay
one street on the water
one street off the water
Clark Quay
Tanjong Pagar
Club Street
Amoy Street
Geylang
Sketchy but cheap KTV bars
Bars
Bougie
Spiffy Dapper
Alley Bar
Cest La Vie (Top of MBS)
1-Arden
Atlas
Level 33
Jigger and Pony
Jekyll and Hyde
Dives
Moonstone
Public House
Skinny’s Lounge
Boat Quay area
Warehouse
Clubs ( I don’t really club so…)
Clarke Quay Area
Marquee (inside MBS)
Restaurants
Michelin Star
Odette
Burnt Ends
Cloud Street
Nouri
Jaan
Thevar
Bougie
1-Arden
Atlas
Artemis
Bakalaki
Jumbo - Chili Crab
Alex’s Top picks
B for Bagel
Two Men Bagel House
Park Bench
Miznon
Din Tai Fung
ShakeShack
Muchachos
Banana leaf Apollo
Lucali BYG
Sunny’s NYC style pizza
Potato Head
Artichoke
Food Centers
Maxwell Hawker Center
Newton
Places to Stay
Within a 5 minute walk of an MRT Station. Ideally green line.
Thanks for reading and I will see you all next week :)
I also recommend the Singapore Botanic Garden and especially the Orchid Garden.
Cyber security!!!! That’s exciting! This was a fabulous list, makes me want to go visit! Excited to have you back in the States so soon!