Singapore Diary

My 11 yo daughter had never been to a rich country, until we visited Singapore recently. This meant several first’s for her. Like seeing what a business class seat was (Domestic flights don’t have them). The size of the seats. Separators between seats. The leg-room. The prop to place your feet so you are almost lieing down when you slept. The huge display screens with each seat. Like all Indian parents, we couldn’t resist telling her that we made her study so she could afford this life…

 

When we landed at Singapore’s Changi airport, she was blown away. By the airport. “Is this a mall or an airport?”, she marvelled. At this point she hadn’t even seen the Jewel section of the airport. She did see Jewel on our way back, and she was awestruck. Singapore is the only airport that can blow a person away, making it the only airport where one wouldn’t mind their flight getting delayed!

 

We took a cab to the hotel. First time in a Mercedes for her. Impressed again. But then she added we should have gotten a limo. A stretch limo. Kids…

 

Since we landed too early to check-in to the hotel, we left the bags at the reception and decided to go to Little India for breakfast. My daughter didn’t like this one bit. The place was full of Indian shops and restaurants, after all. People speaking in Tamil. Signboards in Tamil. Places like A2B. An idli/dosa breakfast in a foreign country. Yikes! It was too much for her swallow. More worryingly, she feared that all meals would be South Indian on this holiday…

 

Once we’d checked in to the hotel, we told her that cabs were too expensive, so we’d be using the metro for the rest of the stay. She was horrified. Until she saw and experienced the metro system. Then she was blown away.

 

Before going to Singapore, we were worried whether madam could walk the long distances the city has. Our first long walk was to the Sea Aquarium. She moaned, grumbled and complained – our hearts sank, this was just Day 1. But once we entered the Aquarium, she was a different person. Exotic fishes, sharks, dolphins, sting rays, jellyfish… below, above, beside, they were everywhere.

 

From here onwards, she was a changed person. She had realized that the long walks were going to be worth the experience at the destination. Now she could walk all day. Day after day. If only the habit continues in Bangalore, where she whines after walking for less than a minute… One can always hope.

 

The trip to Universal Studio’s theme-and-rides park was fun. Since she was old enough and tall enough for all the rides, there were no constraints – except one’s own fear and willingness to wait in the queues. Even the express tickets we’d bought only helped so much in the queues. We enjoyed the roller-coasters, castles, and props from Jurassic to Egypt to the fairy tale themed ones.

 

As someone who suffers horrendously long commutes to school, she was very surprised that the city had no traffic jams. That people didn’t keep honking. The one time we saw some repair work on one small part of the road, she was impressed by how neatly they cordoned exactly that area and how smoothly traffic was diverted around that one small stretch of road. I was too.

 

We went to Dolphin Island. They split us into small groups, told some basic do’s and don’t’s, and then we were in the water to watch and touch the dolphin. It was like nothing I had experienced. How well trained the dolphins were stood in sharp contrast to how human kids are…

 

I knew wind tunnels are powerful. But until I experienced iFly (“experience free fall without the terror or cost of jumping out of a plane”), I had no idea how powerful they are. iFly is a vertical wind tunnel where the force of the wind counteracts gravity. With a little help, it’s easy to hover in one place. But when the instructor holds you and takes you and up down, that’s exhilarating. And to think the whole experience lasts less than 90 seconds. Fortunately, it’s one of those rare things in life where time slows down when one is having fun – it felt a lot, lot longer than a mere 90 seconds.

 

We also went to the other tourist spots of Singapore. The Merlion statue. Gardens by the Bay. Singapore Wheel. Marina Bay Sands. Instagram has beautiful pics of all them, but seeing them is a whole different thing.

 

If you’re non-veg and Indian, food in Singapore is heaven for the taste buds. There’s so much variety, and it’s all spicy. Plus, there are plenty of options to pick and choose ingredients into a bowl, which they then cook. My daughter had seen such things on YouTube, and decided to try it. I was nervous how it would turn out but I needn’t have worried – it was delicious. Spicy and tasty food outside India, that was a first for me.

 

Singapore is my new favourite city on the planet. It beats both Paris and Rome. Not only is it awesome, it is the most tourist friendly city. Hell, even their airport has tourist attractions.