Singapore Adventure – Day 2

June 17, 2011 — We planned to wake up at 6:30AM to start the day early. Unfortunately, despite Tiny’s persistent Gee alarm, or my Neorago alarm, we couldn’t find the will to get up till maybe around 7AM.  It was still pretty dark even at 6, so that could also be a factor (or an excuse! haha).

We took turns getting ready, and was finally out the door at 8:30AM – 1 hour behind schedule.  We headed towards Sengkang MRT station – our start off point.  By now, we have discovered the shortcut from our building and felt pretty stupid for walking all the way around the block. It was really hot out too.  It felt like the sun was lower in SG than back home in Cebu.

Despite the heat, we were dressed in jeans and closed shoes (with socks) since we had Snow City in our itinerary that day.  Our first stop was Suntec City for our Duck Tours and the Hippo Hop-on-hop-off bus tour.  Tiny had told us before that she has to drop by the Old Town White Coffee shop to purchase coffee for pasalubong.  We finally found it, but didn’t buy the coffee yet since we didn’t want to lug around packages while on our  tour.  That’s one of the things we learned in this trip – if you see it or want to buy it, buy it and don’t put it off for later.

We also saw Ya Kun Kaya Toast, which was in the list of the places to go by Lonely Planet.  We were already an hour behind schedule, so we didn’t stop to eat and again, said to be back later.  We then proceeded to look for the Duck & Hippo Tours counter.  It was a little difficult to find it since Suntec has 5 towers, and some towers are only accessible via some walkway in the mall (that we had to find).  But, we finally made it. and just in time too.  The next tour was to start in 45 minutes (11:30AM).  We figured that we still had time to eat lunch.  We went around the mall and couldn’t decide where to eat. KFC was expensive.  Then we remembered that Kirk mentioned ‘Pastamania‘ as a good place to eat.  We don’t have that in Cebu, so we decided to check it out. We ordered one of the largest pizza they had, intending to share it among the four of us.  At SGD14, it was a pretty good deal.

We then hurried back to the counters, where the assembly point for the Duck Tours was.  There were different tourist groups in line already – Indians, Japanese and Americans.  We stuck our Duck Tours badge on our chest, and boarded the amphibious vehicle parked outside. The four of us decided to split up into 2 – Liza and Tiny sat at the back, while Blanca and I sat right in front of them.  We rode Darlene Duck – the name of the vehicle.  I forgot the name of our guide, but he was really candid.  He told us how he didn’t like the humid weather in SG, and how he was sweating buckets.

The tour took us around Singapore River. Our guide pointed out the different landmarks and gave us a little background of each one.  I will not bore you with the details, but here are some of what we saw around the river. (*Note: Hover your mouse over each image to see the description.)

Behind the Gardens at Marina South is the ongoing project called Super Trees.  It is expected to be completed by the year 2020 (if I’m not mistaken).

The Esplanade Theatre (above) was designed to look like the top of two microphones, but turned out to look like Durians – fruit abundant in Singapore.

We returned to Suntec, and went around the mall some more. Dropped by Starbucks and had my usual tall, no whip, extra drizzle, caramel frappuccino blended beverage, while Tiny had her iced tall non-fat caramel macchiatto. It was more expensive than the Philippines, but since working for Starbucks in Cebu, I had wanted to go to Starbucks in other countries.

We then decided to proceed to the next part of our itinerary – a tour of Singapore’s Botanic Gardens.  Since our Duck Tours package included hop-on-hop-off access, we decided to take he Hippo Bus to the Gardens.  We got there a little after two (check out the pic below ^_^).  We went around the huge, and I mean HUGE place.  It was hotter, and more humid now. We have already consumed our 500mL bottle of water.

We went around the Sun Garden that housed different species of cacti, the Swan Lake that housed FOUR swans (pretty disappointing since it had more turtles and fishes than swans), and the Bonsai Garden.

It was a great place. The Gardens also house the National Orchid Garden.  We completely forgot that we also had admission tickets for it.  Since we were told there was additional ticket to be purchased to gain access, we didn’t want to spend for it, and also didn’t bother to check the tickets that came with the package.

After a quick stop at the souvenir shop (to cool off, really), we took a picture in front of the sign for the orchid garden. Hahaha  We still didn’t realize that we could actually go in.

We were already tired from all the walking we did, and thirsty too.  We went out to wait for the next Hippo Bus to take us to Orchard Road – we were planning to take the MRT to Jurong East to go to the Science Centre and Snow City.  The bus driver let us off at the Marriott Hotel Orchard stop, which was just across the Orchard MRT station.

Along the way, we posed for a pic with Green Lantern (there was a promotion for the movie), and saw the $1 ice cream wafers.  We had to have one! I got the Mocha wafer, Tiny got the Ripple wafer, Blanca had the Peppermint Choco Chip sandwich, while Liza had the Choco Chip wafer.  We then headed to the MRT station.

It was quite a long ride to Jurong East, and by the time we got there, it was 4:15PM.  We know that Snow City closes at 5PM, so we were hoping to be able to get in before it closes.  The Science Centre is in the same complex, but we knew we wouldn’t be able to go to it till the next day.

It was already 4PM, but the sun was still up, like it was just 2 in the afternoon. It didn’t help that the queue for the bus was facing the west.

This was to be our first public bus ride. We were pretty excited, and scared at the same time. We were happy that we could use our EZ Link pass to pay for our bus fare.  And the bus ride was really short.  We could actually just walk to the venue! Hahaha

The lady at the counter advised us that we could only use the ticket for Snow City that day, since the Science Centre was also closing at 5PM.  We agreed.  We had to rent gloves, so we paid an extra SG$2 per person to rent them.  The jacket and boots already came with the admission payment.  We had to leave valuables in one of their pay-per-use lockers (SG$1/locker).  Filipinos as we are, we crammed our stuff in only one locker. hehe

Snow City was really small. I mean, I’ve been to Star City’s Snow World (in Manila) and that was bigger compared to this.  But we still had fun.  We went tubing – sliding along the slope on  one of the rubber tubes. We were told to hold hands as we slid down the slope and as soon as we reached the bottom, we wanted to go again.  It was that fun!

We took some pictures in the Kinetix area of the Science Centre before heading back.  Our day isn’t over yet.  We packed a lot of activities into our day that we didn’t get home till about 11PM.

First, we went back to Clark Quay.  We went around the Quay before boarding one of the boats for the night river cruise.  This was included in our 2-day package we purchased together with the Duck Tours.

It was nice to see the same sights we saw during the day lighted up at night. After the River Cruise, we decided to grab something to eat before going back home.  But, we could only find Subway, and they ran out of bread! hahaha  So we thought we’ll get dinner in Sengkang – Compass Point.

We grabbed another late dinner at Long John Silver.  Liza had the seafood plate with rice, while Blanca and I split the 3-piece chicken with fries. We then walked home and planned for the next day.

We realized that we spent so much time and money going around in the MRT because we didn’t plan very well.  This time, we made sure to include the MRT route in the planning.

That was the end of a very long day 2.

Singapore Adventure – Day 1

June 16, 2011 — Since we arrived rather late that afternoon/evening, we couldn’t do much.  Our friend, Kirk, who lives in Singapore came to meet us at the airport.  His brother Don, who was also on vacation at that time, was there to welcome us too.

Instead of taking the cab to our transient home in Sengkang, we had this really bright idea to take the MRT (train) instead. Ha!  It was pretty complicated, but we were confident since we had Kirk with us.

After the girls bought their EZ Link cards, we went on our first adventure of the day – several MRT rides to Sengkang.  It isn’t very easy with our luggage, you know.  The audio reminder to ‘Please mind the gap’ applied to us. Well, we stuck with it anyway.  Since we didn’t know where our transient home was, Liza printed out a Google Map direction from the Senkang MRT station.  We also had Kirk search it with his iPad. But, we later learned that Google Maps isn’t programmed to show the short cuts to the area. Hahaha we walked around the block to the building, when we could have cut through the gas station, saving about 5 minutes.

We then met with the Filipino owner of the transient home, Amee. We dropped off our luggage in our room, told Amee we will be back after we eat dinner nearby.  We saw a 711 store and my friends bought bottled water and some candy before searching for a place to eat.  Kirk asked the store clerk where the nearest restaurant or food stall was.  The clerk pointed to the Kopitiam Place or the Hawker’s Place we passed by earlier.  We headed to that direction, and after checking out the different stalls, Kirk told us we could check out the Compass Point Mall as it was still open.  We were already hungry, as it was past 9PM. We finally settled for Burger King. We ordered our meals and sat down for our first meal in Singapore.  The mall was already closing up, and we were already quite tired.  We bid Kirk and Don goodbye by the MRT gate and headed back to our home in SG.

Back in our room, we unpacked our luggage and planned for the activities the next day.  We finally turned in by 1AM.

Escape to Singapura

June 16, 2011 — My friends and I were scheduled to leave Cebu for Singapore at 3:20 that afternoon. I was supposed to have the whole morning to prepare for the said trip. Unfortunately, I had a 5-day training and had to stay till noon.  It was a pretty hectic day, to say the least. I even had to bring my lunch with me to the airport! LOL

My friends, Blanca, Tiny and her friend Liza, were already at the airport when I got there. They insisted I eat my lunch until we check in for our flight. I had 10 minutes to do that, but the tough fried chicken and corn on the cob didn’t make it easy.  There was already a long queue for the first scanning machine/check we have to go through. A large group of Koreans were already lined up to go in.  At 1PM, I kept my lunch away, and stood in line to go in.  We said our ‘goodbyes’ to Blanca’s mom, who was there to send us off, before finally getting inside the restricted area.

The check in counter for AirPhil Express wasn’t open yet, so we decided to pay for our travel tax first.  It took more than 5 minutes before we finished paying P1,620 each for travel tax.  While in line, I was able to help out some Korean tourists who got lost in the process.  Only Filipinos traveling abroad are required to pay the travel tax. While we were at the Travel Tax counter, the check in counter had opened up, and people had already queued up for that.

I have never traveled internationally with a group before, so everything seemed really new to me. The four of us trooped to one of the check in counters when it came our turn.  As it turned out, we can only check in per booking number.  Since I booked Tiny’s flight together with mine, we were able to check in together.  We still got the same row, paired up.

We then went to pay our terminal fee. For Mactan Cebu International Airport, international travel terminal fee is P550 per person. Everyone must pay this, including foreign tourists.  I know it’s around P750 in Manila.  Then we had to line up for immigration. This is one of the hurdles we had to face. Why a hurdle?  Well, we have been told, especially by friends who are living in Singapore, how difficult it is for Filipinos to get past Philippine immigration when traveling to Singapore.  Well, we had a plan.  Since I was the most traveled among the four of us, I was to go first.  I, of course, had to indicate that I was traveling with 3 others.  I also had my company ID ready.  I knew from experience that they would be asking that.  Oh, and yeah, since I came straight to the airport from company training, I was in my business suit.  So, that probably helped.  Hahaha or maybe not.

The immigration officer asked the usual questions: How many days will you be in SG? (Me: 6)  Where will you be staying?  (Me: Transient home in Sengkang) What is your relation to the rest of the group? (Me: College friends)  Do you have your company ID? (Me: Yes. *handed over my ID)

Tiny was up next, she wasn’t asked a lot, so we thought we cleared this one. However, when Blanca’s turn came, she was asked more questions than I was. She was asked for a copy of the confirmation for our accommodation. We forgot to print out the confirmation email, but had it in Liza’s BlackBerry.  The immigration officer told us to print it out because SG immigration will ask for it. Liza and Tiny went to have it printed and paid P25 per page!

So that was finally over, and came our last security check. This time, we had to remove our shoes. I forgot that I had my umbrella in my handbag. The officer informed us that it should be checked in, otherwise we would have to leave it behind. I was fine leaving it behind. I actually broke that umbrella the day before. Hahahaha I just forgot to take it out of my bag.

We were finally in the waiting lounge, the same waiting lounge for a flight to Incheon, South Korea. So, the whole lounge was a mix of Koreans waiting for that flight and the travelers waiting for the AirPhil Express flight to SG.  About 20 minutes later, we took the shuttle bus to the plane, and finally boarded for our flight to SG.  It was quite a long flight, too.  And as we neared landing, we were anxious with the final hurdle we had to face – Singapore’s immigration. We were scared to get airport-to-airport.

We arrived around 6:40 that night, but the sun was still up.  We lined up before one of the immigration counters, and still had the same plan in place. I went first, purposely placed my disembarkation card in one of my passport pages that had my Korean visa.  😉 The funny thing is, aside from the ‘good evening’ I got as a reply, the officer didn’t even ask one question.  The Philippine immigration was scarier than Singapore’s! Hahaha

Finally, we let out a sigh of relief. We are finally in Singapore!

Oh, and yeah, this was MY escape to Singapore since I never told anyone, even my family, I was going. hahaha