This week’s dream: Sensory overload in dazzling Singapore
“You have to expect the unexpected in Singapore,” said Doug Hansen in The San Diego Union-Tribune. A face-toface encounter with a toothy, 30-footlong, red-and-yellow cloth dragon taught me that on the day my wife and I decided to explore the city’s famed Orchard Road, a leafy boulevard lined with upscale shops and hotels. The dragon and the drum-driven parade it was leading turned out to be only one of countless pleasant surprises that greeted us during our five days in the vibrant island city-state. Of the six weeks we spent touring Southeast Asia, those days proved the highlight. “In fact, Singapore has become my favorite major, modern city in the world.”
I should mention two drawbacks. First, Singapore is a hot, humid, equatorial city: The average daytime high temperature hovers near 88 degrees. Second, it’s one of the most expensive cities in the world. But its wealth has created something special. Visiting the National Museum, we were impressed by Singapore’s rapid rise in the first several decades after it was founded in 1819 as a trading post for the British East India Company. A global, multicultural powerhouse by the end of that century, the city—comparable in size to New York City’s five boroughs—is today a leader in education, finance, technology, and entertainment, as well as one of the world’s safest, cleanest, and healthiest countries. And English is the official language.
We changed hotels twice to explore different areas of the city, anchoring ourselves at one point within short walks of several major museums, the famed Raffles Hotel, and a spectacular bayside park. Both the 203-acre Singapore Botanic Gardens and the Gardens by the Bay are must-sees, the latter being the home of the world’s tallest enclosed waterfall. But as beautiful and green as our surroundings were by day, “after nightfall the city transformed itself into a nocturnal kaleidoscope of color, especially down by the bay.” At the Supertree Grove, in the Gardens by the Bay, a light and sound show bathes a stand of 100-foot-tall, man-made trees with music and changing colors.
At the Capitol Kempinski Hotel Singapore (kempinski.com), doubles start at $270.