Smart Travelling to Singapore (2)

21 April 2016

It was our adventure day! Although we started pretty late from apt, I am happy to did that journey. So this day we went to Mount Faber Park and planned to do some trekking to Kent Ridges Park. From Tampines Int, we ride MRT to HarborFront. A little bit explanation, Singapore has five MRT lines: East West Line is the oldest line connects Changi Airport/Pasir Ris to Joo Koon, North South Line connects Marina South Pier to Jurong East, North East Line connects HarborFront to Punggol, Circle Line connects HarborFront to MarinaBay, and Downtown Line connects Bukit Panjang to Chinatown. Each line has its own color, and it’s quite easy for you to notice at what station you should change line. For MRT and bus information, I recommend you to download MyTransport app. It helped me a lot during the trip. It will also notify you when there’s trouble on the transport system, and inform you for some free transport compensation (free bus ride to your destination).

On that day, we ride the East West Line to Outram Park for transit and change with North East Line. But there was a power fault, so we ride a bus to HarborFront for free. We arrived on lunch time so we had lunch on Seah Im FC. I ordered Wantoon Noodle and Egg Prata. I was that hungry. Hahaha. The two meals I ordered has the same price for Albi’s only Rice+Fried Chicken, tho. I won alot. After lunch, we directly walk to Mount Faber Park and started the adventure from Marang Trail.

This trail is a part of The Southern Ridges, a 10-km trail connecting Mount Faber Park and Kent Ridges Park. There are two routes, route A brings you from Mount Faber Park to Telok Blangah Hill Park, HortPark, and finished at Kent Ridge Park. The other route has different from Telok Blangah Hill Park point that it directly finished at Labrador Nature Reserve. We went with the route A. With 10 km distance, we finished 4 hours of walking from the expected 5 hours of walking. The starting point was on Marang Trail with 5 min walking inside a forest. The trail gave some tense to your thighs as it has so many stairs. The second point was Faber Walk with a view to Singapore’s waterfront. After 10 to 15 mins walking, we arrived to Handerson Waves. This is a wood-panelled bridge built 36 m above the ground and you can really see the traffic under the bridge. Bit scary. After Handerson Waves, we had some drink on Sembcorp Forest of Giants while continued the journey to Alkaff Mansion. Alkaff Mansion is a conservation mansion. My favorite part is the next point: Forest Walk. It is a 1.3km of elevated walkway with wonderful view of forest, along with the song of birds on the Singing Forest. After that, we reached another breath-taking bridge: Alexandra Arch. If you arrived on evening, you might enjoy the color-changing LED lights on the bridge. We then entered the HortPark, a park with several unique themes. We stopped on some parks and played a bit. The last point was Canopy Walk. It is already a part of Kent Ridge Park. We end the journey on the Science Park and directly ride the MRT to Tampines. Kind of heavy workout day, huh?

Bird Eye View on Faber Walk

Marang Trail

Handerson Waves

Forest Walk

being playful at HortPark

our favorite spot: TAP WATERRRR

 Arrived on Tampines, we had our dinner on Kopitiam near our block. I ate Laksa and Albi once again chose to be safe with the meals. Hahaha. Laksa is quite similar to Sayur Lodeh in Indonesia, but it really filled me because it served on a really big bowl. It didn’t served with rice, tho, but noodle. Yummeh!!!

Expenditure        : SGD 10.50        (top-up my given EZ-Link Card on Sevel. They charged 50cents)

                                SGD 1                  (canned drink on Mount Faber’s jewel box)

                                SGD 3                  (Wantoon Noodle at Seah Im FC)

                                SGD 1.50           (Egg Prata)

                                SGD 3.50           (Laksa at Kopitiam)

                                SGD 1.50           (canned drink)

Tips                        : If you have more than 3 days on Singapore, never waste your time by only visiting mainstream tourism spot! When I snap my journey on snapchat, many friends asked me where is this beauty place. It’s a satisfaction to experience things only rare people do. Find the information of the trekking adventure here.

22 April 2016

Shopping Time!!! No. It is only for Rama, because Albi and I doesn’t come to Singapore to do gift shopping. Hahaha. It’s kind of street food time for us. We went to Bugis and Albi directly bought a grilled squid at the mall. We then continued to Bugis Street where I found Kaya Toast and end up buying Kaya sauce :3 omg I love Kaya!!! Albi then bought something similar to cilok and seblak in Indonesia. We figured out it’s not that tasty, tho. Seblak still the best! I didn’t buy anything except chocolate that my friend previously ordered. It’s not that difficult to buy those snacks too because we already had some import stores in Indonesia. Only, with slightly expensive price.

Seblak ala Singapore

Kaya Toast

We went back to Masjid Sultan because the boys had to do Friday Prayer. Then we back to Bugis and had our lunch at Bugis Village Hawker Centre. I didn’t eat because I had enough with the toast. The rain fell quite hard so we waited before approaching the Bugis MRT station.

We ride the MRT to Bayfront and headed to Merlion Park. It was full of tourists, as always. We only took some picture and sat there for about thirty mins. We then decided to go to Esplanade Theatres to see a rehearsal from the performing artists. It is a free-theatre with different theme day-to-day show. I was bored that we only sit there lol. We were waiting for my friend, tho. David, a NTU-student, my good friend that I met on IOAA. We met at Clarke Quay and ate on Hooters, the only affordable restaurant. Their food range from SGD 6 to SGD 50 and above. A light warning for you who are on budget travelling, restaurant in Clarke is quite pricey so it’s good for you to bring some bread or foods while enjoying the riverside on the evening. On 9 pm, we went home directly as we recognized that Tampines will be so much crowded.

David and I

Clarke Quay Riverside

Expenditure        : SGD 2                  (Kaya toast)

                                SGD 1.30           (canned drink)

                                SGD 18               (some sandwich on Hooters)

                                SGD 10               (top up EZ Link: a shXX I prefer STP)

23 April 2016

I love adventure, so I love this day when I finally went to Punggol Waterway Park and witnessed once again how amazing Singapore government has arranged their parks. It’s only Albi and I went to Punggol. The waterway park is cool I wish I had bike when I was there. Before I went there, I only want to take some pictures on Instagram Tree, but it was gone. But I got this soothing and relaxing moment when I walked along the waterway, read the story of Punggol (they provide a story on the wall), crossing the adventure bridge, even seeing people jog there made me happy. Plus, it is sooooo green it is good for my eyes! Albi and I got the chance to try LRT, the smaller version of MRT with shorter railway. Punggol is located on the north-east region of Singapore, the last station you’re going to stop if you take MRT there. It is still a developing area, but it’s already pretty and amusing.

view from Waterway Point

We continued our day to Little India. Albi really want to try Indian food, so we do some research about the Indian restaurant there. We went to Andhra Curry which is really close to MRT station. The food is really nice I love it. I love the Naan!!! It’s cheap for Singaporean, but not really for a budget traveller because the food range around SGD 10. I tried Chicken Gongura while Albi tried Nattukodi Iguru. My food is spicy it almost similar to spicy opor in Indonesia. The food is filling, tho.

After that, we ride the MRT to Dhoby Ghaut and walked along the Orchard Road. Didn’t buy anything except Garrett (the famous popcorn) and didn’t get the chance to try ION Sky because the queue is quite long and we run out of time. After ION, we directly went home and be prepared for our flight.

Expenditure        : SGD 12               (Chicken Gongura)

                                SGD 2.50           (Plain Naan)

                                SGD 16               (two medium Garrett)

Tips                    : Try to arrive at Changi Airport one or two hours earlier than your boarding schedule. I regret to not be able to explore more as it planned before. Don’t ever miss this out because Changi Airport has really good service for the passengers. The best time to visit Punggol is on sunrise or sunset. It is the most attractive spot to see the sunset in Singapore. Plus, if you want to try IONSky, check their schedule as it might be closed for private events.

And that’s my story where I really speak Singlish to local people, I really did. When I speak Singlish, I got no difficulties to get their best service while Albi experienced some not-good moment with the waitress. They speak fast, just like the other foreigner with English as their first language. My suggestion is, put aside the habit of saying ‘excuse me’, ‘sorry’, or even the use of complete sentence like ‘I want to buy blablabla’. They wont wait you patiently, to be honest. When you order some food, for example, merely say this ‘uncle/auntie/sister/brother, one hainanese rice, please’ or when you’re at a restaurant you can just say ‘i got a grilled mutton blablabla’. If you’re used to go abroad, you also get used to how fast their work is. Cmiiw, tho. Happy smart travelling!

Additional tips: never compare IDR with SGD or any other currency when you're about to buy something. Just buy what you want. For me, under SGD 10 is still considered cheap. Unless your local currency is USD or Poundsterling, never ever compare. :)