Mr Kissyfur wrote:
Anyone got any pro-tips for things to do in Singapore over a weekend? I've already got Little India, Arab Street, the National Botanic Gardens and their giant ferris wheel on the list.
PS no hoo-ers, thanks.
PPS -even female ones, Cras.
If you're heading down to Arab Street I'd definitely go to Blu Jazz, which is a cracking bar with character and reasonably (for Singapore) priced beers.
The best curry I had there was on a rooftop restaurant on Boat Quay, called Colombo. Really good, and uses decent meat (found it hard to find much Indian food I liked when I lived out there - always manky bits of thigh and bone).
For an exciting hawker experience I'd go to Lau Pa Sat
http://www.laupasat.biz/. Probably not the best hawker in Singapore for quality of food but for choice and atmosphere it's pretty incredible.
Another bar which is pretty awesome in a hygenic Sons of Anarchy sort of way is Handlebar (
http://www.handlebaroriginal.com/), a biker bar in the same way Hardrock Cafe is a metal bar. Everything you touch has come from a motorbike - door handles, toilet flushes - and they serve a cocktail that is wheeled up to your table and blended using a contraption with two revvable handlebars. Ridiculous place.
If you have time and the inclination, going to see a movie in Gold Class in one of the Golden Village cinemas is awesome - easyboy recliner, aircon so cool you need a blanket and table service for food and booze.
If you're after seafood, Jumbo at East Coast Park is excellent, even if it is a massive franchise. You can look out at the hundreds of oil tankers hugging the horizon.
Din Tai Fung has some incredibly light soup-filled dim sum which should be sampled, as you won't get the like of it in the UK.
But to be honest, my favourite thing to do in Singapore was always the brunches. Rock up at a hotel at 11am to be seated for four hours gorging. As much champagne as your body can handle, and every food you could contemplate eating, and as much of it as you like. Lobster, foie gras, steak, roasts with yorkies, curry, dim sum. And you roll out at 3pm, stuffed and pissed, blinking into the sun, and head down to a riverside bar to continue the fun. Popular places for this are the fullerton, Shangri La and equinox.
if the seedier side is of interest, the colloquially known Four Floors of Whores (Orchard Towers) does exactly what it says on the tin. Pretty unpleasant, especially when you have squaddies taking their offshore break, but an entertaining experience for half an hour (I used to go with Mrs Fop for a drink and a gawp).
I'm told the Transformers ride at Universal Studios is brilliant, but it hadn't opened by the time I left. The zoo is ace, much more fun than the Night Safari, which involves looking at weirdly static animals. In the dark.
For outdoor stuff, you're spot on with the Botanical Gardens, but also the Kranji War Memorial is quite a spectacle, but a long way out of (and in a shit part of) town. Combined with a trip to the gardens in Jurong East it could be worth a trip.
And of course there's Marina Bay Sands, which is worth at least looking at, as is the Durian (national theatre) on the esplanade.
Finally, personally, I'd go to Raffles, but just have a beer and crunch some peanuts. Singapore Slings cost the best part of £20 and taste like shit.
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