Singapore At A Glance For The Untutored Traveller

By Sandy Atas Rubias

While tourists bemoan that there's little to do in Singapore, savvy travellers will tell you otherwise. Travelers, unlike tourists, get off the beaten track and discover for themselves Singapore's treasures that only locals who are in the know enjoy. Discover Singapore's secret hideaways and treasures through this guide.

Thrills and Treasures

Ride on the Flyer.

The world's largest observation wheel at 165 meters, it's Singapore's version of the London Eye. The best time to take a ride is at sunset for a scenic view of Singapore's skyscrapers.

Visit Pulau Ubin Island.

It's a rustic reminder of what Singapore looked like more than 100 years ago. Make sure you visit Chek Jawa, it's a marine sanctuary. Permits are issued to guests.

Tour the Chinatown Heritage Center.

Here you'll find complete sets of kitchens, living areas, bedrooms, and even street scenes of 19th and 20th century Singapore rendered with faithful mastery. It is an authentic cultural experience no traveler should pass up.

Don't forget to take a stroll through Haji Lane

Seated right in the heart of Singapore's Muslim quarter, Haji Lane provides well crafted wares when you're in need of some retail therapy. From home accessories to excellent house label clothing, indulge your senses in this small and colorful lane.

Head to Singapore's Botanic Garden to commune with nature. 

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Travelling with a limited timeframe can urge you to cram every site to see, every experience to be found in a 24 hour day. Yes, travelling can be a source of stress. Give yourself some 'me' time to gather your thoughts and clear your mind. Slip into comfortable clothes and get ready to enjoy a walk through the lush greenery of Singapores virgin rainforest.

Master the basics

Accommodations
Stay at the marina bay sands or the Ritz Carlton for excellent service and professional pampering. Of course you can expect to pay premium prices but if you're travelling with a specific budget, no worries! Retail or chain hotels abound.

Transportation
You can go around Singapore using the Mass Rapid Transport or MRT. It's safe, convenient and cheap if you get the one day tourist pass. Cabs are available and metered and most cab drivers are honest.

Tipping
Tipping in restaurants, hotels, or cabs is not customary in Singapore but a 10% service charge is usually added to the bill.

Meet the locals
Singaporeans are generally reserved so don't be surprised when you get curious stares with your cheerful greetings.

Communication
Singaporeans speak in a variety of languages that include Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and English. Expect to be greeted by a mixture of Singlish when conversing with locals. An expressive body language will also get your point across.If you don't mind a little kitschy souvenir, have your photo taken with the Merlion, Singapore's iconic water spewing statue. One thing's for certain, a passionate traveler will never be bored in Singapore.

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Research prompts hotel to do major overhaul

By Marlet D. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer

11:34 pm | Saturday, January 5th, 2013

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VIEW from Pan Pacific Singapore during the day

The regional headquarters of many multinational companies are located in Singapore. Thus, there is a significant demand for accommodations among expatriates. This is just one of the reasons Pan Pacific Hotel Singapore closed its doors for clients for three months to undergo an $80-million face-lift.

The posh hotel opened just in time for Singapore’s flagship travel and tourism event in October called Travel Rave. It hosted delegates and journalists from different countries and threw a party for its guests.

Scott Swank, Pan Pacific Hotel Singapore’s general manager, says the changes are more than just nip and tuck but not really a major overhaul.

“In essence, it’s a new hotel because we changed many things and relocated some facilities to different floors,” Swank says during a hosted luncheon at The Edge, a multicultural restaurant located at the third level of the hotel.

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The hotel is very much inspired by its Asian setting. The lobby at the ground floor has water elements with reflecting pool and ponds. Instead of lounge chairs, the hotel installed cottage-style seats with fishnets to give a roof effect. Atrium, claimed to be the longest bar in the world, spans 22 meters offers 600 boutique wines and is also found at the lobby.

Most of Pan Pacific Singapore’s clients are business executives than professionals, and families.

“The transformation of Pan Pacific Singapore comes on the back of comprehensive research on the changing needs of our guests and associates,” Swank says.

Pan Pacific Singapore is located at the heart of the city’s business and commercial district and is just minutes away from convention centers and other tourist destinations. Adjacent to the hotel is a mall that is home to high-end as well as mass market brands. The food court is a mecca of dishes from different countries.

And then there are the rooms. The 790 rooms are redesigned with the working professional in mind. The generous space given for a workstation is evident with a bar/dining area near the huge glass windows. The Wi-Fi is free to all guests and is available in all floors.

VIEW from Pan Pacific Singapore at night

Rooms from the 22nd to 37th floors offer the best amenities the hotel could offer: A perfect view of Marina Bay Sands, the Fullerton Hotel, and Singapore’s skyline at night. Swank fittingly calls them “panoramic rooms.”

Each room is fitted with guest-centric and functional enhancements and an indulging huge see-through bathrooms where one can watch the news from the bathtub on a flat screen IPTV (Internet Protocol TV). Guests can also check their accounts and billings through this high-tech TV, which can be adjusted in different angles. Some rooms have enhanced entertainment system which enables guests to plug and play their mobile devices on the TV.

Swank and the hotel management team had to make a huge decision of relocating the famous Ha Tien Lo from the 38th floor to the third level where they settled all the dining scene to make way for Pacific Club.

Swank says that they conducted an informal survey among Ha Tien Lo’s patrons as to why they kept coming back and a significant number of respondents answered “because of the view.” This was followed by “because of the food.”

Very late dinner is not a problem with The Pacific Club because it is open 24 hours. It is the perfect chill-out place at night for guests who work late. The 38th floor offers a view of the South China Sea and the harbor.

Ha Tien Lo is perfect on the third floor alongside The Edge which offers American, Indonesian, Indian, Japanese, Singaporean, and Thai food. The choices are endless and a week won’t be enough to try every dish in the house. Ha Tien Lo didn’t lose the menu it is famous for. The rooms are luxurious and spacious which are perfect for family gatherings or company meetings. The interiors are traditional Chinese and gives that familiarity and ambiance experienced in a Chinese home.

But the one to check out is the Japanese restaurant Keyaki which mimics the traditional Japanese home and is located at the fourth level and “outside” of the hotel. The feeling is like being transported to Japan just for one meal.

ONE of the panoramic rooms in the 24th floor

The renovation is a timely move for the 25-year-old Pan Pacific Singapore,according to Swank “We need to revitalize the hotel because of the changing and discriminating tastes of our guests,” he says.

Pan Pacific Singapore has been named Asia’s Leading Business Hotel from 2006 to 2011 and World’s Leading Hotel from 2007 to 2010 by World Travel Awards. In 2011, it was named as World’s Leading City Hotel also by the World Travel Awards.

Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts comprises 19 premium hotels, resorts and serviced suites in 12 countries across Asia, North America, and Oceania.

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How Singapore is even greener now

By: Karla Vizcarra
Philippine Daily Inquirer

 58 19

GREEN, green grass and domes

From Justin Quek’s Sky on 57 restaurant atop Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands, you get a perfect view of the world terraforming below. The land is flat—gray in parts where highways and buildings have risen, brown where construction is ongoing.

There is a large outdoor stadium, its capacity reaching the thousands. A strange Louis Vuitton shop floats on the bay. Towards the right, a humongous Ferris wheel and a museum shaped like a lotus.

Singapore never runs out of things to build. If anything, they run out of land.

But that’s never a problem. They simply build some more of it.

In 2005, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that a new garden will rise from 100 hectares of reclaimed land.

The project, Gardens by the Bay, was to encircle the city’s central business district and form an integral part in pushing the government’s mission to transform Singapore from a ‘Garden City’ into a ‘City in a Garden.’

BULL and tree

The Gardens just opened. I could see its sprawling greenery from my perch high above. I see two amphibious-looking domes and five gigantic Supertrees: vertical hybrids of organic matter and machine.

Grow back trees

The visuals are highly arresting, even emotional for what it represents: a physical testimony to an ultra-developed city’s pledge to go back to being green.

Here’s an elementary take at how Singapore came to be: Singapore cleared land of trees and greens, built industries on cleared land, makes money off built industries, then uses money to grow back trees and greenery.

It’s either that, or heck, Singapore just has so much excess capital that it can very well build rainforests inside giant domes if it wanted to.

Which is exactly what it did. The team behind Gardens by the Bay built a rainforest, literally, with waterfalls, mist and tropical plant species inside a clear conservatory of sci-fi-like levels (Cloud Forest).

CONCERT at the Meadows

In another dome, they replicated the cool, dry climate of semi-arid tropical regions and filled that up with thousands of plant and tree species, from African baobabs to Mediterranean palms to olive trees from Spain (Flower Dome).

But even before one can even begin to imagine the magnitude of work that went into executing that—the trees, for instance, were shipped to Singapore from various corners of the world—I learn that the conservatories are managed using sustainable technology, which may be an even more incredible feat.

Useful energy

The Flower Dome is run by horticultural waste that powers a steam turbine, which generates the electricity needed in keeping the temperature at below 20°C.

The Supertrees are solar-powered.

A STREET full of character

At a certain time after the sun sets, the lights come on and the vertical gardens are bathed in light.

Whether one is stretched out under the trees or suspended high above the air on the Gardens’ Skywalks (bridges that connect the 50-m Supertrees), seeing this and knowing that wasted energy has been converted into useful energy is nothing less than magical.

At the Gardens’ opening, the Prime Minister said it was not easy having chosen to cultivate greenery instead of commerce. The garden was built on 100 ha of reclaimed land, precious land that previously did not exist.

To be more precise, land that could have easily made oodles of money on condominiums, parking lots and a couple more malls. But in a country that is known for being constantly ahead, constantly hip and constantly relevant, that would have been ordinary and altogether boring.

For the rest of the trip, I am reminded of how effortless being cool is for Singapore.

Andy Warhol and Harry Potter sit three floors apart at the Artscience Museum. High school students mill casually about, inspecting soup cans and taking down notes. In the basement, actual Quidditch broomsticks are encased beside Hagrid’s coat.

A CITY that loves to build and eat

Our hotel is on Fort Canning Hill, a colonial landmark that was used by the British Command. Like most of the city’s cultural spots, it shows how impeccably Singapore can blend the old with the new. Within the hotel’s elegant balustrades and classic architectural details are thoughtfully designed interiors: An entire wall of my bathroom is disconcertingly made of glass, but my bedroom is warm and immediately comforting.

In the mornings, coffee drips delightfully from a machine.

I go wild at the Bras Basah, a four-floor complex of old books, art supplies and magazines. I sift through shelves and shelves of old Archie comics, then cross the street to the National Library, where I nearly weep upon seeing an entire basement of books, alternating rows of modern and classic authors, available to anyone, anytime, for free.

Meanwhile, a few steps away is the Toy Museum.

Meals are always exciting, and at places like Wok & Barrel, artisan brews are served alongside mod sin cuisine such as Beef Rendang Pizza. Though more traditional fare is still available in hawker stalls, there is concern that such beloved haunts may soon become out of sync with the rest of the city.

And like Singapore’s old and traditional villages, the simple way of life that just could not adapt inevitably get buried beneath the next big wave of construction rubble.

At the Sands, I am with Dino, a newfound Singaporean buddy. “In here, anything can change,” he says, gesturing towards a small figure that I vaguely recognize. It is the Merlion. “That guy is no longer our national icon. He’s been retired. We are standing on top of the new one.”

I let this sink in, thinking about the Merlion shirts I’d bought only seven years ago, and wonder how the Merlion feels about this.

“Twenty minutes, 30 minutes… the city is always changing,” Dino continues. “In Singapore, nothing ever stays the same for too long. That is the way of the city.”

I look at the crisscrossing swatches of land below me. Perhaps if I stare hard enough, I may just see the green begin to overtake the concrete.

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