Singapore - The land of the Merlion

The welcoming high rises of Singapore

We spent the Christmas of 2013 at Singapore. We were on a holiday there for 5 days, before we moved on to Malaysia. WE includes me, Yash - my 5.5 yr old son; Vickram - my husband ; and my mother in law.
We had been planning to take this vacation since long but work kept us busy. We finally decided that time was right and went for it. We tried planning it by ourselves but thought the better of it. Planning by ourselves would mean that we had to pour hours into planning each small detail. Me being a control freak does not help matters. I hate it when things don't go according to plan. And if I've spent hours especially, god save people around me!

We considered the holiday to be more for Yash's enjoyment and pleasure. For about two weeks before the D Day, Yash and his dad would browse through the favorite hot-spots for kids at Singapore. Yash knew the places we were gonna visit and even played a role in shortlisting the final itinerary. Vickram took help from one of his friends, who is in the business of organizing tours, in making the bookings and planning the trip as we wanted. Vickram had prepared Yash for taking pictures and shooting videos. He then handed over the videocam to Yash for making the travel documentary. What excitement that day!

We took an Air India flight from Chennai to Singapore. The Chennai International Airport has toilets that smell like the confluence of the world's drainage. They are dirty beyond imagination. Guess the other amenities were just mediocre and not worth mentioning here. The flight was delayed by 1.5 hrs and were made to wait in the cold dungeon they call as waiting area by the gates. Then there was the flight itself. Let me recount the things that were amiss: The hostess was rude, looked like the cat had got her smile and manners, and the passengers were cattle who should just be herded but not heard to; The entertainment system wasn't functioning; the food was horrible.

At this point, we were worried that our holiday was headed for doom. But guess what, after this initial downside, the rest was upbeat.

 The Changi airport at Singapore is a sight for sore eyes. The entire airport was decked up for Christmas and a pleasure to just see. Since our flight had been delayed, we didn't have much time to look around and had to proceed straight to immigration. We were taken by coach to Kitchner Road, where we stayed at Cultural Hotel. This was Day 1.

I'll cover the itinerary in this post and give the details of some of the places we visited in the following posts.

Day 1 -  Musthafa Shopping Mall and City Square Mall -

Day 2 - We took a walk at Esplanade, a waterfront location. Read more about it here.  Afternoon at Chinatown. Evening at Night Safari.


Day 3 - City Tour that included the amazing Singapore Flyer, Merlion park, China Town Buddhist temple and half day Sentosa
Looking sharp for the dolphins at Sentosa
The Singapore Flyer


Day 4 - The highlight of the trip 'Universal Studios' for a whole day!

Day 5 - Jurong bird park




Day 5 - Travel to Johor Bahru, Half day at Yash's most awaited destination Lego Land

Day 6 - Johor Bahru to Kuala Lumpur by road. A great journey. Vegetarians better pack food as there are not much options enroute.

Day 7 - KL city tour with just a few stops for photos. Evening at ICity; a miniature theme park akin to our FunWorld in Bangalore.

Day 8 - KL to Chennai in the AirAsia flight. We then traveled onward to Bangalore.

I learnt a lot about Yash during this trip. The spirit with which he dealt with each new experience, his resilience, his excitement, all have been an absolute source of joy!

More about it in the posts to come!

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