Singapore is great! It’s on my short list of places I’d consider living in. The weather is nearly always hot, it’s immaculately clean, the people are lovely, and it’s incredibly easy to get around. The gardens and plants are remarkable.

I’ve mostly travelled for work and would love to return for a longer stay. The highlights so far – 

Museums & Cultural Sites

• ***National Museum of Singapore: A beautiful building. Much better with a tour – the collection is a little sparse and a narrator makes a big difference.
• **Sri Krishnan Temple: Hindu temple built in 1870, dedicated to Krishna & featuring elaborate and colorful sculptures. Fun to walk past if you’re in the neighborhood.

Gardens

• **Gardens by the Bay: this is pretty and worth exploring. It’s kind of a zoo at Christmas time and the bar/dining options aren’t great.
• **HortPark: Another favorite park (and connects to Kent Ridge, which has a nice treetop walkway). Focused on education, lots of info about local plans and how to grow at home. Also has the city plant nursery, which is interesting to see (huge).
• ***Singapore Botanic Gardens: AMAZING. Probably the best garden in the world. Don’t miss the ginger garden, orchid garden, foliage garden, and prehistoric garden.

Shopping

• **Design Orchard: Sells clothing and gifts from local designers.
• I found some great gifts to bring home at the student store at the **National Design Center.

Hotels & Dining

Central Singapore

• **BAR-CELONA (sg): Average Spanish food and drinks, but the street is really cute and full of restaurants.
• **The Fullerton Hotel Singapore: Quite good. Pool is not as amazing as others but adequate, rooms are nice and big. Love the old colonial star. A five star hotel, living up to the ranking, reasonably priced for the class. Great location, great views. I’d stay here again.
• *Hilton Garden Inn Singapore Serangoon: While I would definitely never stay here again (chosen by my colleagues who wanted to stay in Little India), I didn’t hate the neighborhood. Feels a bit apart, lives up to the name.
• **Hotel Jen Orchardgateway Singapore by Shangri-La: this was my normal place to stay, extremely convenient if you need to be in the business district. While it’s a bit on the generic side, there’s a lovely rooftop pool that makes things worthwhile.
• *Joie: I’d skip this unless you’re with a crowd of vegetarians. Very creative, all veggie. It’s a little forced of an experience, rather corporate good but not great. (Now closed)
• **Kilo Kitchen (Singapore): Great cocktails and nice indoor-outdoor setting. Gets really loud on the weekends, and make a reservation, books out.
• *Merci Marcel Club Street: Cute area, food sub-standard. European faire, intentionally bland for European preferences.
• **Pan Pacific Hotel: Nice, not my favorite, but clean with large rooms. Reasonably good location, expensive food options, popular with Asian tourists.
• **Papi’s Tacos: excellent cocktails and Mexican food, very friendly staff.
• *Que Pasa: good cocktails and wine, mediocre food. Nice outdoor seating area on a cute street near Orchardgateway.
• Raffles Hotel is the classic place to stay. It was mostly closed for renovations during my visit, but it’s open now and likely wonderful. Famous for their high tea. The bar is classic, expensive, worth it for a fancy cocktail.

Dempsey Hill

A former army base/barracks, extremely colonial and now beautifully restored into a hip neighborhood packed with restaurants.

• Dinner at *PS.Cafe Harding Road was not good, but we’d like to go back and try somewhere else.

Marina Bay

• There are so many hawker centers it’s hard to know where to focus, but I loved **Lau Pa Sat. Worth a visit!
• *Marina Bay Sands: ‘the hotel with the rooftop infinity pool’ – worth visiting for the views. I didn’t love the busy, touristy scene, and wouldn’t stay here.
• *Mott 32 Singapore: in the Marina Bay mall. Heard good things, but the actual experience was not that great. Bland, expensive, untrained staff. And…in a mall.
• Dinner at *Seasonal Tastes in the Westin Marina View wasn’t good (a buffet with very sub-standard food). Hotel looks generically Westin (not in a bad way, just like all of their properties), but with a lovely pool on the top.

Sentosa Island

A fine location to stay in if you’re okay taking a cab everywhere. 30 minutes from the airport and 15 minutes to Orchard Road.

• **Amara Sanctuary Resort: ask for a room in the old barracks, ground floor opening on to the pool. It was excellent, with an outdoor lounge area, bathroom with double sinks and tub overlooking an infinity pool and jungle beyond. There are fans inside and out so A/C isn’t strictly necessary. Really excellent and huge indoor/outdoor gym. The lobby was a little tired, the breakfast sub-standard in the Sanctuary Tea Room. Didn’t try the Verve Bar & Grill (looked a bit too much like a sports bar). Galen debated if he’d stay here again – if he did it would be for the room, not the rest of the hotel.
• **Barracks Hotel Sentosa: mixed impression. There is no restaurant, but there is the “Mess Hall” next-door which has some good restaurants (but kind of mall-ish). There is no gym, but you can work out in the village hotel next door, a minor space with sub-par equipment. The grounds are beautiful, and is the pool, and the staff are very nice.
• Capella Singapore: went for drinks at the **Pineapple Room (classy, with excellent cocktails), and dinner at their Chinese restaurant, **Cassia, on the balcony overlooking the garden. Very good. If your budget allows it, definitely stay here.
• Thinking of spendy, there’s also a Raffles right next door, didn’t visit.

Further Afield

• *Khao Hom by Rung Mama (AMK): Amazing food. Not amazing decor. Great service, for the local engineers and manufacturers who work in the tech hub.
• ***Villa Samadhi: this is an easy and elegant escape from the city, a short cab ride away, but feels like being out in the country. Perfectly colonial, cocktail hour included. In Labrador Park, which is peaceful and nice to walk around. (unfortunately this is closed now)