Vacation to Singapore, October 11-15, 2010, Day 1

Love at the first sight...
That is my feeling about Singapore. The city, environment, transportation, building… everything seems to be perfect. I admire Singapore so much since the first time I arrived there.


I traveled with my young brother, just two of us. We used Lion Air, the return ticket fare that time was Rp 1,364,600 for two persons excluding airport tax in Jakarta. Finished settling the air ticket, free fiscal and immigration in Soekarno-Hatta airport, we were waiting in the lounge until boarding time. Our plane had landed at Terminal 1, Changi airport on October 11th, 2010, 11:30AM. It took few minutes of walking to claim our baggages. Changi airport is very large, it has 4 terminals : Terminal 1, 2, 3 and Budget Terminal. The terminals link to each other by skytrain or shuttle bus. Many facilities can be found in Changi. Map of Singapore is also available for free.

Soekarno-Hatta Airport

Skytrain at Changi

After settled with immigration officer and claimed our baggages, we went to refill our drink bottle with free drinking water provided there. It can be found almost everywhere near to the toilet. We then used skytrain to go to Terminal 2 where MRT to city is there. Since we were 5 days in Singapore, we chose EZ link card for our transportation both MRT and buses. Card can be bought at Passenger Service Centre or TransitLink Ticket Office within MRT station. It costs $12 which is $5 for card fee (it is not refundable) and $7 for deposit balance (refundable when you return the card). You can top up the value with minimum $10 (minimum $5 in 7 Eleven store with a fee). Actually there are many ways to go to city beside using MRT, you can take taxi, public bus or airport shuttle bus. For shuttle bus reservation, just go to Ground Transport Desk at arrival hall. But of course, MRT is the cheapest and most easy way to go.

Free drinking water in Changi

Escalator to Changi MRT Station

Waiting for train to come at Tanah Merah

We arrived at A Beary Good hostel around 1PM. The hostel is very good, located just few steps from MRT Chinatown, easy to find. The bed rate is also affordable, $23 per person / night ( I think it’s $26 now) with so many facilities including basic breakfast, free wifi and using internet, common room with TV and PSP and many more. Both bathroom and bedroom are very clean. I think we will definitely back to this hostel again next time. As check in time is 2PM, we went to have our lunch 1st at food court nearby. We had thai ice tea, pad thai, and minced pork beehoon soup for $16. We then went back to settle payment, after that we started our journey traveling Singapore.

Our bedroom

Lunch on 1st day

1st destination, we went to brother’s office giving him a surprise and yes, he did, haha. We were there just for a while as he was very very busy that time. Then we continued our journey to Haw Par Villa. It’s free admission, open from 10AM to 7PM. We took quite many photos there. Many statues in Haw Par Villa, most of it related to Buddha’s religion. We left on 5.30PM and went to Lau Pa Sat, looking for dinner. Lau Pa Sat is one of the most famous organized food court in Singapore. Many foods are sold with various prices till we were confused of what to eat. Finally our choice ended at Won Ton Noodle and Laksa Yong Tou Foo plus water melon juice for $12,1. We just found out that food portion in Singapore is quite big, maybe it is suitable for male but not for female like me.

Jurong Industrial Estate

Haw Par Villa

Lau Pa Sat

Won Ton Noodle

Laksa Yong Tou Foo

After finished our dinner, we walked back to hostel, quite close. On half way, we got into supermarket to buy few bottles of mineral water. Actually mineral water in Singapore is quite cheap as long as you buy in big supermarket such as Cheers, Fair Price, Carrefour or Giant Hypermart. A bottle of 1500 ml water costs you 90 cents. We then had a stroll a while around Chinatown before having a long sleep for our 1st night in Singapore.

Singapore at night

Pagoda Street

By the way, you don’t need to be afraid of getting lost in Singapore when traveling by yourself. The website www.gothere.sg is really helpful and accurate in telling all the informations of how to take MRT and buses. A simple tips when traveling by bus, it’s better if u know the distances and bus stop names from where u are to your destination (you can find it at here or here), so when u get on the bus, just simply watch the kilometer written in EZ link card reader or watch the bus stop name that passed by. I suggest you better watching bus stop name than watching kilometer as you couldn’t always sit near to the card reader in the bus.

Go to Day 2