City 12 hours: weekend in Singapore

09:00 Breakfast

Privé Café with panoramic views of the harbor serves breakfasts to five o’clock in the evening, so you can start your day here, even if you overcome jetlag. Best absorb omelet ($ 13), eggs Benedict ($ 13) or pancakes ($ 10), sit on the terrace and admire the yachts and fabulous curved skyscrapers architect Daniel Libeskind.

10:00 Walk

Start exploring the city with the best walks in Gardens by the Bay. Generally, endless parks – one of its main advantages. And the climate here is completely innocent. Until a few decades ago, there was just trampled mess, and no tropical rain belt and not saved. Plants were imported specially from all over the world, and eventually Singapore was like a garden city. Parks here are huge, well-groomed, besides their promise to connect pedestrian bridges overhanging the highways, so that you can get around the city without noticing machines. But with Supertrees – huge (25 to 50 m) trees, two years ago, “grown up” in the city center – nothing compares. Their “trunks” – vertical lawns and steel branches in the evenings turn into a light installation. Between trees at a height of 30 m winds lift (in the rain and strong wind at her entrance closed). Besides the inherent trees photosynthesis, these also accumulate solar energy, bringing it back in the evening in the form of light. To trees enclosed park Gardens by the Bay (also rather big – 100 ha) and two conservatories Flower Dome and Cloudy Forest with flowers and trees from around the world. Russia are sunflowers. Entrance to the park is free, $ 23 in the greenhouse at Skywalk $ 4.

11:30 Shopping

It seems that the whole of Singapore – a huge shopping mall, and for every taste. Then there is the Orchard Road with all known (and unknown) world luxury-brands (boutiques worth a visit also because many of them make special additions to the collections, which are sold only in Singapore), and the market Bugis (civilized Cherkizon analogue) with overgrown around the block mass marketnyh brands. It’s still Asia – everything is bought and sold.

13:00 Lunch

In Singapore, as in any other country in Southeast Asia, always ate in the street, there was prepared and sold food. But in the fight for the “Europeanization” of street traders dispersed or, more accurately, organize, create numerous hawker centres (street trading centers) with mandatory waterpipes-toilets, air conditioning, other rare in the rest of Asia hygiene. Here are eating – and local bankers (it seems there is more than half of their population), and taxi drivers and tourists. Cheap (a rarity in Singapore), fast and delicious: Dim Sum, Chinese rice, kebabs. The most famous – Lau Pa Sat (old market, he’s Telok Ayer Market) in the city center in a lovely white colonial-style building with delicate arches and clock turret. Tray you should choose, focusing on the long-standing line to it.

14:30 F unikuler

Sentosa with its buried in verdure, resorts corny can be reached by car or monorail, and can fly up to “evil birdies” – local funicular enough that painted under Angry Birds, in a stall waiting for you Angry Birds pillows and tweets Angry Birds, and in a souvenir shop at the entrance to sell everything with the appropriate symbols Angry Birds. Sign in cableway is Jewel Box on Mount Faber. The rest of the treasures of this “box” – “Jade”, “Opal”, “Sapphire” and “Moonstone” – gastronomic restaurants. But, in truth, its main diamond, oddly enough, the toilet – this kind can not be opened even with the height of the “zlobnoptichego” flight. Funicular ticket to $ 24.

15:00 Relax on Sentosa Island

The beaches of Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia here only two hours away, but hardworking Singaporeans prefer Sentosa (“peace and quiet” in Malay), which go up to 20 minutes. Unprepared tourists remind Sentosa Island of Stupid “Dunno on the Moon”, so all kinds of entertainment – Aquarium, casinos, amusement parks – is concentrated in the area of ​​5 km ². The only thing missing – this beach. That is something poured beaches, but looking at the standing nearby cargo ships, afraid to climb into the water. Local spa massage therapists say that if in the sea, and who tries to swim, the only Russian who then come to the salon with a request to withdraw oily spots on the skin. Therefore, instead of Sentosa beaches with white sand (they also exist, but they are used only for beach volleyball) incredible amount of pools.

In the amusement park Universal Studio on Sentosa (first in Southeast Asia), many different entertainment related blockbusters and TV series. For “Transformers” go better on an empty stomach – a dizzying fall in the abyss and 3D-battle with alien monsters unaccustomed causes mild nausea. At the end of the ride the mechanical voice thanks you for saving the planet (apparently salvation consists in the fact that you did not succumb to their natural impulses). After such a roller coaster look already with some caution. Vestibular system and soothe the digestive system can be meditative attraction on “Madagascar”. Adults – $ 60 Children – $ 44.

19:30 Dinner

Crabs and other crustaceans in Long Beach five restaurants are imported from Sri Lanka (in Singapore for your food is not there – for fields and pastures have no place, and poisoned water around huge cargo ships, because Singapore – primarily port). National cuisine as such there is none – there are Chinese, Malay, Indian, and mostly, of course, fusion, like everything else in Singapore. Crab in black pepper (about $ 50-60) – the signature dish Long Beach, a local chef invented 20 years ago, juicy and fantastically sharp.

21:00 Cocktail

Almost a hundred years ago bartender Ngiam Tong Boon first mixed gin, cherry brandy, Benedictine and pineapple juice in the hotel’s Long Bar Raffles – so born Sling – Singapore Lounge par excellence. Therefore, tourists consider it their duty first Singapore Sling on the ground to drink here. Then you can go to Skybar restaurant KU DÉ TA on the roof of the hotel Marina Bay Sands with incredible views of the city and especially at Gardens by the Bay.

22:00 Night Safari

Most tireless can go on a night walk through the rainforest (ticket – $ 26) to see lions, elephants, tigers, buffalo, thick and thin loris and other monkeys in their natural habitat – in 40 minutes you will pass a small train from the Himalayan forests to African savanna. About paddocks stop there, where you can go out to observe the animals from a special platform, similar to the hunting and catch the next train. Around abode deer and deer can take a half-hour walk. Pandas in the night safari will not see – to meet them, we should go in the afternoon to a nearby park with a safari zoo (Input – $ 16), where you will find elephant shows, games with lemurs, feeding kangaroos and a bunch mimimishnyh entertainment.