I'm feeling happy and well due to a couple of really good reasons and news. First, my parents came for a visit, second, Brazil won on their first World Cup game against North Korea, third, I was able to procure at a very good and bargain price a good laptop during the PC show last weekend, and fourth, Apple has released the iPhone 4 and the other day the new mac mini(although a bit pricier).

While bringing around my parents, I was able to come up with a good walking tour full packed and meaningfull for first time visitors. All are walking or distance from each other or at the very least lest than 2km in radius so a cab would cost no more than 5 bucks and a bus no more 69 cents.

Old and New Experience

The first walking tour would start from the Tanjong Pagar MRT station, take the exit towards Amoy Street or Telok Ayer Park and walk a couple of meters towards the Amoy Food Centre. I recommend my favorite Beef Hor Fun from the Good Day shop or the Thai foods from the shop just across the Good Day shop. Grab a Kopi-C, Teh-C, Teh Halia or sugar cane juice from the shop beside Good Day to wash the food down and that should be a good fill for your tour. Getting a seat at between 12 to 1 could be a challenge and sharing tables is common. Be mindfull of reserved seats or tables which you can usually identify if it has a news paper or commonly tissue pack, although an umbrella, bag or any other personall items are sometimes used.

On the side of the Food Centre is Ann Sian Hill which would lead to Club Street and on the other side towards the MRT station is Maxwell Road, this will be next direction. head down towards the MND building, stay on the opposite side of the Road from the Red Dot Museum. I haven't been inside that Museum but if you feel like it, you can cross the street at the front of MND building. After that, or if  your skipping it, go to the URA building just beside MND. Inside on the first 2 or 3 floors is a city exhibit of planned developments for Singapore, full with multimedia presentations and scall models of the City. Really good to start your Singapore tour from here as you get to see the whole islands, it's current and future developments which you can identifiy with later on in your tour. As it's really hot and humid in Singapore, this visit will also give you time to relax and cool off.

After that, take the Kadayanallur Street exit and just across is the Maxwell Food Centre. If you still have food space to spare, grab a chicken rice from the famous Tian Tian shop inside. Lines still form even at 2 to 3pm due to it's popularity. Anthony Bordaine himself recommends this shop.

After that, go towards the front of the Food Centre and you are now on South Bridge Road, just across will be the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, inside is a museum on one of the top floors. You are now on one of the corners of Chinatown. After your visit, exit at the back of the temple and turn right, towards the Sago Street which is a walkers street full of shops on either side, turn left and follow the street, towards Smith Street, which is the Night Market and food street! Watchout for the Erich's Wuerstelstand, an attraction on it's own, which is a Sausage stall with authentic German/Austrian foods served by the Erich the owner! imagine eating sausages and schnitzels in the middle of Chinatown, only in Singapore! 

Move towards Temple street for more shopping, on temple street, to the right would be the Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore's oldest Hindu Temple, amazing as it is again in the middle of Chinatown. To the left would be the chinatown MRT Station. from here, you can take the MRT towards Clarke Quay or Vivo City/Harbourfront to cap of the day. On 
Clarke Quay, the reverse bungy attaction as well as numerous clubs, bars and restos to suite your taste. After Clarke Quay, if you still have energy, follow the river down towards Boat Quay. If your heading towards  Vivo City, you can either grab a Carl's Jr. or head up to Food Republic and grab either Ban Mian noodles or one of the Indian foods. After eating your fill, relax outside Food republic with a view of Sentosa, Resorts World and Universal studios, while dipping your tired feet on the ankle high water ponds.

An MRT station and Bus interchange just below and across the street and cab lines gives you numerous options to return home and hit the sack.

Across the river is the Esplanade, with a mall on it's side beside it is a Grand stand facing a  floating platform where Soccer/Football can be played, this is very interesting as the platform is floating on the Singapore River.

A couple of meters on is the Singapore flyer, the newest attraction in Singapore and is the largest observatory, the only other structure similar to this is the London Eye. It takes 30 minutes for one full rotation and below the wheel is a 3 story mall and a nature park in the middle. On the peak, one gets a full view of Singapore as well as some islands, Indonesia and Malaysia on a clear day. The Hippo and Duck Tours also have offices on the first floor so if your up to it, you can have a tour of Singapore on a Amphibian or go on a whole day of hop-on hop-off of all tourist spots. One of the best stores in the building is Popeyes, with it's famous chicken and coleslaw, however the it had a different coleslaw from the Hong Kong Popeye, weird.

Moving on, a couple of blocks is Suntec City, passing inside Millenia Walk before getting to Suntec 5. Millenia Walk is the uber high class mall, hence the name. In Suntec City, we headed straight to the Fountain of Wealth, the largest fountain in the world. I three full circle pass on the middle of the fountain while touching the spring was suppose to bring us good luck. As we were not there for shopping, we moved pass Suntec 4, 3, 2 and 1 quickly and went down to the underground pass towards the City Hall MRT station.

The underground pass was actually a underground mall, It seemed to be a hundred or two meters of shops leading to the MRT station.

Next stop was Vivo City to ride the mono-rail to Sentosa. The mono-rail station is at the top floor of Vivo City and riding it is an experience all by itself. First stop was imbiah station where the Merlion, sights and sound of singapore, butterfly garden, 4d theater and tiger sky tower was. A walk around this huge mountain was tiring enough, and to think Sentosa was a whole island, I dreaded the thought of walking from one end to another.

After reading some info and facts, I found out that the island bus was free and will bring us from end to end or from one attraction to another. As the attractions were pretty much expensive, we decided to focus on the Songs of the Sea show at 7 and the 2 in 1 Pink Dolphin and Underwater World. The pink dolphine show was a bit different from what we experience at the Hong Kong Ocean park, there were only 3 pink doplhins and the venue was the white beach front of (amusingly) Palawan beach. The show was more intimate as volunteers could go into the shore, get wet and play with the dolphins.

After the show, we frolicked a while on Palawan beach and headed on to Siloso beach on the other end of the island, we were off to the underwater world. Also a different experience from HK Ocean Park as there was a conveyor that took us around and there was a overhead view of the fishes in the aquarium. One of the attractions was the dugong. Outside the attractions and almost everywhere were free roaming animals such as monkeys and peacocks, which made the feeling and setting of being in an island park more suitable. 

We then headed on to Siloso beach and took a couple of pictures before heading off to the Songs of the Sea show. We had to be at the beach side venue early as good seats get snatched up, being at the venue 30 minutes early afforded us a good view of the show in the middle of it all. The laser, lights, water and stage show was great, it was long enough to enjoy. It is a must for all who will be in Singapore.

Before heading home, instead of riding the mono-rail from the beach station, we decided to walk up the merlion park and ride from the imbiah station. The park had colorful tiles and water fountains, also the view from the tram and luge can be seen.

Back at Vivo City, since there was still some time, we decided to drop by Bugis and do a little shopping, the Bugis MRT is directly below the Bugis Junction mall and across Bugis. Bugis seems to be like an in-door night market or ladies market of Hong Kong, all the cheapest shirts, watches and everything you could think of is available.

After bugis, it was time to go home and rest.

The next day was as full as the previous, First stop was Mustafa, the 24 hour department store with everything for sale, from groceries, chocolates, bags, apparel, jewelry to electronics. Getting there took a while as from boon lay MRT to Farrer Park MRT was really far. Around Mustafa where a lot of persian/indian stores and restaurants. The smell of curry was hypnotizing but my wife would not dare eat persian food.

Next stop was Orchard Road, I decided to alight at the Orchard MRT station at the end of Orchard road and walk down this famous street towards Somerset MRT. After getting out of the station, first stop was Takashimaya, it was really hot outside as it was already noon and the cool mall gave us respite, across Takashimaya was Lucky Plaza, made famous by throngs of  Filipinos converging in it every Sunday. We decided to eat lunch here. As expected, lunch was interesting, ate a 5 dollar meal of meat and vegetables which seemed to taste really bland, but interesting still.

After Lucky Plaza, moving down, we passed by a couple more malls and ate 1 dollar sandwich ice cream. Moving down a couple of malls brought us to Somerset MRT station and I made a mental note, spend half day on Orchard Road on my next visit.

Next stop, Chinatown. The recently revitalized chinatown was surprisingly clean and orderly, a couple of stalls selling everything Chinese and a couple of restaurants in the middle and at the farther end. Looking at the map, there were also hindu, buddhist temples nearby but as we did not have enough time, we decided to move along. 

Last stop before going home and packing for the trip back home was Clarke Quay. It was early afternoon and the Quay was still quite and serence, although a couple of people rode the reverse bungee, mental note, ride the bungee on my next visit. We stayed on the river side for a while and rest before going home.

And so ending our whirlwind tour of singapore with Clarke Quay, I envisioned of coming back to singapore and spend a more leisurely walking tour of the riverside, nature parks and museum. Little did I know that two weeks after this visit, Cebu Pacific will have another sale and I got hold of 3k round trip tickets back to Singapore on June, Hooray ! Singapore here I come(back), see you all in two weeks time.