Singapore

I found the flights STL - CMB (Sri Lanka) and SIN - STL, then I had separate low cost flights from CMB - PEN (Malaysia) and PEN - SIN. The total air fare was much cheaper than STL - CMB - PEN - STL directly on the same airline.

That's why I had a short stay in Singapore and thanks to my friend, who offered to let me stay for 3 nights.

The first night, my friend took me to Esplanade. 

This building has a unique roof that looks like a durian shell with the thorns.  

 In the opposite view, we can see the Marina Bay Sand building with laser lights going on, but just for few minutes.

My friend told me this is the 5-star Fullerton Hotel. The building was a General Post Office, let's go in to have a look. 

The second day, I went to Garden by the Bay.  Singapore has a very good MRT system, making it very easy get around. 

People are lined up to go in and see these fake trees. 

I was hungry, so I went to get breakfast, then walked around there a little. 

I noticed this is near the Marina Bay Sand.

 Cross a bridge to go in there. 

I wandered around their hotel lobby area and there was a LED board mentioning the Light show at night. 

Also, I saw this sign, and was curious, so I followed people into the lift. I found that you need to have a hotel room key to access the lift.  Anyway, when someone pressed their floor number, I pressed 57. It worked. 

The guests can enjoy the swimming pools up there.

And seeing the view, this is Garden by Bay from top. I didn't see a lot while I was there. 

Oh well, I may explore more if Steve is with me next time.

There were several high value, fancy sport cars parked outside the hotel lobby.  I was wondering who owns them.

Oh, they are rental cars.

I walked to the shopping mall area. All are famous branded stores.

 LV has the outstanding island building in front of the mall. Of course, it is free to go in, unless you see something you like in there.

  

I crossed the bridge to the Esplanade. 

I saw the Merlion fountain on today, but last night it wasn't.

I returned back to the Marina Bay Sand again, as I would like to see the Light show.

The show was about 15 minutes, and there were a lot of people, including the tour groups.

The laser light show was what we saw from the opposite side the night before. Apparently, my friend didn't know about the night Light show here. 

The third day, I met up with my schoolmate, whom I hadn't seen since we graduated from high school. She married a Singaporean, so she lives here now.

After that, I took the MRT to HarborFront station, then took the monorail at Sentosa station. The monorail system has 4 stations to/from Sentosa. 

This is Waterfront station at the Universal theme park. 

I visited Sentosa 12 years ago, it has changed a lot.

From there I walked to the Merlion.  This is an old statue near Imbiah station.

The garden is new, I think. 

Then I walked to the beach area. This is Siloso beach.

When I walked back to Beach station, I found there is a tram service to/from beaches.

Some weekdays are free, so I took the tram to Palawan beach.  

Then back to the MRT station, where I met a friend who took me to Chinatown.

I found a hawker in Chinatown selling Malasian durian.  He gave me a deal: 2 boxes for S$25.  I couldn't resist.  He wrapped them well to block the smell on my ride back on the MRT.  But, when I got back and opened it to eat, I found one box was already bad and had to throw it away, the other box also wasn't very good.  I shouldn't have trusted the hawker.