After reviewing the TripSavvy’s article “The Banana Pancake Trail” it felt like we had just booked a run-of-the-mill travel vacation package. Nonetheless, we looked forward to savoring the delicious banana (and Nutela) pancakes from the street vendors – just as we did in Thailand in 2010.

An overview of our trip itinerary is here

2023.01.17[18] – Ottawa – Singapore

We managed to sleep for a few hours before taking our pre-booked taxi at 2:30am for the drive to the airport. As we arrived at the airport by 3:00am, the United airline checking counter was not yet opened, hence we used one of the kiosk stations for a lengthy self-check-in process which included the printing our luggage tags. Over the week leading to our flight, we had been reminded several times, via email by United Airlines, to complete various online pre-flight forms (e.g. passport, Covid vaccination proof, Singapore Arrival Card, etc). All the efforts of our pre-flight registration and the self check-in paid off when the airline checking counter opened as we were fast tracked through the checking line-up. We were pleased that no one enquired about our proof of onward tickets out of Singapore. The security and US immigration were uneventful as well as our flights from Ottawa – Newark (1 hr), Newark – Tokyo (13.5 hrs) and Tokyo – Singapore (7 hrs). We were probably sleep deprived by the time we boarded our last flight as we slept most of the way to Singapore. Our immigration processing was quick as we went through an automated kiosk available to certain passport holders such as Canadians. Although Jenny had dropped an airtag in her luggage, she was not able to locate it at the airport baggage carousel. Nonetheless, our two checked bags did show up on the carousel. The airport was still fairly busy at 1am. We skipped trying to buy our sim cards at the airport as the line-ups were a bit too long for us. We took a taxi to our hotel and quickly checked into our Ibis hotel – our home for the next four nights. Although we were tired from our 29 hour journey, it took us a bit of time to wind down before we fell asleep. We were pleased that we continued to have success with our airline seat reservation strategy in which we left an empty seat between us – we therefore had our entire three seats row to ourselves on the last two segments of our journey.

2023.01.19 – Singapore – Singapore

We woke up at 8am after a fairly short night sleep. We had two primary errands to deal with in the morning. The first one was to buy local sim cards for our phones and the second one was to get some local currency. Initially, we visited a few 7/11 convenience stores to buy our sim cards but none of them carried the brand we had identified back home. We had better luck getting some local currency. We had brought with us various left over foreign currencies (e.g. Australia, Indonesia and Hong Kong) which had been dormant at home from previous trips. We easily converted these currencies into Singapore dollars at a money exchange office which offered very good rates. After a quick local noddle breakfast, we visited a StarHub telecom office to purchase our sim cards. We were pleased with the quick and efficient service by StarHub agents. At $15 our sims would be good for 6 months while providing us with plenty of local data and the means of purchasing roaming services for Malaysia and Thailand starting at $10 (for 4 weeks). After completing our essential errands we returned to our hotel room for some pressing afternoon rest and sleep. As it rained heavily for most of the afternoon, we felt relieved to be in our room. In the early evening, we walked several kms to some highly recommended food court. We enjoyed the colorful street lights along our walk. By the time, we returned to our hotel room we had walked 15kms during the day. Our first impression of Singapore was that it was a beautiful, very modern, rich and expensive country – often pricier than North America. Singapore was also getting ready to celebrate the Chinese New Year (year of the Rabbit) with all its decorations.

2023.01.20 – Singapore – Singapore

Our jet lag triggered us to wake up at 4am while feeling totally rested. We managed to stay in bed until 7am. As we felt hungry, we were eager to try out a nearby hawker eating place which offered a local breakfast of toasts and poached eggs. After a short break back to our hotel room, we embarked on a 6 kms self guided walk outlined in our travel guide. We kept on expecting the streets, walkways and photo op sites to be overly crowded but it was never the case. Near the end of our walk, we stopped for some light dim sum at another food court part of a very luxury shopping mall. After a short visit of the Marina Bay gardens, we felt tired as the jet lag caught up with us again. We opted to take the subway back to our hotel. To our surprise, we could not purchase single use tickets at the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) station. In absence of holding a transit card, a credit card could be used to tap-in and out of the subway stations. Unfortunately, Jenny had not brought her credit card along with her – thankfully the local transit agent kindly allowed her to proceed without paying. We marveled at the expansive MRT lines (6) and stations (120) across the entire state city of Singapore. The wearing of a face mask was still mandatory on all public transit modes. After exiting the MRT line, we stopped at a grocery store for some snacks and drinks. We returned to our hotel under a rain downpour. It rained on and off for the remainder of the afternoon. In the evening, we had some dim sum before taking the MRT back to the Marina Bay Sands for a spectacular nightly laser light and fountain jets show. Another day marked by a lot of walking (18kms)

2023.01.21 – Singapore – Singapore

On the eve of the Chinese New Year, we were concerned about restaurants being closed. We had breakfast at Toast Box, a popular local breakfast franchise, before boarding another MRT line to visit Singapore’s Botanical Garden – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After exploring the site for 2 hours, we were somewhat disappointed by the Garden. It was more like a large well maintained park than a Botanical Garden. Plenty of joggers and dog walkers were enjoying the expansive network of pathways. After leaving the Botanical Garden, we took the MRT and a monorail to reach the nearby island of Sentosa – dubbed a Pleasure island. We skipped a visit to the Universal Studios park, the adrenaline rush of a bungee jumping or zip lining activities and even sunbathing at one of several sandy beaches; instead we splurged on a cable car ride to visit a fort at the far end of the island. We learned a considerable amount of WWII history regarding South East Asia during our fort visit. We had lunch at a shopping mall food court before embarking on the MRT line back to our hotel. After a couple of hours of rest in our room, we walked over to the nearby bus terminal to familiarize ourselves with the area as we were scheduled tomorrow to board an international bus to Melacca – our first Malaysia destination. Later, we took another MRT line to visit Chinatown. The neighborhood was bustling with activity as the streets and restaurants were filled with folks enjoying the Chinese New Year eve’s atmosphere. After our short visit of Chinatown, we took our last MRT line and disembarked at a station nearest to our hotel. And finally, we returned our transit cards for our deposits and unused funds. We wrapped the evening with a meal at Nando’s and some complementary drinks at our hotel.