1st Day in Xin Jia Po (Singapore): Live While We're Young!

After checking-in, putting away our luggage, clearing things, we began our first day in Singapore. Yeah!

So our destination on the first day were: Chinatown (for eat), Singapore City Gallery (just spent about 10 minutes here), Red Dot Design Museum, Merlion Park, Esplanade, and Orchard Road.

Because we haven't eat our lunch, we decided to find something to eat in Chinatown. I don't know if I can say this or not but Chinatown felt like Pasar Baru for me. In Chinatown, there were so many Chinese New Year's ornament and people started selling things for CNY like cheongsam, angpao, sunflower seeds, and things you usually find in your relatives home in CNY.

Pasar Ba--eh Chinatown

Chinatown wasn't that crowded by the time we arrived. Probably because it was still 4 p.m in the afternoon so I thought some place just opened for business. Chinatown was busier on the night time, I can't even walk properly when I visited there at night.

Chinese New Year's Ornaments, here and there... (Chinatown)

After going from ujung to ujung, we finally made our choice. Gitta ate Hainanese Chicken Rice and the price is about S$6 or S$5,50, I forgot about it.

Hainanese Chicken Rice, you can never go wrong with this...

And I decided to eat Minced Pork Noodles. It costs S$4,50 and to be honest I picked the wrong menu. The noodles and the soup were indeed good, but... the meat wasn't my favorite because I indeed a picky-eater when it comes to meat. But after all, we were full and ready to go!

Sorry, non-halal. But there is prawn noodles too!

We decided to go to Red Dot Design Museum after grab our late-lunch. And luckily, Singapore City Gallery is nearby too! I've wanted to go to those places because people said it was worth to see. The first place we went to was Singapore City Gallery. But, too bad, by the time we arrived, the 2nd floor which was the exhibition room, already close because it was already past 5 p.m. We only got to see some things on the first floor and also Singapore's miniature! 

Singapore City Gallery looks like an office tower. But it is a gallery. I'll explain later on because we decided to go here again in our 3rd day. 

Bench, they said. It was in Singapore City Gallery.

So, Red Dot Design Museum is located nearby Singapore City Gallery. It took around 2-3 minutes to walk by foot to go to here. The building is kind of eye-catching with its red-colored and it's a photogenic zone (?) haha...

To go inside the gallery, we have to pay S$8 / person and after that we can see unique things. But, I didn't recommend this place if you aren't interested in design or tech. We just saw some arts, some things like Tupperware inside the box, refrigerator which has been transformed into a smart one, modern wine cellar, iPhone three-five-five-C and iPad and so-on, big umbrella, and... the lamp. We spent our $8 just like that. To take photo of things and even make funny poses. Thank you, Red Dot!

You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, ella, eh eh eh~

The next destination was, Merlion Park! Yeah, that legendary and a-must-visit-place-to-take-photo-with that famous Merlion statue (fyi, the bigger Merlion is in Sentosa Island). People go here to make funny poses and well, taking photos in front of Marina Bay Sands building across the river.

We went there using MRT from Tanjong Pagar Station (it is the nearest station from Red Dot Design Museum and Singapore City Gallery) and I forgot if we got off in City Hall Station or Raffles Place Station. Either way, you still can walk by foot to Merlion Park because it is walking-able (?) and the air condition is better than Jakarta so it was nice!

What I remembered was we need to walk by foot to go to Merlion Park from the station we got off because... we didn't have internet connection so we can't really check on if we're going to the right direction. We depend on the signboard here and there. The nice thing about Singapore is the signboard is very clear and it is very accurate so don't be afraid if you don't know your way. Really.

Merlion Statue

Finally, we arrived in Merlion Park! As we've predicted, people flooded this place and many of them were foreigners. I did hear Thai, Korean, Chinese, Melayu, Indonesian... Most of them were taking pictures in front of Merlion or Marina Bay Sands building.

So, I didn't get to take photos with funny pose here but I just like to take pictures around the statue itself. We just took a commemorate photo and then walked away, crossed the bridge, and just enjoyed the wind-breeze and the sunset.

We decided to take a rest near Esplanade and watched the skyline. The weather was cool and the sunset was nice. I really embraced my time here because I felt calm only to look at the river and the lights. There weren't so many people here so it was nice. People usually went here with their camera and tripod. Probably trying to take photos with long exposure which I tried it too and failed cause I didn't use tripod. I ended up chit-chatting with Gitta, taking selfies, and felt the wind-breeze.

View from Esplanade.

It was 7.30 P.M and we felt that the night was young. We decided to hit Orchard Road hahaha... We took MRT from Raffles Place Station and get off at Somerset Station. We actually want to visit a bookstore and grab our dinner. I remembered entering Takashimaya where we got to  visit Kinokuniya but... we didn't buy thing or grab our dinner. So we just wandered in Orchard Road... observing the night-life (I mean people eating in the restaurant after work hahaha...) and went back to our hostel.

Yeah, it's Orchard Link, not Orchard Road.

We managed to grab our dinner in the nearest 7-11, ate them in our hostel while using internet and enjoying free coffee and tea. Thanks Adler Hostel, for providing us with such good services.

The reason why I wrote the title "Live While We're Young!" was because that day, we forgot that we just arrived in the afternoon and without taking a rest, we went straight to places until night... I thought we walked for 24.000 or more steps that day! Well, all that we know that time was the night is still young, why bother to go home? Lol.

Expense on first day:
Red Dot Design Museum ticket = S$8
Late-Lunch = $S4,50
Dinner (Sandwich from 7-11) = S$2,90
EZ-Link Transport Card = S$12
Single-trip Ticket from Changi to Chinatown (before buying EZ-Link) = S$2,50
Total = S$29,90


So, yeah. Broke. ㅜㅜ

My next post will tell you about our second day in Singapore. So see you around!

(Nb. excuse me for the wrong grammar if any)