3rd Day in Xin Jia Po (Singapore): Museum Tour & Chocolate Hunting [PART 1]

part of National Museum of Singapore

We started our third day a bit late. I haven't told you before that on the second day, we walked for more than 28.000 steps!!! Much... for people who rarely walk by foot in their own hometown lol. So, well, we felt a bit tired.

For the third day, we decided to pay Singapore City Gallery a visit once again and National Museum of Singapore. Also, we want to go to Little India area to buy souvenirs and lunch.
The weather was nice when we went out from the hostel. We walked again to Maxwell Road, where Singapore City Gallery is located.

I've mentioned before that Singapore City Gallery looks like an office tower but actually, it's a gallery to show people how Singapore government made Singapore grew into the city like it looks today. Since we came in the morning, we can go to the 3rd floor, the exhibition room. Do we need to use our money for this? The answer is no. It's free! We just need to fill the guest book with our name and the purpose of visit.

Actually, I didn't read that much information here. I just looked at the pictures and taking some photos. Singapore City Gallery was a place filled with information about the development of Singapore. Here you can see the pictures of Singapore from 20 or 10 years ago. You can see the evolution of houses in Chinatown from 90s until now by seeing the miniatures. There are some information about how Singapore government deals with garbage, water supply, public transport, and so on.

In the gallery, we can play game too! Singapore City Gallery provided us with computers to play with other people. The game is about how you can manage the city and making the citizens happy. Such an interactive and an interesting game for me.

amazed by this miniature

To keep this short, Singapore City Gallery is the right place for those who are interested in city planning or simply... just want to stay cool under the heat of the sun (haha kidding). Still, I like it here.

Our next destination was National Museum of Singapore. National Museum of Singapore is located in Stamford Road. If we want to go there, we need to get off at Bras Basah Station (Circle Line). From Tanjong Pagar Station, we need to transfer at Outram Park and Dhobby Ghaut. At Bras Basah Station, we need to walk (again! :D) to the museum.

Here, we can see Singapore from the state of Singapura, until become the Singapore we knew today. Is this free? Well, it isn't. We need to pay for S$ 15 to enjoy the permanent exhibition. Or if you want to go to the temporary exhibition, you can just buy the bundle ticket for S$ 18. But, we just picked the basic deal. The amazing thing about the museum is the lighting. I don't know but it is really different. The museum in Singapore isn't scary even I felt like watching mystery every time I entered a room.

At first, I really didn't know that Japan invaded Singapore too just like what they did to Indonesia. But here, I found out the fact that England wasn't rule Singapore for the whole time. Well, I think I need to read and learn about history more.

the modern look of National Museum

There are some exhibition room in the museum. So, it will take more than an hour to spend here, especially if you read the history thoroughly. You can found out how Singaporeans live and take a brief look at peranakan life.

After going to the exhibition room, we can go to the Glass Rotunda. There is a nice show where you can lay down and watch the flower petals fall from the screen. The screen looks like a dome, just like the one we see in Planetarium. :D

After resting a bit, we decided to get going and ended our trip in National Museum. The way out was fun too because we went down through the tunnel where we can see the animation on the wall. It was cartoon so I guess kids will love it when they go here.

We went to Little India to buy buah tangan (Indonesia's idiom for souvenirs or presents someone brought back after trip) for our friends and relatives in Indonesia. Usually, when people go to Singapore, they will bring chocolates back... like many type of chocolate. Be it Toblerone, Ferrero Rocher, KitKat (you know, the green tea ones and the various flavor we can't find in Indonesia) and so on. At first, I confused. You go that far to Singapore only to buy chocolates??? But now I know the reason why when we went to Mustafa Center. Mustafa Center is a 24-hours department store located in Syed Alwi Road. The nearest MRT Station is Farrer Park.

Picture taken from mustafasingapore.net

According to my experience, we need to walk for 5-7 minutes from the MRT Station because I thought we get off at the wrong exit so we need to walk a bit far. Here in Little India, there are so many shops sell Singapore sim card for your phone, phone's accessories, key-chains, bags, and some other typical souvenirs.

In Mustafa Center, we went straight to chocolate and snack section to find chocolate for our friend, who asked us to buy some. I bought two big packs of chocolate for my family and it costs around S$ 20-25 for two. I forgot the exact price. The price is cheaper compared to the chocolate store you can find in the malls. I went to see the bags too (the one with I-love-SG kind of bag or "Singapore" and Merlion written on it) but didn't manage to buy them because in Chinatown, the price is cheaper. I just bought some packs (?) of key-chains. (1 pack consists 5 or 6 key-chains, costs S$2,5-3).

Also if you want to buy those expensive perfume for your loved ones, you can find it in Mustafa. They sell it cheaper and there are various types of it. I found Charlie perfume, Bvlgari, and some more but because tight on budget, I decided to not buying it until my next trip to Singapore (soon, i hope hahaha...). Do you want to buy jewelry? You can find it here. Do you want to give your dad a watch? Well, Mustafa has it. Do you want to buy camera? Go hereand choose one. Mustafa is that kind of toko serba ada store.

We went to Mustafa on Saturday and the department store was jammed with tourists. It was a bit hard to walk comfortably around the store. I didn't manage to take pictures too because I was occupied with taking care of my belongings and finding things. By the time we finished our shopping, the weather wasn't nice. It was raining and windy. We managed our belongings, opened-up our umbrella, and walked to Farrer Park Station. We decided to go back to the hostel and just bought our lunch from the nearest 7-11 (again).

So, what did I do to spend the rest of my third day in Singapore? I'll tell it later on the next part. See you soon!