SouvenIRs

Looking for some souvenirs for yourself and your beloved ones?
Close to the conference venue, the Pagoda street opposite the Chinatown MRT (subway) station offers a variety of souvenir shops that you will want to explore. Generally speaking, the shop owners don’t mind if you haggle a bit. And the lines of shops will lead [...]

Singapore Walks

It is interesting to note that there is a company set up to perform walking tours in Singapore in not so touristy places. It appears to me that the places mentioned in their tour itineraries seem to be good places to consider. Personally, I do not really recommend paying the fee to join their tours, [...]

International Chess, Chinese Chess, Go, and Contract Bridge

For visitors who like intellectual games and would like to interact with the locals, you may consider stopping by at the Singapore Intellectual Games Center located at the Bishan Community Club. Four intellectual games organizations are housed under one roof:

International chess: Singapore Chess Federation (http://www.singaporechess.org.sg/)
Chinese chess: Singapore Xiangqi General Association (http://www.sixga.org/)
Go: Singapore Weiqi Association (http://www.weiqi.org.sg/)
Contract [...]

Outside of .SG

Singapore, while quite the clean and lush garden city, offers and additional attractions of being a natural hub for visiting the surrounding countries. While the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) would be happiest if you spent all your tourist dollars in town, there are certainly many destinations of interest that are reachable by a short [...]

The southern ridge

In a few previous posts, we already highlighted a few of the nature spots in Singapore. In May 2008 (quite recent) the Urban Redevelopment Authority (Singapore’s urban planning division; self acknowledged sim city folks :-P) opened up a series of parks stretching from right outside the Vivocity shopping mall and stretching all the way [...]

Spot the Merlions

Do you know that Singapura (Malay for Singapore) has a mystical beginning? Legend has it that a prince of Sumatra named Sang Nila Utama and his men set sail from Palembang and reached the Riau Islands. The story goes on when the prince went on a hunting trip to a nearby island.
While hunting, he spotted [...]

Places for Nature Lovers

Singapore is a city-state with more than 4.5 million people in just 700 km² of land. So you would expect that much of Singapore is urbanized and built up with commercial buildings as well as housing flats. But who says that Singapore is totally devoid of greenery and nature? While we don’t have the grandeur [...]

(what) Traffic?

As many guide books will tell you, visitors to Singapore can get around very well by cab. Taxis are largely convenient and cheap for most out of town visitors. Taxi drivers often speak most of the local languages and dialects of Chinese, making it easy to be understood. Many will often give you a lowdown [...]

The Hawker Center

While Singaporeans are well renowned for their attention to detail, this carries on most distinctly in food. Yes, Singaporeans are especially proud (read: finicky) of their local food sources. No trip to Singapore is complete without a trip to a local culinary institution, the hawker stand.
There are many food stands here, gathered into [...]