With no direct flights from Chiang Mai to our next stop in Cairns, Australia, we looked to see if we could make a layover stop in Singapore in order to say a quick hello to another YA.
We tend to be outdoor people more than city people. However, Singapore did a good job of trying to concorporate green wherever they can, even growing plants on the sides of many buildings, which I appreciated. With limited real estate, they made the most of the space they had. It was lush with huge orchids growing from the trees.
We arrived in Singapore in the afternoon and our friend suggested we take quick tour of Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum since it was close to where we were meeting for dinner. The temple itself was pretty ornate but the section with the shrine to Buddha’s Tooth you weren’t allowed to take pictures and was sectioned off with a glass wall. It was basically a large gold shrine with a gold ball in the center which held the tooth (that you couldn’t see).
Great to catch up with another YA from Julia’s year, even if it was for a short time. I had actually met him before during the YA reunion in Prague.
He took us to a food centre with the famous Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice stall. The girls ate the chicken and bravely tried the giblets but preferred the traditional meat.
He still had to work that evening so after walking him to his office, he recommended we keep going and walk around Marina Bay which has some of the famous landmarks of Singapore.
The next day our flight wasn’t until the afternoon so we were able to do some homework at the hotel and then headed early to the airport to check it out. It is a pretty nice airport, but what it is known for is this large Jewel shopping area just on the other side of road from the check-in counters (where most airports have their parking and rental cars). We were told you had to visit it before you go through security, but the unique part of Singapore airport is that security is done at each gate. So most of the airport is outside of security.
The focal point was the man-made waterfall. It had two parts. The first was open air waterfall in the above ground floors. This landed in a plexiglass funnel that went to the lower floors so you could get right up to the glass/water without getting wet. Pretty impressive.