Day 4 – Singapore
First full day in Singapore! Started the morning off with breakfast (included in our booking) at Raffles and then walked around the downtown/Singapore river area, checking out the amazing architecture of the National Gallery, Singapore Cricket Club, The Fullerton Hotel, Merlion Park, and Clarke & Boat Quay.
Tonight is New Year’s Eve and we ended up getting tickets to see W&W at the Marquee Nightclub located at Marina Bay Sands, but we really wanted to see the fireworks over the bay, so we researched the best spots and then stopped by “1 Altitude” billed as the world’s highest outdoor bar. The head of VIP services, Sammy, said that they were sold out, but that he’d give us a call later if an “open bar” ticket opened up.
For lunch, we headed to Lioa Fan Hawker Chan. This hawker-stall/restaurant was the first street food restaurant in the world to receive a Michelin star. After a 30 minute wait, we ordered at the counter. We stuck to the classics to make sure we had an authentic experience: soya sauce chicken rice, dumplings, soya sauce chicken noodles, and vegetables. The food was exceptionally good, but probably not Michelin worthy (in our opinion).
After lunch we headed back to the hotel for a little pool time back at Raffles. The weather has been unexpectedly good in Singapore this week. Each day had reports of thunder showers, but we never actually got any rain and did get a good amount of sunshine. The pool at Raffles is idyllic, with the classic colonial architecture that runs throughout the property. Additionally, we got good news from our new friend, Sammy, that we could get tickets to 1 Altitude for their 9pm – 12am open bar, as long as we got there by 8:30pm. 1 Altitude is situated 50+ floors up on top of a high-rise office building. From the pics we could see online, it looked like a perfect place to ring in the New Year.
After three days in Asia and almost 20 hours of flying, both of our bodies needed some downtime, so we headed to the spa for a massage and some R&R. Even after an hour, some of the knots wouldn’t come out, but both of us felt way better coming out than heading in.
In lieu of a proper dinner tonight, we ended up doing high-tea at the Raffles lobby, which included champagne, choice of teas, a variety of finger sandwiches and desserts. This has become a new favorite tradition of ours when we travel. It’s a nice excuse to take a pause during hectic days of site seeing and is always in a lovely venue. Raffles was no exception, of course. Again, absolutely one of our favorite hotels, ever!
After tea, we readied ourselves in our room for the big night ahead. 1 Altitude did not disappoint! Premium champagne, open bar, views of the fireworks over the bay. We ended meeting another couple, who were from Guadalajara, Mexico. Fun to meet new people and spend New Year’s in a new place. Amazing experience overall.
We still had our tickets to W&W at Marquee, so began a long walk through many a closed off street as we winded our way through downtown Singapore over to Marina Bay Sands. We eventually got there and got in and were duly impressed. Probably the best laid out nightclub we can remember. 3 stories, amazing site lines and lots of bars. W&W played a great set, but by 2:00am, it was time to head back to Raffles. Crashed hard after a very overpriced taxi ride, but an epic night to remember!