SG-MY Tour Day 4 - Little India and Jewel Changi

The bus that was taking us back to SG was an hour late. We were supposed to leave KL at 8:30 a.m. but our bus arrived at a quarter past 9:00 a.m. And then, when we were almost at the Johor checkpoint, they suddenly told us that we were changing buses. The new bus then took us all the way to Tuas checkpoint. The line at immigration was very long and it took us about 40 minutes to get to the finish line. Along the way, we made a friend - a Malaysian woman who was working as a domestic helper in Singapore.

Once we were back in Singapore, we contacted our friend who told us that she was meeting us at Little India MRT. She was supposed to show us around Little India and Chinatown, but for lack of time (our flight back to Manila was at 1:00 a.m.), we skipped Chinatown and just spent the last of our SGDs in Little India.

Our friend treated us to some authentic Indian street food: dosai, garlic and cheese naan, butter chicken, teh tarik (milk tea) and badam milk (tea with almond milk, turmeric, saffron and cardamom). So good, but I got immediately full...maybe because of the carb-overload. Also, it's not a good idea to go on a food trip right before your flight. I didn't get diarrhea (SG is really clean) but I was not used to Indian spices and so I got a stomach upset and was pretty gaseous while on the 4-hour flight back to Manila.

Little India is a great place. I really enjoyed my time there. It's a great place to check out and buy "pasalubong" for your loves back home. There's a store called "5 for 10" which basically sells you 5 items for 10SGD. I bought 3 wallets and 2 magnets for 10SGD. They also sell chocolates - the usual brands you see in the Philippines, except that they sell weird-flavoured KitKats so I got the following flavours: Lemon Drizzle, Dark Mint and Orange. It was just too bad that we weren't checking in any luggage on the plane. We only had hand-carry. In the end, I had 3 bags with me: my backpack, my Longchamp sling bag and a Singapore canvas bag I bought for 1SGD, which I filled with "pasalubong."

JEWEL CHANGI

Next stop is Jewel Changi Airport. We took a GrabCar from Little India to Jewel Changi main entrance for 12SGD. We arrived just a little after the hourly light and music water show started. I was able to take a video of a portion of the show but stopped after a few minutes to just bask it in. I did the same thing for the light show under the Supertree Grove in Gardens by the Bay.

SG really likes their light and music shows.

As usual, the place is flooding with tourists. But I wasn't too bothered. We got down and got to see a closer view of the famous waterfall fountain thingy - you know the one that's gone viral on the Internet.

It's sooooo pretty.

The kids really loved it.

There's also a forest around the area. They are real trees, too. And I found myself wondering if this is the future of buildings -- incorporating nature into the design of man-made structures for that "eco" look. NICE.

After walking around a bit and spending some bit of time marvelling at the water fountain thing, we took the shuttle bus to Terminal 4 to catch our flight. Here, we said goodbye to our friend, our college classmate.

Getting inside the terminal was all electronic. We just slid our passport into a scanning machine and we were in. WOW. And the airport lounge is like a hotel. All the chairs have charging ports. WOW.

Singapore is really something else. I'd like to return soon.