Orchard Road | Singapore Diary

We reached Singapore on Saturday at 8:30 am local time. In the immigration area, after seeing my DP, the officer joked saying, “Oh, you are travelling with him to support him huh?” I smiled and said yes. He winked and smiled. He was a jolly person. But I didn’t really get his humour. He asked me for how long I would be staying here in Singapore. I said let me see!

Later, we collected our bags. I have never travelled with so many suitcases in my life! The combined weight of the suitcases must have reached 100+ kgs! We went to the car pick up area where we were supposed to be received by an office car. Just before getting out of the airport, I suddenly remembered that we forgot to collect the tripod from the conveyor belt! I ran towards the belt with my Passport and boarding card in hand. I informed the security officer what had happened and requested her to help. She said, “No problem, go to that information centre and ask them for a re-entry pass and come back to me.” I did as suggested. The officer screened me and kept my Passport and boarding card with her. She then told me to go and collect the tripod first and collect my Passport and boarding pass after the tripod. I did as suggested. The tripod was kept on a tray near the conveyor belt. What a relief!

The car finally arrived. Seeing our luggage, the driver suggested us to take one more taxi as his car didn’t have enough space for all the suitcases. I offered to go by the taxi, as I know the place and have seen the hotel we were booked in. The driver told me to wait in the hotel lobby upon reaching.

On the way to the hotel, I was looking at the many condos (condominium) on both sides of the road and was wondering where to stay. Every time I visited Singapore, the omnipresent Singapore flyer and the breath-taking Marina Bay Sands always made me feel at home. I have visited this place many times before. The city always treated me nice. I was happy every time including this. Tired and happy.

View from the hotel window

Finally we checked in and freshened up. It was already time for lunch. I offered to take my partner to a South Indian restaurant. We ate there during our last visit.

Restaurant Nalan was just next to the hotel. We both had lunch there. I love the food at Nalan. Earlier, it had many other branches throughout the city. But I recently came to know that they have only one now. The food here can be custom made to some extent.

The weather was pleasant. We decided to go to Clarke Quay and hang out there. We also decided to experiment with the MRT today. After walking for 3 minutes, we reached the City Hall MRT Station. We took a standard ticket each to go to Clarke Quay. We were supposed to change from the red line to the purple line at Dhoby Ghaut which was the next stop. We got off the red line at Dhoby Ghaut and took the purple line immediately. Funny thing! We forgot to consider the direction of the train! The result? We reached Little India instead of Clarke Quay. Both were one stop on each side of Dhoby Ghaut. We took the wrong train. We got off at Little India and took the opposite train back to reach Clarke Quay. It was fun and funny!