Our next red-eye flight was to Singapore, the first stop on this trip that neither of us had ever been to. We had plenty of recommendations on places to check out, but first order of business was to get some sleep – thankfully the hotel got us in pretty early (7am!) and we were able to get a quick nap in before starting to check out the city. For the rest of the day, we decided to explore the Gardens by the Bay – a bayside park near Chinatown full of interesting little art installations, small attractions for the whole family, and a terrifying treetop walk among the trees which oversees the park from atop the artificial trees in the center of the park.

Our next few stops for the night were to explore the highly rated cocktail bars of Singapore – ever since Buenos Aires, we’ve been hitting up as many of the world’s top 50 bars as we can find during our travels. The first such bar of the night was Nutmeg and Clove – a small locale only a few blocks away from our hotel known for cocktails inspired by Singaporean history and local shops. This place has to have been our favorite cocktail bar of the entire trip, and based on Rachel’s reaction to the matcha-based cocktail she had while there, it also housed the best drink we’ve had (so far!). We then also went to Atlas – a way more popular bar that we almost didn’t get into. Fortunately, once we got rejected at the door for not having a reservation, we both looked pathetic enough that the lovely hostess was able to get us 2 bar seats… key message is to look sad enough for long enough to get into hot places without a plan! The cocktails here are mostly gin-based, given that the bar is famous for it’s multistory gin repository. That said, there were a host of other great drinks here and if I’m being completely honest… I don’t know if the exact notes registered for each one. By the 4th cocktail of the night, you’re more interested in the fun discussions with new friends across the bar rather than the notes of lemongrass you are getting in the cocktail…

The next day we decided to have a bit healthier outings and planned for a hike in Windsor Nature Park. This is on the southern end of Singapore’s central parks and is famous for more treetop walks. Besides the excellent hike and great views from among the treetops as promised, the other pleasant surprise was the sheer quantity of monkey friends made along the way… it felt like at every turn in our path, a new group of furry friends would pop out and greet us. Of course, I think the greetings leaned heavily toward wanting more food than we wanted to provide, so we were largely left alone in favor of some other tourists who shelled out the requisite payments… No healthy activity is complete without a complete negation of the caloric expenditure, so right after we found a great cafe that not only got us a good caffeine kick, but also introduced us to one of the richest matcha cheesecakes we’ve ever tried – even better (and less healthy…) once you add the whipped cream and strawberry jam to it!

By the time we returned back to the hotel, we were pretty happy to have AC again for a little time before heading back out. That said, we’re not in Singapore for long so another hour or so later we’re back out and traveling through Little India and the Arab Street that we were very close to with our chosen hotel. There’s not too much to say here as we kinda aimlessly wandered through these areas for a few hours, but the highlight of the time spent was the dinner we found at Mahmud’s Tandoor – a halal fried chicken sandwich shop. This was a very unique take on a fried chicken sandwich, with a fried tandoori chicken patty that was amazing! The only catch – it turns out this spot is a teenage hang, so we were the old fogies in the shop grabbing fried chicken while a bunch of kids were out on their Saturday night date… hope we left them with a fun memory!

Our final day was a travel day (not a midnight flight for once!), so we had a late breakfast planned with our new friend Wan down in Chinatown. We met Wan back in Buenos Aires, where she (a friend of Patagonia-goer Ferrona) introduced us to the top 50 bar list, and set us on the path of non-stop drinking that this post might lead you to believe we’ve been doing… She lives here in Singapore and was kind enough to meet us for a hawker market brunch and then show us around her favorite coffee shops in Chinatown – so good to see you again Wan! We also walked around and stumbled into a Dragon Dance show which was super cool, but we quickly made our way back to the hotel and got ready for the flight to our last stop in this trip – Penang!