Day 3: 19,468 Steps in Singapore

December 22, 2024

We woke up after a somewhat confusing night of sleep to a pitch black room courtesy of multilayered auto blinds— what time is it? What day is it? Where are we?

After orienting ourselves, we bravely ventured downstairs to Colony, one of the Ritz’s onsite restaurants, for breakfast. Little did we know this would be the most amazing part of our Singapore adventure!! Colony’s breakfast buffet was unlike anything we’d ever seen before. We took several minutes just wandering around and marveling at all of the food and drink options before loading our plates with a variety of different items.

A brief highlight reel:

• Omelette/ Eggs Benedict bar

• Tons of different types of pastries and bread

• Western breakfast classics like scrambled eggs and bacon

• Indian food including fresh made roti

• Chinese food including extremely yummy wok fried noodles and blue rice

• A noodle/ congee bar

• Dim sum like dumplings, pork buns etc

• Meats and cheeses

• Fresh pancakes and waffles with tons of toppings

• Cold noodles in broth

• The best miso soup I’ve literally ever had

• Fresh squeezed OJ and tons of fruit

• Cereal and yogurt bar

We tried a local favorite that quickly became one of ours as well- Kaya toast. It’s simply white bread toasted with butter and Kaya on it, which is a sweet coconut jam. It looked plain but was one of the best things we ate on the whole trip!

The coffee was also amazing and although the servers were a bit hard to track down at times we were truly blown away by breakfast from start to finish!

After the breakfast extravaganza, we were ready to do some exploring. We ventured out of the hotel via the Helix Bridge (very pretty and somewhat crowded) and marveled at how clean and quiet the city was, even as it was relatively busy.

Our first stop was the Marina Bay Sands Shoppes, an enormous designer shopping center with every fancy store you could imagine. We counted at least 4 Guccis alone! While we didn’t buy anything, we oohed and aahed over all the expensive stuff and even popped into one of the Guccis to do some price comparing (not cheaper than at home, sadly). We also noticed some familiar NYC favorite food spots like Roberta’s and Black Tap. I loved watching chefs making dumplings at one of the dim sum places too.

Next we continued our walk and popped into a few other shopping centers (Singapore is basically all malls). Everything was decorated for Christmas and we were really feeling the festive spirit! While we weren’t super hungry after breakfast-fest, we made our way over to Lau Pa Sat, one of the famed hawker markets. We wandered around and looked at all the different food options, totally paralyzed by indecision. Eventually we grabbed a few cheap dim sum bites. The peanut sesame ball was our favorite. We also split a Tiger beer, which was basically a Singapore Bud Light.

As if we weren’t stuffed enough, the next stop on our tour was high tea at the Raffles Hotel! This beautiful hotel was lavishly decorated for the holidays and tea was a very classy affair. We got to choose from dozens of tea options and were served very cute tiny bites on a tiered tray. We also had champagne! The food itself wasn’t much to write home about but it was all very beautiful and dainty (like me). The scones, which I felt like were more biscuit-esque than a typical crumbly scone, were served with rose jam and clotted cream— very British. Our server insisted on taking tons of photos of us from all different angles.

Post-tea we continued our exploring with a few more malls— Suntec City and Millenia Park Mall. These were more “normal person” malls than Marina Bay Sands, with prices we could actually afford! We didn’t buy anything except for some snacks at a grocery store. I absolutely love foreign grocery stores and Max patiently followed me through every aisle as I examined the local snack options. We also picked up a Febreze equivalent, anticipating that our clothes might not smell the freshest after our long, hot day of walking!

Finally, we returned to our room, totally wiped out. We showered and napped just in time for dinner at Summer Pavilion, conveniently located in our hotel. 

A Michelin starred restaurant (we have now collected 2 stars in Singapore alone!), Summer Pavilion featured traditional Cantonese cuisine at an unusually large table for two. We ordered Peking duck (a specialty) as well as a clay pot lobster dish recommended by the chef and a fried rice with chicken and seafood. The food was good but not amazing, and the portion sizes were really big for just the two of us. We felt bad letting a lot of it go to waste! 

I also had my first ever experience with rejecting wine— they gave me the little taste before pouring my glass and it was strangely sour. Luckily the waitress was very nice about it and I found a wine I liked better. Crisis averted!!

At the end they served us a special honeymoon dessert that involved dry ice! It was prettier more than it was tasty but we appreciated the sentiment. After finishing up our wine and house made lychee tea, we headed out for a late night stroll through Singapore’s famed Gardens by the Bay. Max brought out the fancy camera and snapped some pics of the trees lit up. We couldn’t get over how calm and safe everything was at night!

Finally we returned back to the room, clocking in at over 19,000 steps for our very busy day. We were exhausted but so happy with everything we got to see (and eat)! 

More tomorrow!

Xoxo Em