Beginning April, all fully vaccinated travelers have been allowed to enter Singapore without the trouble of having to undergo quarantine. This includes “non-fully vaccinated” kids age 12 and below. Trav
This is great news especially for Filipinos who’ve missed the Lion City’s myriad attractions: hawker center favorites, designer boutique shopping, strolling through Joo Chiat for it’s array of lovely shophouses, the Club Street night life, and sightseeing at the Marina Bay Sands.
It’s been a long two years, after all, and while a lot of things have remained the same, there’s also a lot that have come up in the past 24 months—new must-sees (Catriona Gray now has her own wax figure at Madame Tussauds), hot new restaurants (Eggslut at Scotts Square which opened in September has become a trendy spot), and new experiences (the Ice Hotel Gallery at Snow City is literally the coolest place in the city now).
We scoured SG for a few days and tried out some of the attractions launched before tourism reopened. Here’s our list of recommendations: each stop offered a different excitement from the last, each one a treat for the senses.
VR Gallery, Art Science Museum
Your heart will kind of skip a beat for this one. And you will gasp. And you’ll most likely say “wow” at some point. But mostly you’ll be quietly awed by the experience of witnessing man’s first flight to the moon, and Mars. You’ll be in a glass elevator speeding towards the top view of a space ship one second, and in the same room and dangerously close to the men who made it to outer space and back the next. And then you will drop ever so slowly down the lunar surface where the same men walked and made history.
Called Spacewalkers, this Art Science Museum attraction is a stunning virtual reality experience “painstakingly moulded using exclusive archival footage and recordings from NASA on the Apollo missions.” It consists of two moving visual artworks that premiered at the 2020 Venice Film Festival: “1st Step—From Earth to the Moon,” and “2nd Step—From the Moon to Mars and Beyond.” It’s a wonderful ride. Every minute is breathtaking; the whole 45-minute journey an exhilarating celebration of man’s curious nature and fearlessness.
Warning from the museum: not recommended for people with “claustrophobia, a history of seizures, epilepsy, and/or sensitivity to flashing lights.” Ongoing until April 17. Art Science Museum is at Marina Bay Sands. Opens 10AM to 7PM. Purchase your tickets online at https://www.marinabaysands.
The Sembcorp Cool House
It can get pretty hot and humid in the Lion City (although the past two weeks have been quite pleasant and—dare we say it—cool) and it’s always just easy to take refuge in one of its malls, but here’s a better idea: slipping into a sprawling glass house that’s always at a 16-degree temp, with flowers everywhere you look. It’s like being in an enchanted forest high up the mountains—maybe a thousand or 2,000 meters high.
Located inside the National Orchid Garden in Cluny Road, and within the Tropical Montane Orchidetum, The Sembcorp Cool House is an attempt to give visitors an experience of what it’s like being in the woods high up in the mountains. In this lush, created environment—there’s a man-made stream when you look down below—you can find rare orchids from around Asia which are known to thrive only in very elevated forests.
There is said to be a thousand orchid species and hybrids inside the cool house alone, living among begonias and carnivorous plants. It’s a plantito fantasy come to life, a meet-cute setting, or just a great place to be in when it’s especially warm outside.
Open daily from 8.30AM to 7PM (last ticket sales and entry at 6PM). Standard entrance rate for non-Singaporeans is at 15 SGD. For more information, visit the Singapore Botanic Gardens online.
Museum of Ice Cream
We know what you’re thinking. Places like this are just for kids, right? Well, not if you really like ice cream.
Welcome to the largest ice cream museum in the world. It’s hard to stay in a bad mood in this pink shrine to a favorite childhood-to-adulthood cold treat. All the staff are friendly—a number of them kababayans just very happy to see you (we met “Nana de Coco”, not her real name, of course, just her museum alias)—each room promises two ice cream flavors, and you’re welcome to ask for seconds, or thirds. Our favorites: the Taro Milk Tea, the Lychee Bandung, and the Pulut Hitam Poton, a vegan ice cream bar made especially for the museum, inspired by a local delicacy. It’s made from black glutinous rice, coconut milk, pandan, gula melaka and raw cane sugar. It’s sooo delicious it will have you thinking of the next visit.
Bring the kids (if you like), take lots of pictures (but don’t remove your mask unless you’re eating ice cream at the same time), spell out your dream on a vision wall (we spelled the name of our next President, naturally), play a game, dive into a pool of pretend ice cream sprinkles, and read about ice cream’s history. Did you know it all started in 500 BCE when the Persians poured grape-flavored liquid over snow? Sherbet you didn’t.
Open Thursday to Sunday, from 10AM to 10PM. Tickets are 38SGD for adults, free entrance for kids 2 years old and below. Purchase your tickets online at https://www.
Singapore Art Museum
While it’s original space at Bras Basah Road remains wrapped like a psychedelic gift box and inaccessible to the public—the 160-year old building is undergoing its second revamp and will be back in business by 2026—the Singapore Art Museum can now be visited in Tanjong Pagar Distripark. The new warehouse setting, in a compound close to a port, seems to be more attuned to the very contemporary, cutting edge shows currently wowing visitors.
The first show, “Refuse,” is a wildly imagined and wonderfully realized exploration on the connection of mushroom decomposition to music-making (or composition?). Stepping into the exhibition is like diving into a strange, ethereal space where the music you hear is akin to womb murmurs but is actually derived from motors and sensors attached to fungi. A project of the experimental Singaporean band, The Observers, this little indoor Coachella of different physical stages and strange sounds is a mystifying ode to the depths of the imagination.
Across the room is a show called “A Machine Boosting Energy Into The Universe” by the Thai filmmaker and visual artist Korakrit Arunanondchai. The pillows on the floor invite the visitor to watch the film projected on the wall called “Painting with history in a room filled with people with funny names 3” (2015-16) which is part of the museum’s collection, a funny and absurd montage of Bangkok images both moving and still. Meanwhile, it’s as if the viewer is watching amongst an audience of cyborgs decked out in a mosaic of denim and modern world debris.
“Refuse” runs up to April 17 while “A Machine Boosting Energy Into The Universe” will run up to the 3rd of May. Singapore Art Museum is at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Visitors can just walk in during museum hours which is 10AM to 7PM. Visit https://www.
For more information on traveling to Singapore, visit the Safe Travel page.