30th – Coming home and thoughts

Everything about coming home went according to plan. We left Singapore close to midnight and arrived in Copenhagen at 0600 the following morning. Granted – that wasn’t according to plan; we weren’t supposed to arrive until 0630 but I’ll let the pilot off on that one this one time. Arriving in Copenhagen I was reminded how early I arrived as I had to wait more than half an hour to get a train home, but finally, after a long sleep-less trip, I was home and got a needed nap. At that was it.

Big thanks to Get Out, A Cure for Wellness, The Lego Batman Movie (I’m ashamed I watched the Power Rangers movie, I am not ashamed I watched, and truly enjoyed, this (stop looking at me as if I’m a weirdo when I’m giggling, guy sitting next to me!)) and 5½ episodes of Scream Queens (yes, I’m still giggling, and no, I’m still not a weirdo – well, not that much, at least). Thank you for making a 12-hour flight feel not like a 12-hour flight, but like a 12-hour flight passing by quickly.

Well, as you are aware I normally don’t really do these city-trips but Singapore seemed interesting enough and the only thing I could realistically do on such short notice before staring my new job. I hadn’t done much planning on what to do before leaving – except of having a mind-list of what I wanted to eat. The former I think is pretty obvious from my day-to-day descriptions towards the end but having parks and whatnot around it’s still fairly easy finding a place away from the city noise and just going on walks. Also, as mentioned, had I been more interested in culture there were a few museums I could have gone to, making it easier to kill time.

Food, on the other hand, makes me feel that I should have spent more time there. If you enjoy Asian food but can’t make up your mind whether to go to Japan, China, Thailand, Korea or somewhere else on a food tour Singapore seems like a good middle ground. Here you have all the countries’ food and they seem local and genuine enough that you don’t feel bad about not being in the actual country when munching away. I never got around getting hotpot (roughly an Asian version of a fondue where you dip your food in chili-/chicken stock-/various-soups) but it’s a bit more of a time consuming and social meal so I decided to skip it. And only having to skip that during my 5 days I’m pretty satisfied. I was a bit disappointed with the sushi, though. No, correction; I’m disappointed with myself when I had sushi – it was delicious and I only ate until I was full, not until I was stuffed. I could have eaten so much more!

Singapore is a nice city. Nice if you like a modern western city with steel/glass high rises littering the center of the city – in that sense it seems very like New York. And it’s probably the cleanest city in Asia and among the cleanest I have ever been in. It helps that the punishments are so severe if you litter, it’s pretty amazing. But it also makes it feel a bit cold and less charming.

Compared to New York I went to last year Singapore does not feel as touristy so if you’re into that Singapore is recommended. But it also means it can get difficult to find activities directed towards tourists and therefore, for me, harder to justify going for longer periods of time. A 3-day layover I can justify, more than that you might start looking for things to do. But overall I enjoyed the trip; if you’re going somewhere in Asia or Australia and have a layover in Singapore I can recommend spending a day or two there for a short city visit.

Despite my reservations I had fun and have no regrets at all about this quite impulsive trip (well, apart from that Power Rangers movie). 

Full album can be found here.