This morning, we beat the sun up by close to two hours, with our alarms having been set for 4:30am. While it’s still dark out, we finish packing up, grab our coffee from the fridge, lock up the place, and begin the commute back to Naha Airport. It’s a little more confusing trying to navigate, but on the up-side, we are able to watch the sun rise as we travel back down south on the island.
The scenery is beautiful, and with us having left so early, there isn’t much traffic to contend with. As the sky goes from black, to orange, to blue, we arrive in Naha to drop off the rental car. A quick ride over to the airport and we are finally able to get to our gate. Much of the airport had not yet opened, so I sat waiting to see if somewhere that serves food would open before boarding for our flight starts.
Although it was cutting it a little close, there was a place that opened selling some takoyaki, which I grabbed and ate just before they call up the first group to board the plane. Aside from seeing a couple of the smaller islands in Okinawa, the flight is a pretty unnotable 5 hours. We land in Singapore airport, often considered the best airport in the world. We make our way through it, eventually getting a taxi to our hotel.
The drive along Singapore shows one of the most striking things about the country. For one of the most built up cities in the world, there is a ton of plants and greenspace. The entire highway down from the airport was lined with flowers, bushes, and trees, we passed mulitple parks, and even when we were navigating through the airport, there were gardens. It makes for a scenic drive as we approach our hotel.
We get out to feel the air in Singapore for the first time and are hit by a wave of heat and humidity. The temperature here rarely drops below 30 and often feels like 40ºc in the afternoons. Thankfully, as far as hot countries go, Singapore is pretty good at dealing with the heat, as many walkways here are covered with shade, and you can pretty easily escape to an air conditioned building whenever, which we proceed to do as we check into the hotel.
My dad goes out to grab a couple snacks while I unpack and take in the AC. He returns with 2 sandwiches and a drink, which we eat while going over our plans for dinner. We settle on heading over to China town, which was just over a 30 minute walk. There are tons of stores and restaurants spread across multiple large interconnected buildings.
We walk around until we find a michelin star hawker joint specializing in soya chicken. I order exactly thay on top of some noodles and a drink to go with it. The sauce was delicious and the chicken was juicy, probably also one of the cheapest michelin meals I’ve had, with it coming in just over what would be around $10 CDN. Since we’ve already walked over here and happen to be close, we chose to get a drink at one of the most famous bars in Singapore, Jigger & Pony.
The interior is quite fancy, as we are seated at a bar further inside. I order a Soursop Colada and we chat with the bartenders for a bit as they whip up countless different cocktails. The drink was delicious and lives up to the bar’s reputation. With the sun already set and dinner and drinks consumed, we catch a taxi back to our hotel to call it for our first of two nights in Singapore.
