Since we moved to Australia – we’ve always wanted to make a quick trip to see the city-state of Singapore.

When we decided to meet our friends Jen and Mike in Japan, the opportunity presented itself. We could fly Singapore Airlines and thus a) get miles on United b) use lounges since we have Star Alliance Gold status and c) do a free stopover in Singapore on the way to Tokyo. Win-win-win!

We flew out of Brisbane after work on a Wednesday night and got in around midnight – it’s an 8 hour flight and two hour time difference.  Given our late arrival (and subsequent early departure 56 hours later) we decided to stay at a hotel connected to the airport.  It was a wise decision!

The airport / our hotel is a short-ish (and cheap – $1.72) 40 minute metro ride the downtown area. Our first day we explored downtown and the area around the “boat building” – which I had actually previously seen on “Megastructures” on TV.  An engineering marvel.

We made our way to Little India for lunch, walked around to take in the sites and explored a temple.

After a much needed rest, we headed to the Clark Quay area for happy hour drinks.

Luckily the drinks were 2-for-1, since 1 was $19!

Wearily we headed back to the hotel and actually got dinner at a really good (and popular!) Chinese restaurant at the airport.

The next day the weather wasn’t as cooperative, but we explored the Singapore Botanical Gardens including the National Orchid Garden.

I took many pictures of flowers!

After that we headed back to the area near the boat building to explore the “Gardens by the Bay”

That night it was airport pizza, relaxing by the pool and repacking for our early morning flight to Tokyo to meet up with Mike and Jen.