Let me introduce myself, my name is Simona and I´m about to travel the Philippines together with my boyfriend Sven. Our first stop after leaving Denmark was Singapore. There we spent our first 5 vacation days. Afterwards we are moving to Philippines for around 3 months. We want to travel around and see the most amazing places we can! We are starting from Cebu city where we are taking some time to get used to everything especially to hot weather 😀
Singapore was very beautiful but also freaking expensive. We slept in a one very friendly hostel close to the city and all the places of our interest. The name is ABC Premium hostel and guys working there are so nice and helpful.
Our schedule there was so busy and therefore our jet lag even worse. But even though we enjoyed it to the fullest. We did a trek of 11 km thru the very big Nature Reserve MacRitchie where we found a tree top walk which is a very narrow bridge in the height of the top of the trees. It was so magical and absolutely worth it. We also met a lot of curious monkeys on the way and one even climbed Sven´s leg and tried to open the backpack. Thankfully the backpack was very well secured so after few tries, it just left us alone.
We also did the usual touristic stuff like a walk along the Marina bay really early in the morning since the jet lag was working at its fullest 😀 I really recommend going there that early, you will have the whole place just for yourself together with a few people sleeping on the benches. At other times during the day its very overcrowded.
As we walked thru Chinatown full of streetfood stands we found our next point very easily – the Buddha tooth relic temple. Every Saturday at 2 pm an English tour starts so you can get the explanation of everything what you can find in this 4-floor building. The entrance and the tour are for free. You don’t need to come in long pants since they have scarfs at the entrance which you just need to put around your legs and arms and you´re good to go. It was truly an unique experience and I highly suggest you to go there.
Me as a big fan of the TV show Friends had to visit the café Central Perk. I or let´s say Sven took ton of pictures of me sitting at the couch from the café or in Monika´s kitchen drinking coffee. You should get a drink there, relax and on a big screen just watch one of those many episodes.
We kept one full day for the Sentosa island. I would say it´s one big amusement park. You can choose from many attractions like Universal studios, Climbing tree park, Water park and many many more! We came there by a cable car which provided us with beautiful views from the whole island and has around 6 stops. It will get you to the island and also back for 35 S$ per person. We somehow felt like we´ve already been thru many exciting things so after getting of the cable car near the big sculpture of Merlion, we went on to Palawan beach – around 10 min of walk. We found there one very beautiful swinging bridge made just from wooden plates and rope which got us from the Palawan beach to very tiny island. Here 2 watch towers provided us with a beautiful view to the surroundings.
The Gardens by the bay are a must, we visited them on our last day. If you want to see the Tropical forest and the Cloud dome during daylight and have the beautiful lightshow of the huge metal trees at night, I recommend going there around 4- 5 pm. So, you have enough time to see everything before the beautiful show starts. The place is a bit overcrowded since it´s one of the biggest touristic spots in the city. But thankfully for us, we´ve been there during the low season so still it was bearable. And don’t forget to make tons of pictures and videos!
