Singapore: Feb 13: Arrival

After making our way to our hotel and dropping our stuff off, we ventured out to a hawker center a block away for an evening snack. It was open! (This surprised me given that it was 10 or 11pm on Chinese New Year Eve. Many hawker centres aren't open that late on a regular day. This center has long hours and apparently not everyone in Singapore celebrates the holiday.) As we'd learn over the next few days, we were in a lively part of town, and the nearby hawker centers always seemed to be open.

We stayed in the Hotel 81 Classic, a budget hotel on the airport side of the city. You know it's a budget hotel when it has no windows and the staff hands you a television remote along with your room key (which, incidentally, is a physical key, not an electronic one). In addition, the mattress is plastic (and clearly felt through the sheets), the air conditioning unit has no controls, and there's no shower curtain. Nevertheless, we survived our stay after I learned what I needed to wear to sleep to be comfortable given the temperature and the mattress.

I didn't take any pictures on the way to Singapore. Di Yin took three: one, two, three. I'll link to the rest of her pictures from this trip (as well as mine) in later posts.