I got in Monday night, without a hostel booked, so I was wandering around the airport looking for the MRT (subway) station and I walked past several very large duty free shopping areas before emerging into a vast, calming nature area. The large waterfall, trickling two stories down over smooth dark charcoal rockface surprised me and as I looked to see where I'd accidentally stumbled into, I saw the check in counters. Amazingly, this oasis was still inside the Singapore airport. I don't know that I've ever actually been impressed by an airport before, certainly not the hangers of empty, useless space at Charles DeGaulle or the tasteless food options at Cairo, but now I was. A bit embarrassed, I took a picture- I had to, it was just too cool. On my way to the MRT from there, I saw a visitor's information desk. When I asked an employee if he could suggest a good area to find a hostel in, he pulled out a binder filled with information about several different hostels in the city. I wrote down the names of some of them, found a promising area, and headed out.
Singapore Airport
I got off at Bugis, passing several groups of B-boys practicing in the station on my way, and looked at the map I'd gotten from the information desk, figured out where I was and where I was going (Little India) and headed off confidently in that direction. I passed some shops that I was thrilled to see where still open after acclimating to stores that close at 6 p.m. for months, and a market with a large juice stand with at least 15 different varieties, and with ice, which I was determined to enjoy while I could (in most of Southeast Asia, I won't be able to have drinks with ice due to the contamination factor) so I bought the most exotic one I saw: vividly colored magenta dragonfruit juice. It was good, but didn't have much flavor- it tasted more like flavored water than anything else. Continuing towards Little India, I saw a building with three outside layers paneled in star-like shapes that lit up, escalating upwards, a few layers at a time. I later found out that this was called the iluma building.
Continuing on my merry way through a large market that was just closing as I passed, I realized that I didn't exactly know where I was going. Normally this wouldn't bother me, but I had my heavy backpack on and two bags in hand so I checked a map and after about three minutes of deliberation, headed off in the right direction. I found one of the hostels I'd looked at almost immediately once in Little India, and booked a bed in a six bed dormitory for $18 Singapore Dollars (about $13.50). The hostel was clean, but very quiet and a bit boring.
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