By Sarah Reid, Lonely Planet
Peering over the rooftop pool deck of Marina Bay Sands, shopping up a storm on Haji Lane, or ogling at the supertrees in Gardens by the Bay, it’s almost impossible to imagine Singapore was little more than a fishing village just over a century ago. On the eve of its golden jubilee, there’s no better time to discover the delights of the Lion City.
National Day fireworks, Singapore. Image by Singapore Tourist Board
The big party
In 2015, Singapore celebrates 50 years of independence. The National Day Parade on 9 August will be bigger than ever, but the party will actually last all year. Starting with the countdown to 2015, key calendar highlights include the opening of the National Gallery Singapore (nationalgallery.sg), the launch of the Jubilee Walk walking trail covering historic locations in the civic district and the Marina Bay area, and existing annual events like Chingay and the Singapore International Festival of the Arts, which will be held in the spirit of Singapore’s golden jubilee.
The fabulous food
Flavours from Malaysia, China, Indonesia, India and beyond collide to create the delicious hybrid cuisine Singapore has become famous for. And while the queues for Tian Tian chicken rice at Maxwell Road Hawker Centre show no signs of dwindling, there are some impressive new players on Singapore’s food scene. In recent years weekend brunch – served everywhere from Australian-style cafes (try Common Man Coffee in Robertson Quay) to the city’s top hotels (think gourmet buffets and free-flow champagne) – has become a religion, and celebrity restaurants are huge: Gordon Ramsay’s Bread Street kitchen will be the eighth celebrity eatery for Marina Bay Sands when it opens in 2015.
The fancy new gallery
Singapore’s lotus-shaped ArtScience Museum and Gillman Barracks, a colonial army base transformed into a contemporary arts space, are barely three years old between them, but Singapore will get its biggest and best art space yet in 2015. Housed in two of Singapore’s most iconic national monuments – City Hall and the former Supreme Court building – the National Gallery Singapore will showcase the region’s largest collection of Southeast Asian and Singaporean art. With a ten-day festival dedicated to it’s mid-2015 opening, it’ll be an occasion indeed.
The new green spaces
It’s difficult to name another world city that boasts as many eco-attractions as Singapore. Building on its portfolio of iconic parklands such as the Botanic Gardens and the sleepy jungles of Pulau Ubin, the city-state has given birth to several new awe-inspiring green spaces in recent years, from Gardens by the Bay (don’t miss the light show at 7.45pm and 8.45pm every evening) to the Southern Ridges, the Green Corridor to Singapore Zoo’s new River Safari. It doesn’t stop there, either: tots will be able to play on one-of-a-kind giant slides at Admiralty Park when it reopens in 2015 following its redevelopment. Two other new green spaces at Jurong Lake and East Coast will reopen in 2016 and 2017 respectively.
The drinking scene
Singapore’s drinking scene has literally reached new heights. There’s now no better place to admire the expanding city skyline than from rooftop bars like Ku de Ta (kudeta.com/singapore) or Altitude before kicking on at one of the hot new ‘secret’ bars in the Chinatown/CBD area (try 28 HongKong St or Operation Dagger at 7 Ann Siang Hill). Daytime drinking, too, has been revamped, with dozens of hip coffeeshops (check out The Dispensary at 69 Tiong Bahru Road) now sitting side-by-side with traditional kopitiams across the city, and new operations opening almost weekly.
Read the full article HERE.
