Beautiful tourist spots to visit in Singapore

Singapore has many tourist spots to offer but if you happen to visit this country for just few days like two (2) to three (3) days you should really maximize your time. My advice would be this, take the "Hippo Tours". This tour package allows you to witness both the city and heritage tours by hopping on and off the Hippo Bus. The bus would go around the city on a particular route with matching information from the tourist guide about the specific places passed by the tour bus and if you opted to get off the bus like for instance in China Town, all you have to do is to inform the tourist guide and he/she would be the one to instruct the driver which place you are going to be dropped off. One time I tried asking the bus driver about a particular place and he annoyingly told me," there's a tourist guide ask her and I'm driving", well the driver really got that attitude. Anyways, by the time you will decide to visit another place all you need to do is to go to the designated bus stop and wait for the Hippo Tour Bus.

You may also want to visit the Jurong Bird Park and Singapore Zoo, these are interesting places to visit. Finally, every tourist should never fail to visit the Sentosa Island and taking a ride with a luge or skyride is always a once in a lifetime experience .

Determined Filipinos in Singapore

During my several days stay in Singapore, I met lots of Filipinos who were trying to look for jobs. Most of them were graduates from the different prestigious colleges and universities in the Philippines but some are college undergraduates. They came from different walks of life, severals were Philippine registered nurses, call center agents, others were managers in one of the popular food chains in the Philippines and there was also one who just filed his vacation leave and went to Singapore both for pleasure and employment.

As we discussed the reasons why they are trying to hunt for their luck in a foreign country, most of them conveyed that their previous earnings/incomes were not sufficient to shoulder their personal and family expenses. For them, the only way to have a decent living is to gain higher income and that may only be possible if they could seek employment opportunities abroad. Singapore is one of the easiest country to penetrate and all you need to do is to secure your passport and money for your fare, board and lodging. This fact is peculiar though because they were staying in such a high- cost- living city for almost a month and their spouses and families send undetermined amount of money for their sustenance. Majority of them stay in dorms and it was there where I met them. On the otherhand, by the time these brave and determined Filipinos be employed, they could earn as much as S$1,500-S$3,000 (Php 50,000- 99,000) or even more.

I could take a wild guess where these Filipinos get employment, I think in hotels and entertainment centers like parks. You know why? In areas always visited by foreigners or the so called tourist spots, Filipinos are made the front liners. I verified this when I strolled around the city together with my wife, many pinoys greeted us in several hotels and parks.

Do you know that they could not converse in Filipino "Tagalog" with their fellow pinoys? I don't have any idea at all why. At any rate, I got this idea when I returned back the politeness one pinoy extended to us, we opted to greet him in Filipino "Tagalog" but he still conversed in English to us. One time in one of the hotels we visited, a Filipino front desk personnel whispered to me that they are only allowed to speak in English and It was so sad that I never had the chance to ask why.

These people would do everything under their ability to seek greener pasture in a land unfamiliar to them just to provide the finest standard of living to their love ones. For that I salute you! I give you five stars, he he he.

Singapore Tour

Hello guys, I just opted to share with you my trip to Singapore, of course I was with my wife.

The first country we visited was Singapore on July 8, 2008. It's a small and yet highly developed country and most of the working class citizens could speak English. This country is a tourist destination and they're still developing more tourist spots.

For us Filipinos, we find the standard of living in Singapore far more expensive compared to the cost of living in the Philippines. Hotel and food cost four(4) to six(6) times higher than the rate in the Philippines. If I were to compare Singapore to one of the cities in the Philippines I would probably compare it with Makati.

The main streets and parks of Singapore are very clean except for the suburban areas where garbage is also dumped heavily. Most of the vehicle drivers are considerate because on streets where there are no traffic lights, they usually stop and let the pedestrian pass across the street first. One more thing, I never heard any vehicle blow its horn.

Policemen are not visible anywhere in the city or even security guards, we only seen several police and military men during the celebration of Singapore day but on ordinary days one could hardly see any uniformed men.

Let's talk about food chains. There are several food chains in the city like McDonalds, Burger King and KFC. When we left Philippines to Singapore, I was thinking that It would be better for us to take the major food chains than to eat in the restaurant that way, we could save money for our tour, unfortunately, the above-mentioned food chains don't serve rice. In short, we dined in different restaurants and we spent an average of S$12-15 per person each meal, in peso the rate would fall at about Php400 per person per meal. Thus, you should really make a budget of Php1,500/day each person for the meal alone. By the way, all the restaurants provide table tissue for a fee and they usually put plastic sealed table tissue on the table and they usually charge for that if you open it for more or less S$2/each (Php66.00). So better bring along tissue papers with you both dry and the wet ones.

Now, let's talk about hotels. If you are tight with your tour budget you may want to take a dorm. There are several persons in a room like 4- person/room, 6-person/room and even 8-person/room. These dorms also provide for private rooms but the only way you could have one is for you to reserve the room online because private rooms are usually occupied and you could not get one if you are a walk-in visitor. These rooms are occupied by both male and female with different nationalities. One time, we took a dorm of 8 persons per room, since I was so tired of walking around I usually snore alot. Most of our dormmates who were from US and UK were so annoyed and you know what they did? they kicked the metal cabinet at the bottom of their bed to wake me up for several times. I was so ashamed when my wife told me that I snored at the top of my voice. After that day we looked for a cheap hotel and we found one, unluckily said hotel was located in the red light area where prostitution takes place 24 hours a day. There are also cheapest hotels in the city but rooms don't have its own bath and toilet and you have to go out of the room and use the common comfort rooms. I learned my lesson there that if you snore don't take the dorm, you know what will happen, lol.

As a tourist, you should always bring a city map with you because some of the locals don't really have the skill of pointing the exact directions. My advice, you need to purchase a Singapore Tourist Pass, it's a ticket card for the MRT and buses. all you have to do is to swipe this ticket card and there you go. There is a tendency if you are a tourist that you would be lost and it would cost you alot because fares are expensive but if you have this tourist pass card, you could use it several times a day with a fix rate only. For instance, you are planning to stay in Singapore for 3 days, you should take the Singapore Tourist Pass for 3 days and this will set you free from hussle.

Moreover, take sample food coupons in Singapore Visitor's Center located on Orchard Road. It could help you save money somehow because you will be given 3 coupons for each visitor and 1 coupon is good for 1 small meal.

Before I forget, Singapore is very strict in terms of pre-boarding flight schedule. Make it a point that you would not be late for your flight because if you're late for the pre-boarding schedule and even if you're 30 minutes ahead of your flight schedule your plane ticket would be forfeited and you have to buy another one for the next flight schedule.

Good luck! Have a nice trip to Singapore.