Exploring Singapore in 24 Hours: Gardens by the Bay, Sentosa, and Marina Bay Sands

I've just touched down in Singapore for a quick stop over on my journey home from Indonesia back to Canada. So, I've got 24 hours here to explore the city. So, I'm going to use my time to hit up as many of the classic sites as possible from the Gardens by the Bay to Sentosa Island and having a sunset drink at Marina Bay Sands Hotel. And hopefully along the way I'll get to try out some of the amazing food that Singapore is famous for. I kind of want to come here for every meal and just try eat everything. So after touching down at the airport, I grabbed a Grab to take me into town and it was about a 25minut drive and I'm staying at the Mercure Icon Singapore City Center Hotel which is in Chinatown and within walking distance of all of

the main sites. All right, this is my room. It's nice. It's not too big, but it has everything I need for just myself. And I have an amazing view over this place. I need to look it up what it is, which is great. This is going to work really nicely. Now, I have been to Singapore twice before, but I've never actually properly filmed it. And the interesting thing is the first time I was here was in March 2006. It's now March 2026. So, it's literally 20 years since I was first here. And this was right the start of my very first big backpacking trip where I had a couple days here when I was connecting through to get to Australia. And one of the things I did back then was get the cable

car to Sentosa Island. And I remember getting my photo taken on the beach there. And this was like before social media existed. Like no one had Facebook. Instagram was years away. But what we did back then you sent an email to your family and friends about like the first few days of your travel. And the main photo I attached was me standing on this beach like look I'm starting my adventure. So, one of the things I want to do tomorrow is get the cable car back to Sentoser Island, try and stand in the exact same spot and get the exact same photo taken. And uh you can see how much I've aged in the past 20 years. But

yeah, it's 5:00 p.m. now and I'm flying out at 11:30 tomorrow night. So, I've got just over 24 hours in Singapore. So, the first thing I'm going to do this evening is make the halfhour walk across to the famous Raffles Hotel. Some of the architecture around here is just crazy. It's such a cool building. Like I'm just outside enjoying a picnic. I don't know if there's some special meaning behind it or just what people do here on a Sunday afternoon. All right. So, my first stop is going to be the famous Raffles Hotel, where the Singapore Sling Drink was invented in 1915. And it's a place I went to in 2006. So, I thought it' be nice to start off by going back there for a drink

before I get some food later on this evening. One thing that didn't exist here 20 years ago was uh doing Instagram shoots. So, I was going to go for a drink at the famous Long Bar here at the Raples Hotel, but it was like a massive queue for it. I was like, I'm not queuing for ages just to have one drink. So, I went and got a drink at the Courtyard Bar and ordered the famous Singapore Sling. And I'm not normally a gin fan. Like, I don't really like gin based cocktails, but that was delicious. It went down so easy. And I can see why it became so popular because when it's like 30° like it is here, you can easily smash back quite a few of those.

Just heading towards Marina Bay now and have a wonder around there. To be honest, being here now just makes me think of Race Across the World season 1. Don't remember it being this busy here, but it's a different time of day. It's great being back. I'm getting like so many memories from being here 20 years ago just flooded back. So, I'm heading to Bo Key now, which is just behind Marina Bay. And there's a whole street full of different bars and restaurants and stuff. But I remember when James and I came here on Hong Kong to New York, and we couldn't actually afford to drink at the bars. Yeah. So, what we did was we went to like

7-Elevens and got cans of beer and drunk beside the bars. That's all we could afford to do. Today I can actually afford a pint. This street's got loads of restaurants, different kinds of cuisine, and place to get cheap beers. So, it's a good spot to come down if you want to bite to eat, grab a beer. Now, that's a glorious looking pint here. Starting out simple with some Singapore saté. It's great. Exactly what I expected.

Okay, I'm now going to grab a bite to eat in Lao Pasat, which is just on the edge of Chinatown right here. Hardest bit is trying to decide what to pick. There's so many different things on offer. Okay, I immediately love this place. It's amazing. I kind of want to come here for every meal and just try everything. To start off with, I've got some Indian got just tikka chicken and a garlic naan. But look at the size of this thing. So, my plan was to try out a whole bunch of different things here, but I'm absolutely stuffed back to that. Oh man, I'm so full. Like, I want to get more, but I was so full.

Well, that was a fun first evening just wandering around and getting reacquainted with the area and the layout and stuff and had a really good time. But in terms of food, it was a bit of a massive fail. Like everything I had was delicious, but you know, my plan was to get to La Pasat and try out a whole bunch of different things. And then just the portion sizes were just crazy, which under any other circumstance would be a great thing. But for what I wanted tonight, it didn't work in my advantage cuz I got like a starter of tandoori chicken. It was like enough of it to be like a full meal and then the garlic na was like the size of like a hobbit's cloak or something. It was just it was nuts. But

I'm definitely going to go back there tomorrow to get some more food at the end of my evening. But yeah, really good first evening. Excited for tomorrow to do more exploring. So going to get some rest and I'll see you in the morning. Wait, this isn't Singapore. I'm back home and that's because I want to talk to you about this video sponsor DJI who sent me their Osmo 360 camera to try out. Now, I have used a 360 camera by a different brand in the past on my USA road trip film. And I thought, "Oh, this will be great cuz I can film a view from the car and myself all at the same time without have to move the camera around and it'll be super easy." But to be honest, I was really disappointed with

the quality of the footage. Like even though that USA road trip film was one of the favorite ones I've made in the last couple of years, the quality of the driving footage just wasn't up to the standard that I wanted. But with DJI's Osmo 360, it's the industry's first panoramic camera with a 1 in 360° imaging, meaning that the image quality is improved in all aspects. Like, as soon as I did my first few shots on this in Singapore, I looked at them on the laptop and I was so much happier with them. The Osmo 360 camera also has many practical uses for filming my travels because I'm always looking for ways to capture what I'm doing without having the filming slow down the experience.

So, for example, normally if I want a shot of myself walking through an area, I have to put the camera down on the tripod, hit record, walk through the shot, and then go back and get the tripod. Whilst with the 360 camera, I can just have it on the selfie stick, hit record, and I've got the shot straight away. Plus, the 360 camera makes the selfie stick invisible. And then I could choose between what angle I want from the shot when it comes time for editing. Hey, Rosie. Just trying to tell them about the sponsor. Just trying to tell them about DJI. We'll be right back with the sponsors here.

Within the camera settings, I can change what resolution and frame rate I want, but also how wide I want the lens to be. So, for most of the shots, I had it set to wide, but then when I was riding the cable car to Sentosa Island, I set it to ultra wide, which allowed me to get these really cool shots from outside the cable car. And I only received this camera when I arrived in Singapore. So, I didn't have a chance to actually try out some of the other amazing features. So, just to name a few, they have a selfie mode, which automatically sets a frame on you and tracks you, so you don't have to manually reframe afterwards. It also has a single lens mode, meaning the camera can function like a traditional action camera. It has

Rock Steady 3.0, which eliminates camera shake when you're moving around. I can mount and release the camera in seconds with a quick release. It does have a built-in microphone, but if I want really clear dialogue, I can sync it up to my DJI mics. And there's so many other features I can't wait to try out on future trips cuz for now, I was just strolling around Singapore. But on future trips where I'll be more active and I'll be hiking, cycling, driving, whatever, I'm super excited to see what I can capture with it. Anyway, enough of the plug. Let's get back to Singapore where I've just woken up and I'm about to start my day exploring round.

All right, good morning. Uh, had a lovely night's sleep in this comfy bed. First thing I'm going to do is head to Sentosa Island and go have a little explore around there. So, just waiting to get the bus down to the harbor. I think you can just tap on the buses like your credit card. So, we'll find out soon enough. Too easy. It was about a 15-minute bus ride down to the harbor where I'll get the cable car across to Sentosa Island. All right, so I just got off the bus. I thought the cable car started at the harbor, but I see it going more inland. Uh, so I'm going to walk to where it starts, so I want to see the whole thing.

All right, so it looks like I'm doing a random little hike through Mount Faber Park. Yeah, it's only 15 minutes. Wow. It's like walked a few meters and like left the city behind and now it's like I'm in a thick jungle. Some magnificent trees in this forest. Well, that was a happy little accident there. Lovely little stroll through the mini jungle in the middle of the city. I got myself a ticket for the premium Sky Orb cabin which cost 50 Singapore dollars for the return journey. Sweet. Got my own little cable car. This is like the VIP orb view on glass floor and everything. Look at me nerding out. There we go again.

This is so cool. It's like being in the futuristic cable car and we'll be going over the water. It's going to look amazing. Going over the harbor now. About to go over this big cruise ship down here. The island looks way more developed than it was 20 years ago. You seen a roller coaster going around at Universal Studios and now you just look out to the harbor and like I saw this flying in. There's just so many ships just parked up out here.

Yes, there's loads of stuff on the island. There's water parks. There's a theme park. Universal Studios. There's an aquarium. There's like bunggees and zip lines and beaches. Like I'm just going to go for a little wander around, but you could spend a very action-packed and probably very expensive day here. So, the ticket for the uh Sky or the premium cable car cost 50 bucks. It also includes going in the Sky Helix thing here. So, let's give it a go. Okay, cool. Welcome to Sky Helix. Well, that was way scarier than it looked. just dangling there in like a little this just a flimsy seat belt. I was getting all like the tingles in my legs like probably getting some PTSD from all my old bungee jumps. They did have cup

holders though, so you could grab a drink. They even got beers and stuff and just sit there and relax for the drink. And the views were amazing. It was just Yeah, Vertica was kicking in there. Anyway, going to walk down to the beach now and complete my little mission of getting a photo in the same spot as 20 years ago. Yeah, I can't believe just how much has been developed and built up since 2006. Well, I can believe it, but when I was here last time, it felt like it's bit like a shoddy theme park. That was like a mini golf course, but it wasn't super

nice. But this is like a really lovely place to come spend a day. All right, I've made it to the beach. Just got to find the spot to line up the shot. So, those are the two lookout towers in the background. So, just going to go around a little bit. Mission accomplished. Yeah, it's very surreal being back here. Like 20 years ago, the start of my first backpacking trip, having no idea how much my life would change off the back of those 6 months, you know? I'd done traveling growing up with the family, but your first backpacking trip and just, you know, I grew so much as a person grew so much confidence. Living and working in New Zealand was incredible and sort of going to the Lord of the Rings sites for

the first time was like a pilgrimage to me. You know, I met so many amazing people, made so many cool friends, and it just, you know, just made me realize just how much fun life could be. So, yeah, I was properly bitten by the travel bug on that trip. Oh, yeah. It just makes me stop and think how much has happened in the last 20 years since I was last here on this beat. Yeah. If you told me 20 years ago that uh I'd basically be traveling for a living, making travel films, and I now live in Canada and I'm very happily married. I'll be like, "Yep, I'll take that. Sign me up, please." After having my moment of reflection on the beach, I made my way over to Palawan Island to check out the view from the towers.

Tell you what, I would want to go swimming on this beach cuz you can like all the fill from these ships coming into the bay here. It looks clean, but I don't know. You can see how far I've walked down cuz you can see the tower, the helifix, whatever it was thing I went up just over there. All right, on the cable car back now. Uh that was really good fun. It was a really good fun morning there. Like again, you can easily spend all day or probably even two days doing all the uh things on offer in Sentosa. But now I'm

going to get back onto the mainland and then uh head over to the gardens by the bay. Well, before I go exploring the gardens, need to get some food. So, I've come to sate by the bay. See what we can get. Oh, just fruit juice sounds nice. It's 31° out today and I am just absolutely melting. So, I've ordered some Thai style prawns and a nice fruit juice to get me going again. So, right here they got the flower dome and the cloud forest. You can go in. You get a combo ticket for both, but I'm just going to do the power forest for today before I go see the other stuff in the park. So, I figured it's such a hot, humid day. What better way to spend my time than to go in a greenhouse? Plus,

there's going to be some dinosaurs. Music just puts you in a good mood. Just put a smile on your face. This is good fun. Actually, I think every botanical gardens in the world should add officially licensed Jurassic Park dinosaurs. All right. So, I got the lift up to the top. Now, I'm doing the cloud walk, which I'm guessing just spirals all the way back down. This is brilliant, actually. Mostly because of the music and the sound effects. It's also, you know, amazing plants and stuff like that. I enjoyed that way more than I thought I would actually. Like I thought it was going to be nice, but I just had this

sort of giddy childlike grin on my face the whole time. Play that music and those sound effects, put it in that setting. Can't help but love it. It's rare that you walk out of a greenhouse and it's more humid outside than in, but that's the reality of today. I'm now heading over to the main attraction in the Gardens by the Bay, which is the Super Tree Grove. So, I'll have to check the dates, but I think when I was here in 2013 with James, they just built the structures of these, but nothing had grown on them yet. So, I kind of just walked around going, I don't get it. But now looks pretty damn special.

I bought tickets for the two main things here, the OCBC Skyway and the Super Tree Observatory, and they cost 14 Singapore dollars each. Okay, so this is the OCBC Skywalk. And the really nice thing about it is when you come out the lift, there's a breeze. It's just like a like it's beautiful, but breeze, it's much needed. I mean, this is gorgeous. It's like just been transported from Jurassic Park to Pandora. Amazing views of the city here as well. That was really nice there. It was really peaceful up there. And now I'm going to go up the Super Tree

Observatory, which is a bit higher up. And looks like there's a bit of a queue as well. The queue took over half an hour before I could actually go up to the observatory. Well, you get a nice view of the city, but I don't know if that was worth the wait. Can't see that much of the gardens cuz we're just too high above it. All right, this bit is way better. I just thought it was a roof deck, but this outside bit looks really good. I'm glad this wasn't a waste of time. Well, the skywalk was definitely worth it. That was really great. But the observatory, not so much. Anyway, I'm going to work my way back to the hotel now cuz I've got to check out. I've got

like a late checkout. Then I'll put my bags in storage for the last couple hours and I'm going to head up there up the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. So I've checked out the hotel, dropped my bags of storage. Then I said to the guy, "Can I get a taxi to the sky observation deck?" He's like, "Oh, you just going for a sunset drink and you going to come back?" Went, yeah. And he went, "Nice." So that's what I'm doing. Well, the infinity pool's over there, which I believe is just for hotel guests, and it actually looks so busy. Like, doesn't look fun at all, to be fair. This is nice, though. I'm loving this.

You can see the route that I did yesterday evening. Like Raffles Hotels over there and I walked down to the Mer Lion here. Did a bit of a wander around and then just over there's the uh the bar street by the river. You come around the other side, you get a really good view of the gardens and the countless amount of ships in the bay here. So, the sun sets up for another about an hour and 10 minutes. I still want to get some food before I go to the airport. So, we'll see how we do for time. But pretty amazing. Anyway, going to get a drink. Well, before I get on the regular peers, I get myself a little glass of champagne. It's the end of my month away. End of uh two weeks Japan, two weeks Indonesia.

Why not? After enjoying a couple of drinks, I made my way back to La Paat. And this time, I managed to enjoy some lovely barbecue crayfish. And then it was time to head to the airport and begin my long journey home. Yeah, I really enjoyed my time in Singapore. Like the first time I was there 20 years ago, I was so fresh and new to traveling, I didn't have much to compare it to. And then on Hong Kong to New York, we kind of just viewed it as this kind of sterile, overly expensive city. Like just didn't fit in with the rest of our trip. But going back a third time, I had such a great time there.

Really enjoyed it. So just goes to show how subjective traveling is. Anyway, the next films that'll be out on the channel will be the rest of the trip that I was just on there. So, uh, two weeks in Japan will be, uh, two episodes that are going to be out at the end of April, start of May. And then the two weeks in Indonesia will be another two episodes, and they'll hopefully come out the start of June. Just depends if I get it finished in time before I go on my next trip, which is heading back to Europe, and uh, we're going to do a road trip from London to Lake Ko. So, that's going to be really good fun. So, yeah, loads to look forward to. Make sure you've subscribed and notifications and all the

usual stuff. And I'm going to leave you with a little preview of what I filmed in Japan and Indonesia.