Singapore Tips Beyond the Highlights

If you land in Singapore early in the morning like I did, skip the sleep (especially to prevent jet lag). Watching a city wake up provides the perfect introduction to any new environment.

Breakfast is best enjoyed in Chinatown: The Chinatown Complex Food Center, the largest street food complex in the city, offers over 250 food stalls in a compact space and at the best prices. From chicken rice and char siu at Hawker Chan to BBQ buns and solid coffee at Wu Shi Nian Dai - no culinary eye will be dry.

For the evening, a visit to Long Beach right on the beach is recommended for a full seafood experience (Black Pepper Crab!) or to a branch of Song Fa - the latter attracts locals with tender pork and is known for its 'Bak Kut Teh', a Malaysian-Singaporean specialty - pork bone tea. It sounds strange, but it tastes delicious.

Singapore is extraordinarily green. If that's not enough, I recommend a trip to the indoor gardens at Gardens by the Bay. On an almost endless expanse of the two gigantic domes - to be precise, on an incredible 101 hectares - there is a constantly changing diversity of species to see, each dedicated to a theme. I experienced the fantastic world of 'Alice in Wonderland' and futuristically vegetated skyscrapers. Impressive!

The also extremely well-kept botanical gardens allow for classic garden strolling - and for those who like orchids, you will surely have unimagined experiences best soothed by a burger and ginger tea at Halia.

You can experience a little piece of India in Singapore in the district of the same name. The individuality of every ethnic group is not easily suppressed: Here it's denser and louder than in the rest of Singapore. The air feels a few degrees hotter, and you might even find a cigarette butt on the street. Very charming. I recommend wandering through the narrow alleys and letting the scents and wild shops guide you. You can eat here on almost every corner; during my visit, Banana Leaf Apolo (also with various branches) came quite close to the noisy, cramped finger food of my journey to India.

In Singapore, one thing is clear: The next shopping mall is not far away. Singaporeans - primarily the ladies - love leisure, and shopping is evidently high on the list: The amount of huge, modern malls stuffed with almost every kind of fashion and accessories is remarkable. You could easily spend a whole day here, but if you want to be sure and also want to eat well: The Centrepoint not only houses the best Japanese matcha soft serve in the world at Tsujiri, but also a branch of the Chinese chain Din Tai Fung - a dumpling paradise on earth. Specialty: handmade soup dumplings ('Xiao Long Bao'). It is said that the author of this article had to roll out of the restaurant in Shanghai like a big, bubbling barrel from overeating euphorically. Here is your chance.

'What kind of bagpipe is that?' I asked cluelessly when looking over the city. It is the ArtScience Museum. And it is supposed to represent a lotus flower, not a bagpipe. Inside, changing exhibitions bring you cosmopolitan artistic knowledge through interactive, hands-on installations, with my visit especially arousing the inner child through the playful installations of the Japanese 'Future World' - which, by the way, is not that hard to do, as my enthusiasm level rises rapidly, but the ideas behind the installations were fabulous. Just take a look at what is currently on display (the changing evening program looks promising!).

... if I were one of the pampered kids of the city, my maid would have to take me to the Sentosa Islands at least twice a week. There's an overabundance of fun venues right by the beach. Zip-lining at MegaZip Adventure Park is an extremely fun activity, even for those afraid of heights like me - right next door, there's bungee jumping for the hard-core. Afterwards, you can dip your shaky feet in the sand and have a (or several) drinks on the beach. It doesn't get much better.

If you've ever been to one of the neighboring countries of Singapore, you will surely miss the many little dingy street kitchens in the big city, where Asians slurp and chew day in and day out on tiny plastic chairs. You can experience a piece of this wonderful tradition at food markets like the Lau Pa Sat Market. Wooden benches, cold beer, and impressively crispy and carefully spiced satay skewers from Indonesia, surrounded by shiny skyscrapers - it can be that simple.

For three years now, Michelin has been assigning stars to restaurants enthusiastically. Besides the mentioned street food (at €1.50, probably the cheapest star in the world) at Hawker Chan, especially the more exotic restaurants impress, many of which cannot be found everywhere in the world.

Also worth mentioning is the Candlenut, which is dedicated to the cuisine of the Peranakan, an ethnic group of Malays. This cuisine was entirely new to me until this trip. In short: Only in a few metropolises in the world can one find such a density of high-quality restaurants, and if you want to avoid getting the cat in the bag, you should visit the Michelin Singapore page (Tip: Restaurants marked with 'Bib' offer a particularly good price-performance ratio apart from the rather expensive star-rated places).

That was my little selection, but there are countless other things to marvel at depending on personal taste. Here, to clarify some basic questions about Singapore: With a little common sense and respect for other countries and cultures, one should be able to get along.

Singapore is a compact city-state. Three to four days are sufficient for the main sights. I recommend staying four to five days. Even in one day, you could visit the biggest highlights of Singapore and get a good first impression.

The budget-friendly Singapore Airlines subsidiary Scoot now flies direct from Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, or Stuttgart to the city-state. Check Google Flights for good and affordable connections.

There are plenty of hotels, but they are not exactly cheap. I found the designer hotel M Social very pleasant as it is quite centrally located. From here, it's just a few kilometers to Chinatown, and for breakfast, there's a robot that automatically prepares your soft-boiled egg. At least that deeply impressed me. If you prefer something more affordable, consider booking one of the many hostels.

Typically, you will pay in Singapore Dollars (1 SGD = approximately 0.60 EUR); it's best to withdraw cash via ATM with a credit card. A credit card from a bank that allows free withdrawals abroad, such as the DKB VISA Card, is recommended. However, there are exchange bureaus everywhere as well. Most shops and restaurants accept credit cards in addition to cash.

Metro (MRT, 'Mass Rapid Transit'), bus (the cheapest), or taxi (for safe and transparent transportation, it's best to download the app Grab on your phone).

Everyone speaks English here - no problem.

There are quite a few regulations - Singapore is often referred to as the Fine City, as there are numerous prohibition signs threatening fines. You may not bring in more than 17 cigarettes, gum is not allowed at all and can only be bought in pharmacies with a prescription; drugs of any kind can even lead to the death penalty.

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