Hey, how about spending the long weekend in... Singapore?
Millions of tourists come here, but many of us plan months ahead to escape, even if it means just a couple of days away.
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Bumboats to Pulau Ubin docked at the Changi Point Ferry Terminal. It should not take a pandemic to make those living in Singapore pay attention to what is on our doorstep, and there is no reason we cannot enjoy this island now with the same curiosity and sense of wonder, says the writer.
ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
Krishnan Menon
My cousin and his family flew to Singapore from the United States for a much-anticipated holiday a few weeks ago. They arrived with an itinerary more organised than the National Day Parade. Merlion at sunrise. Gardens by the Bay light show. Wok shopping in Chinatown. A hawker crawl with dish names highlighted in yellow. Some time on Day 2, my teenage niece asked whether we’d walked the Mandai Boardwalk that tourists were vlogging about on TikTok. Embarrassingly, we still hadn’t seen it.
I’m not alone in this. Ask around, and you’ll hear a version of the same story. Colleagues who’ve never done the Southern Ridges, despite living five MRT stops from it. Friends who found out about the fireflies at Pulau Ubin from an Instagram account before they heard about it from a fellow Singaporean. We know this city as the place we live and work and play, not the place we experience with wonder.
