I wasn’t planning to visit Dubai this year, and I really wasn’t planning to visit Singapore. It wasn’t on my original itinerary, but they needed some extra resources for the summit there. And, apparently, I truly can’t say no to travel.
I was fortunate to have extra free time on the trip, so I was able to do some exploring. Singapore has its share of problems, but it’s really easy to get around. It’s imminently walkable, and the subway system is one of the best in the world.
Fun fact: Singapore caps the number of cars on its roads via its Certificate of Entitlement System. Not so great if you want a car, but pretty great if you enjoy breathable air and don’t want to play frogger while crossing the street.
Sometimes I struggle with sightseeing on work trips. I find it awkward to do tourist-y things on my own. Mostly because I want someone to share the experience with. I’m pretty good at making friends with the people around me (understatement), but sometimes people are weird when you show up at a tourist attraction on your own.
All of this to say, I think what I enjoyed most about my downtime was wandering around the city. I spent an entire afternoon wandering along Joo Chiat road. I loved looking at the architecture and the street art painted on the sides of buildings. I wandered in and out of little boutiques. I basically just soaked in the vibes.
Pro tip: if you’re walking around a food market and you can’t figure out why nobody is concerned about what smells like a truly terrible gas leak? They are probably just selling durian at a bunch of the stalls. I now understand all of those signs people post photos of that say “no eating durian here.”
I also gave myself permission to relax. Here I was in a place I’d never been, that’s hard for me to get to, and that I don’t know if/when I’ll get back to. I started feeling guilty that I wasn’t spending every free minute getting out and about. But, how much do you really get out of travel if you’re not enjoying yourself? I needed to take some time for selfcare, so that I could be present and not just tick off boxes. To that end, I really enjoyed reading a book in the hotel pool (one of my favorite pastimes).
I kinda wanted to visit the National Gallery. But you know what the big exhibit was? A collection of artwork that was on loan from the MFA in Boston (aka my home town). I love the featured Renoir painting, but it did seem silly to go see Boston-based artwork in another country.
Just like in Dubai, my local co-workers were really lovely about showing us around. One night, we all went to the Lau Pa Sat hawker for dinner. A hawker is a big food market with all sorts of different stalls. There’s a wide variety of food options, from all over the region. The Lau Pa Sat is one of the more iconic hawkers. The cast-iron architecture is gorgeous, and the whole place is really airy and clean. Everyone in the group picked one or two dishes that looked good to us, and then we piled all the food in the middle of a table and chowed down together.
My contribution? Egg fried rice with “canned meat” aka spam. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, it was amazing.
We also had a few hours on the last day before everyone had to get on airplanes. My traveling coworkers and I wandered along the river and enjoyed the ambiance. One of the guys and I also took a ride on the Singapore Flyer. I’m glad that he’s a fellow F1 fan, because I really nerded out about the view of the paddock and the finnish line.
(Don’t call it a ferris wheel. It’s an observation wheel. They had a whole poster about this).
I crossed so many time zones on this trip, I started to forget what day it was and what time it felt like. But, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to visit.
How do you feel about work travel? Do you enjoy sightseeing on your own? Do you try and get out and about, or do you go back to your hotel room and relax?
