Today was our last full day in Singapore, and we head off to our final stop on this trip – Dubai – in the morning.
We have been here for six nights and while I’ve not been feeling great for the last couple of days, I’ve had an absolutely amazing time here, including today where most of the day was unplanned and we just ended up doing what we felt like doing.
The Former Ford Factory
The only thing we had planned for today was a visit to the Former Ford Factory. This is a historic location, now housing a museum, which is the location where the British surrendered to the Japanese during World War 2.
My Mum is fascinated by World War 2 history, especially bits that relate to Japan, and so it was an obvious place to visit.
Due to being a bit further out of the city it isn’t visited as much as the other museums in the city – in fact, during our time there – we only saw about 10 other visitors in total. But this meant that we could just walk around at our own pace without worrying about the crowds.
Despite being a bit further out it’s still super easy to get to. In fact, there was a direct bus that took you straight to it from right next to our hotel.
An unexpected breakfast
We didn’t head straight there in the end, however, as while we were on the bus we realised that it was going to go straight past the Botanic Gardens and we decided to jump off and have breakfast at the same café that we ate at the other day. No chickens running around the patio this time, but we did have a Myna Bird who sat next to us for most of our time there and which jumped onto our table to eat our crumbs once we had finished.
After leaving the café it was a short bus ride to the closest bus stop to the museum, then a walk of about 5 minutes.
Touring the Former Ford Factory
We spend about 90 minutes at the Former Ford Factory in the end learning all about the city during World War 2, including the Japanese occupation and the British surrender. There are a lot of original items to see from that time period and you can even visit the boardroom where the British surrender was signed – the desk in there is a reproduction, but it’s set up exactly as it was at that time.
Even though I’m not overly into World War 2 history I really enjoyed our visit here. I think because it wasn’t that busy, and also because it’s where it all happened rather than just being a museum in an unrelated building. So, in my opinion, it’s definitely worth a visit.
We jumped back on the bus to head into the centre of the city, getting off at a stop next to Fort Canning Park.
Fort Canning Park
Fort Canning Park is located on a hill in the centre of Singapore. As the name suggests, it was once home to a fort and it’s also here where Sir Stamford Raffles decided to build his home as it had a great view out over the city.
The steps up were quite steep but, when we reached the top of the hill, we were greeted with a really nice garden with the Raffles House in the background – all with a great view out over the city.
We spent an hour or so here, relaxing and enjoying these weird swings in the grounds, before slowly exploring and heading back down the hill to the city where we paid one final visit to the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel for a couple of Singapore Sling. This time we were sat at the bar, on the main floor, which was a completely different experience to our previous visit where we were at a table upstairs.
Our final evening in Singapore
Tomorrow we have a very early departure, and we have a taxi to the airport booked for 05:30, so we had to have an early meal. We wanted to make it special so we headed back to Boat Quay so that we could enjoy the views one last time.
We had planned to eat at a different restaurant but, since we enjoyed the Indian meal we had there a couple of days ago, we decided to go back there one last time too. The meal wasn’t quite as good as last time, as we chose wrong, but it was still very good, and we still had great views.
We got back to the hotel a little after 8pm and I think I’m going to go to bed shortly. I’m not a morning person so I need all the sleep I can get if I have a hope of getting up with my 04:00 alarm in the morning.