Singapore Reccs

Last edited: 10 Dec 2025.

todo: contextualize to universities: NTU, NUS, etc.

Targeted towards exchangers, but also applicable for folks who are visiting Singapore for a bit!

Before we start, other guides exist. Would recommend reading blogs from people who have lived overseas for a while, and are tailoring their responses for friends who are visiting Singapore (that's because we are truly nostalgic and miss Singapore a lot!). For UWaterloo students who are doing their exchange in Singapore, there's also this resource.

Eating like a local

If you have not known by now, Singapore is truly a food paradise. A neighbourhood coffee shop (not the ones that are posh and sell coffee in an air-conditioned environment overseas) exists every few hundred metres or so, especially in populated neighbourhoods. Bigger residential areas might see popular hawker centres or food courts (an airconditioned variant of hawker centres, usually run by Kopitiam, Koufu, or some other chain).

Your best bet then would be to get authentic local food from one of these. There would usually be a mix of cuisines at each eatery: Chinese, Malay, Indian and probably Western. If you're tight on a budget, look for "Economic Bee Hoon", or "Mixed Vegetable Rice" (菜饭), to get a quick and easy fix. You could get a full meal with 2 choices of meat and 1 vegetable between SGD $3-$5, in the heartlands. The prices of such dishes would increase as you head towards the city centre (think: the closer you get to Marina Bay Sands, CBD, etc.)

My go to dishes are the following for each cuisine:

Chinese

Malay

  • Nasi Lemak / Mee Rebus (Nasi Lemak can also be sold by Chinese vendors, and most stalls selling Economic Bee Hoon would sell Nasi Lemak too)

Indian

  • Not entirely unique to Singapore, but Nasi Briyani with butter chicken
  • Unhealthy alts: Roti Prata (near where I live, I strongly believe that Chindamani does it the best), Murtabak (salty, filled with mutton / chicken)

Western

  • Smashed burgers (although you can't find much of it in hawker centres / coffee shops)

I have my own list of food recommendations here (which is biased towards burgers and smashed burgers unfortunately, and might not be the most updated). I ran into the problem of not knowing what to eat at various hawker centers (trust me, there are way too many to explore!), so I built a tool to help find what stalls are recommended by local, trusted food bloggers, based on location and semantic similarity.

Drinks

Quick tip: you get the cheapest coffee and tea from hawker centres / coffee shops. Just that ordering them might be a little challenging, given that there are at least 16 combinations (to order coffee and tea, and in different languages too).

Here are handy lists

Kopi ordering guide

Teh ordering guide

NB: Don't order "kopi kosong / teh kosong", afaik, it doesn't exist because that's just teh / kopi. If you want a canned drink, just grab one and pay at the counter.

Places to visit

There's no need for me to list the nationally known touristy spots, but I'll do it anyway: Gardens by the Bay, Marina Bay Sands, Jewel, Marina Barrage -- generally the downtown area. It can be covered within a day if you're quick enough, and if you haven't been burnt by the heat.

Nature

What I can recommend are some lesser known nature areas for visiting (explore at your own risk, but these are generally just frequented by locals):

Central Catchment Nature Reserve

  • MacRitchie Reservoir — a 10km loop, where my high school cross country team used to train. Rather brutal for running, but pretty okay for hiking. Would recommend checking out the Treetop Walk. Monkeys in Macritchie = geese in Waterloo. Very plentiful, please don't feed them!

MacRitchie Reservoir

MacRitchie Reservoir at sunset
  • Upper and Lower Pierce Reservoirs — stone's throw away from MacRitchie. There's also a route that takes you through Upper Pierce and links you to Ranger Station in MacRitchie, which could bode very well for a long run.

If you're down for a hike, my suggestion would be to start early in the morning, cut the hike by noon (find your way to an exit along Upper Thomson Road), and then head to one of the cafes / food spots near Upper Thomson MRT station. There's a decent prata place, Chinese food, cafes, local dessert spots, etc.

Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

  • Much further away / less accessible, but would give you the same experience as above with more fauna. Known for migratory birds that hang out here when they are transiting (?)

Pulau Ubin

There are a great number of trails, running routes and park connectors that go across the entire island. I encourage you to check those out after you have exhausted the tourist bucket list! For instance, it's possible for you to hike / bike / run from Jewel, Changi Airport, to Upper Pierce Reservoir (and you can continue going up north to Woodlands from Bishan). But I guess that's best done with a friend.

Not-so-naturey

We might be out of luck here, but I would still recommend:

Shopping

Orchard Road is a must: you'll be well-served by figuring out the network of underground tunnels that connect between the different shopping malls so you don't have to break a sweat by walking outside. Within that area, my favourites are Don Don Donki and Takashimaya. Malls are great in Singapore, you can essentially spend the whole day in one of those larger ones (Plaza Singapura, VivoCity, etc).

Logistics

Cell Phone Plans

Data is dirt cheap in Singapore, as there are many players in the telco market. These include but are not limited to:

  1. The Big 4: Singtel, Starhub, M1, Simba
  2. Smaller players (still very decent coverage): circles.life, Gomo, eight, MyRepublic, etc. (which share the same networks as the Big 4)

I would recommend pre-loading an eSIM through Airalo / Nomad for Singapore before coming over, and then figuring out which plan (prepaid / postpaid) to get from which carrier. Afaik, Singtel has an international student plan.

Payment

Singapore is moving towards a cashless society. That means most vendors, including hawker vendors, would probably accept payment via the SGQR code. Locals will call this PayNow or Paylah! but you would require a NRIC for this. For restaurants, food stalls in malls, etc. you could just use Apple / Google Pay.

If you have a payment method with one of the following international payment partners, I believe you could pay directly within the app (I've not tried). Payment partners

One quick workaround if you don't have one of these listed above, is to download Grab (local superapp), and preload money there into Grab wallet. Grab QR code would be accepted as most places.

Transport

One thing I miss the most about Singapore apart from food is how punctual the trains (and the buses) are. They run very frequently, and it doesn't take you long to figure out how to get from one place to another on Google Maps. Unlike places in Japan where you could get on the wrong train since multiple trains in multiple lines share the same platform, Singapore has single-direction platforms (i.e. Platform A would always take you in the opposite direction to Platform B). So just check what Platform you're getting on at.

If you would like to get to a place quickly, Grab is the local equivalent of Uber. Alternatives to Grab include (in order of finding rides): Gojek, Tada, Ryde, Zig.

Culture

I would not attempt to unpack a country's culture in a few paragraphs, and I would add more information here when I find great, nuanced articles!

I half-jokingly believe that reverse racism to people from English speaking countries exists in Singapore. That is, simply because you're from North America / UK and you sound different, people might actually treat you nicer. Here's a reel that covers this (albeit fraught with Singlish expletives).

That being said, I think Singaporeans generally appreciate it when you are considerate in public areas. That means no talking loudly on the phone on the MRT, being mindful of your surroundings, keeping to the left (!) if you're slower.

Choping exists, there's no need to tip (although you are welcome to); just be considerate, basic courtesy and situational awareness will serve you well! You can generally tell if someone is displeased if they're staring at you for more than a couple seconds.

If you want first impressions from an outsider who hasn't visited Singapore before, you could check out this thread. Most people's first impressions of Singapore would come from the movie Crazy Rich Asians -- I've just watched it! Generally accurate depiction of sights and sounds in Singapore, just that if you're kakilang then you would know that some scenes don't make logical sense.

Conversation topics

  • When striking up conversation with Singaporeans, you could ask them:
    • How do you have fun? (Is that even a thing to ask??)
    • How traumatic was your A-Levels? (maybe not, but there is shared suffering in grinding for them)
    • Guys: Where did you serve in NS? What's your funniest story? What's the scariest?

Tech

AI Events

Interesting things you might not have known:

  1. EMNLP 2022 and ICLR 2025 were held in Singapore!
  2. Google DeepMind recently (Nov 2025) opened their office in Singapore, which is being led by Yi Tay.
  3. Vitalik Buterin probably resides in Singapore
  4. Network State School is right across the Second Link on Forest City Malaysia Johor
  5. You might find interesting people on nownownow.com.

Faith

I frequented Redemption Hill Church before coming to Canada. There is a great, welcoming (and diverse!) community of believers there. If you're new to the faith, or are simply interested to check RHC out, feel free to drop me a message, and I'll do my best to link you up with friends who are there.

Bands like CityAlight hold worship nights in Singapore!

Cities to visit around Singapore

Malaysia

  • Johor Bahru — literally a hop across the Causeway. If you didn't have enough food to eat already, you'll definitely get your fair share here. My personal favourite has to be this bakery for their red bean buns. Boosted by a strong exchange rate, you'll see many Singapore cars crossing into Malaysia (it is the busiest land border crossing in the world).
  • Kuala Lumpur

Indonesia

  • Bintan (ferry)
  • Batam (ferry)
  • Bali (flight) — overrated, imo (hot take!)
  • Bandung
  • Jakarta

Vietnam

  • Da Nang
  • Ho Chi Minh
  • Hanoi
  • Nha Trang

Thailand

  • Phuket
  • Bangkok
  • Chiang Mai

(you can probably ChatGPT the rest)

Budget airlines are competitive in the region, and Singapore is home base to Scoot. AirAsia, Jetstar Australia are all pretty decent options too.

After writing this, really miss Singapore sia.