Mayhem of a First Trip to Singapore
So as I mentioned in my previous post, I did go on a trip to Singapore last May. It was my first time being out of Hong Kong that isn't the Philippines or Macau. Though much of it was because of the Lady Gaga concert, we got to squeeze in a bit of time to enjoy touristy things.
It was May 15th I finished packing my bags. I had my Canon mirrorless in my backpack along with essentials and five days worth of clothing in my luggage including the outfit I bought and prepared just for the concert. Took myself to Clem's for the night so it would be easier to get to the airport together. I had a bit of a dilemma on whether or not I should bring my vape pen considering my heavy reliance on that vice at the time. I eventually decided to leave it at Clem's the morning we left for the airport just so it would be easier to get in and out past immigration on both ends.
DAY 1 - May 16th, we met up with Kenneth at the Hong Kong International Airport where we were a few hours early for our flight. Got our luggages dropped off and then decided we'd get McDonald's. After that we went through immigration and since we still had time to kill, we decided to roam around the departure area. For the first time I got to see the skybridge where if you look down it was glass flooring so it offered a view of airplanes taxiing to the runway.
We got to our gate just in time for boarding and then got seated on the plane. I sat between Clem and Kenneth on the left side of the plane and for the most part I just watched Wicked on the entertainment system. With the pilot announcement interruptions and boredom, I tried to be funny with it by lipsyncing to the pilot announcement. By late noon we landed in Singapore and had to struggle a bit just to find King. King was on the far end of Changi Airport and we were on the other. Give or take maybe a good half hour we finally met up and was safely in transit to our hotel at the heart of Chinatown. Clem booked our Grabcar for convenience and the sights to see from the airport to the hotel were so amazing. I didn't know that Singapore had such a good patch of greenery. Of course the architectural marvel of Marina Bay Sands and the buildings in that area were impressive as well. In the middle of the car ride I started filming for a vlog.
"So today we are transiting..." to which Clem and King in unison interject "TRANS?!" and we all burst out laughing.
We finally got to check into our hotel at Furama City Center and decided to go to the nearby Chinatown Point Mall. Clem took us to have Song Fa bak kut teh lunch. The soup very much reminded me of home in the Philippines called nilaga. Garlicky and peppery pork bone broth. It was delicious and Clem had taught us to eat it with this sweet soy sauce dip which was as thick as syrup. After lunch, Kenneth had to excuse himself to go meet *someone* . Clem paid for lunch. Then me, King, and him all roamed the mall to kill a bit of time. I got help from Clem buying a local tourist sim card because I couldn't put my phone into roaming for how expensive it was. After that we got back to our hotel room to rest for a bit and then met up with Blake — who is Clem's best friend from Singapore.
Blake is someone who me and Kenneth had already met back in February in Hong Kong during Chinese New Year and he's a very handsome and tall man who has the same level of awkward as Clem, which in turn why I can see them totally becoming best friends.
As we were on our way to dinner, we heard the MRT announcer say "Fort Canning" to which for no reason whatsoever, me and King just burst out laughing uncontrollably. Randomly during the trip anyone of us would say "Fort Canning" and we would be laughing for absolutely no reason at all. Among this weird turn, it was also worth mentioning that I kept randomly bursting into song with just the lyrics "Pay the toll" randomly anywhere because of really stupid Instagram reel I saw where the song 'Abracadabra' just stops after "Pay the toll" and Lady Gaga was edited to be in the middle of a highway tollbooth.
We met Blake inside the train to which him and Clem hugged. We got to the restaurant for dinner. During dinnertime we also met Blake's friend called Jason. Jason is another handsome man who had a muscular build. What stood out for me about Jason is that he looked very red when we met him, almost like he just came out of a tanning session. We had seafood for the most part and Kenneth came in late because of *some stuff* that he did back in the hotel.
After dinner we had a short time to rest and got back to the hotel to where Jason borrowed our shower for a bit. We walked past Chinatown Point Mall and bought milk tea and then waited for the bus outside to go to our night out places. Blake brought us to Toilet Restroom Bar. I was weirded out because it had this booth outside that looked like restroom cubicles but the wall was literally a two-way mirror where people can see you from inside. It was a cool photo spot but we didn't take photos. We got in and got to meet some of Blake's friends including his ex, Adrian, who looked like a cat. Daniel, who was really cool. He also bought me that vape c/o Clem. After Restroom we went to Lluvia where I remember I had a very petty fight with King which I won't elaborate any further. Lluvia was this bear-karaoke bar where gay bears got together for songs and alcohol. It had a great vibe and I felt very welcomed. I got to see some familiar faces from Instagram in that place. When we were done with Lluvia, I kissed King goodbye as he said he was gonna go back to the hotel room then me along with Kenneth, Clem, Jon, Blake, and the other Instagram-familiars — we all went straight to Rabbit's Hole.
Considering it was a Lady Gaga weekend, Rabbit's Hole was absolutely packed with Lady Gaga fans and tourists who were in Singapore for the concert. They had live music outside and drag performers for the stage inside. It got to a point where it was really hot inside that the group I was with started taking their clothes off. Me being me, I went out of my way to lose them because I was uncomfortable and opposed to the concept of going shirtless inside clubs unless you're a performer. I roamed the place alone for the rest of the night and just enjoyed the live music outside. When it was I think already 2 or 3am, found Clem's group outside and chilled a bit more with them just listening and watching the live band. Everyone outside was smoking and since Singapore had this law where vapes are banned, Clem told me to be more discreet everytime I tried to get a puff out of the vape. When the night was mostly done, told Clem I wanted to go back to the hotel and we ultimately left Kenneth without saying another word because he was busy *meeting somebody again* that night. We got back to the hotel and just crashed.
DAY 2 - It was May 17th as I kissed King good morning as he left for the gym and we tried to figure out where we should be going after. The four of us ended up going out at 2 in the afternoon to meet Blake for lunch. We went to Novena Square 2 and decided to do some window shopping at Don Don Donki while we waited for Blake. After that, we met Blake for dimsum at TungLok Teahouse where we enjoyed a variety of dimsum to which I agree is better tasting than Hong Kong's (by a margin). After lunch we got on a train to Orchard Road and then decided to just walk around there inside the malls. We walked all the way from Wisma Atria to 313@somerset—the sequel to Azealia Banks' song '212', and had a group photo op moment on the tree-lined sidewalk of the Penang Road Open Space. We walked so much that we needed to chill off a bit so we stopped by Lazada One to get some bubble tea. After discussing plans of meeting for the evening we got onto the Bencoolen train station and got back to our hotel.
Later on in the night we met with Blake at Orchard Plaza and had the absolutely biggest banh mi I have ever had. Prior to partying, Blake gave us his preworkout to drink and we were all really buzzed for the night. Day 2 was a bit short in the sense that the rest of the night was spent just partying at Drip for yet again another Lady Gaga night. The space was really dimly lit and it felt like we were at the basement of a really old building but the space definitely served its purpose. On the far right of the bar was a giant sculpted head. At the far left was the other exit. We danced for a bit by the stage and then eventually ordered our drinks when it started getting crowded. I couldn't believe this was where I met Vice Ganda. Among the drag queens that showed up, a Lady Gaga impersonator with a botched nose and was a bit too tall, who the Drip IG page hyped as the real Lady Gaga, also showed up. The space went from spacious and air-conditioned to absolutely packed and sweaty, which is apt considering that the place is named Drip, because you will definitely be dripping with sweat by the end of the night. I got to meet more Instagram familiars and then continued on with the night. The heat got really bad that people started taking off their shirts as expected. King and Kenneth headed back to the hotel early. Dan also left. By the end of the night it was just me, Jon, Blake, and Clem. Clem ordered a Grabcar and the Grabcar got lost inside the Concorde hotel and we couldn't find where it was. We got back to our hotel room after maybe 2am and then watched a bit of Dan Da Dan with everyone in the same room.
DAY 3 - May 18th is concert day! It was a very blurry morning as we had planned to be out and about to sightsee. We got bread from the nearby bakery and then headed to Starbucks for some coffee. After that, we decided to go to Singapore's National Museum, which was mostly closed for renovations. Then went for a small lunch of hotpot and then went back to the hotel to rest. Late afternoon we were already dressed for the concert but we had to meet up with the Singapore bears first for a pre-concert group dinner. Through the rain we walked from the restaurant to get on the train to National Stadium. When we reached the stadium we got separated into our original smaller groups. I was with King, Clem, and Kenneth and immediately we queued for the merch line. At the time we did not know that there was also a queue for merch inside because nobody had said anything about it so we did a lot of waiting until it was almost the concert. We got out of the queue a good 15 minutes before the show was scheduled to start and then me and Clem got separated from King and Kenneth as Kenneth needed to get to a toilet. While me and Clem were going down the stadium stairs, the place was so hot like I was inside of an oven so I had to have my portable Jisulife fan at maximum the whole time. A girl who was in front of me got her hair caught in my fan and I was apologizing profusely after I turned it off as it had suddenly smelled like something was burning. Finally got down from the stairs to the floor seats and greeted Blake and some other friends. By the time me and Clem found our seats, to my surprise, RODNEY out of all people sits behind us. (For context, Rodney is another friend we have in Manila.) Not a few minutes later King and Kenneth also arrive to which King gave me the middle finger for not waiting for them which I think was deserved. Told King to look behind me and he was also aptly surprised to find Rodney. They had a bit of catch up and then the show finally started.
I have waited for this moment my entire life to watch Lady Gaga in concert. From start to finish I had no notes. I was screaming. I was jumping. I was singing along; and then I was ugly-crying to Blade of Grass thinking about marrying King in the future. Finally, I was singing along again. I could not even put into words how amazing the entire concert was.
After the concert ended we slowly made our way back out of the stadium and met up with Blake for a late night post-concert McDonald's. There we talked about the whole trip and which parts we enjoyed the most about which days. For the night I felt so much joy but at the same time I was sad that the next day we were going to leave Singapore. I uploaded my concert footage onto my IG stories and called it a night after packing all of my stuff.
DAY 4 - It was time to leave. Sad. We all went to the airport together and started talking about the whole trip and further daydream of planning future trips outside of HK/PH. We got to explore Jewel Changi for the first time since arriving, ironically, and from there we went around the malls and bought souvenirs like Famous Amos cookies. King had his flight postponed to midnight so by the time we got to the departure area we hugged him to say goodbye and to see him on his next trip back to Hong Kong. For the remainder of the time we had left in Singapore, we had coffee and walked straight to our gate. The waiting area was empty because everyone else had already boarded the plane. Got to our seats and woefully sulked as the trip is over. By the time we got to our homes in Hong Kong, King was still exploring Singapore going to tourist spots we never got to explore. I can't wait to go back again with everyone.