Colorful Buildings and Lushful Sang Nila Utama Garden

It's our third day in Singapore and it's a free day, we can go wherever we want, and there were no scheduled tours with my husband's company. So, we thought we could get to some places that I searched would be good to visit and explore. I did the research and it was inevitable to get lost during the trip but it's fine, we did manage to go to the places we wanted to go but without inconvenience. I will tell you later or in another blog.

First on our list is the colorful Old Hill Street Police Station. We took a bus to go there. The middle road is just nearby where our hotel was located so it didn't take us long to reach this spot.

And because it was still about nine in the morning when we arrived here, there were no other tourists around at the spot where we got down from the bus. Also, the visit here is just for a photo opportunity, we didn't have plans to go inside the building!

So right there at the bus stop, we took our photos. My parents and my husband together with my son took turns. While its name suggests that it is a police station, it is now home to the Ministry of Communications and Information and the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth.

This was fun and quick, we immediately moved on to our next stop which was the Clark Quay. We were just after the view of the Singapore River and it's just nearby, we walked a few minutes and took the underpass going to the other side.

So from Hill Street, we walked towards River Valley Road, and just there, we found a view of Elgin and Coleman Bridge. We walked past the Elgin bridge and stopped by in front of the Singapore River for some pictures!

Right here we have a view of the river and surprisingly, Marina Bay Sands can be seen from here! It surely looked awesome and so I asked my parents to sit there so I could take photos of them. My husband was still left at Old Hill Street because he was taking videos.

Here's a view of Clark Quay. You might notice the boats there, this is where tourists can buy tickets for the Singapore river cruise tour and the boats are also docked here. It would have been nice if we had time to also do a river cruise! Opposite to it is the Clark Quay Central shopping center.

Because it was still very early, there were no people around here. Even looking at Clark Quay, it's pretty quiet at that time. I have seen photos online and found that the best time to go for a river cruise is at night so you'll get a good night view of Singapore's skyscrapers!

More photos of the place:

When the husband arrived, we proceed to our next destination by foot and that was Fort Canning Park. We are really intrigued by this garden within the park so we have to take the overpass and then take the foothills.

The colorful Old Hill Street Police Station can be seen now on our right as we were passing by. The trees at the road aisle too on the left looked really pretty!

I had to pause and enjoy the nice view. It's a contrast of skyscrapers at the back and the greenery right on the road. I really like seeing green trees even if this city is highly urbanized.

We had a stroller for Matti so we got that set up as he didn't want to walk, we carried it while taking the overpass then as we get into the foothills, we let him ride it again. It's really an effort when traveling with a toddler but thankfully, this stroller was lightweight, except that we left it at Mactan Airport on our way home!

But it didn't take long before we reached the Raffles Garden. Raffles has greatly contributed to Singapore. We learned at the National Museum about his life while in Singapore but to give you brief information, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles instituted the administration of justice to ensure peace and order in the thriving settlement. He founded the Resident Court, appointed magistrates, and implemented a trial by jury. In addition, he instituted the abolishment of activities such as public gambling, slavery, and cock-fighting, he is known mostly for founding modern-day Malaysia and Singapore.

There are a lot of flags in front of this building but based on the information here, the original house was made of wood and it was where Raffles lived during his stay in Singapore. This structure has been rebuilt and now it's made of brick and tile and is used as the residence of subsequent colonial governors.

Right next to the Raffles Garden is the Fort Canning Lighthouse. But one thing to note is that this garden has a botanic and experimental garden. It was Raffles who started it and it still continues to this day. Walking around the garden, you'll see the lush presence of plants and trees!

There are benches around situated at tree bases and other spots where guests and tourists can sit and relax while enjoying the fresh air and the view. You'll get a lot of instagrammable spots here too! I asked my husband to take the wood bridge and pose while I take a photo of him there. It's cool!

Finally, we reached our next destination of the day which was Sang Nila Utama Garden. This is another spot that you would think is in Bali but nope, it's just in the heart of Singapore! Sang Nila Utama was a Srivijayan prince from Palembang and is the founder of the Kingdom of Singapura in 1299

There were no people around when we reached this spot. So we took the opportunity to take our photos until some tourists arrived as we were still trying to set up our camera, they took their photos but they were taking so long so we explored other spots again for a group picture.

There are many ponds in this garden and huge pots too! It's interesting in fact to see the red bricks all over the area. There are also fishes in the ponds and some random animal statues can be spotted too if one is just careful to check.

We found a lot of things while touring on foot in this spot, from the colorful building of Old Hill Street Police Station to a great river view at Clark Quay, a historical tour around Raffles Garden and an ancient view of Sang Nila Utama Garden. We accomplished a lot and now it was time for lunch!

Fort Canning Park is actually a huge place, I don't think we can still get to the other spot that I would like to check out - The Fort Canning Tree Tunnel which is very Instagram-able because of its spiral staircase, well I guess we will go there the next day instead.

From Sang Nila Utama Garden, we were now on the search for Plaza Singapura to meet up with a family friend! I'll post about that in the next article!