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Raffles Hotel
Whatever ostentatious modern projects Singapore undertakes now or in the future, Raffles Hotel will likely always be its most famous landmark. There's just something about the sight of that snow-white façade, the brushed-gravel drive, the Sikh doorman, the whispers of history. Astonishing to think it was scheduled for demolition in 1987, before an around S$160 million facelift restored it to glory.
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Raffles Marina
As remote as it's possible to get from the city, Raffles Marina is a surreal world of clanging halyards, cawing birds and salty stories out in the industrial wastelands of Singapore's far west. Temporary home to travelling yachties and a few boat-dwelling residents, it's a great place to sit at sunset over dinner with a few beers - even better if you have a few seaman's tales to share.
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Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research
This small museum on the National University of Singapore campus honours Sir Stamford Raffles' work as a naturalist. There are stuffed and preserved examples of rare and locally extinct creatures, including a tiger, a leopard cat, Atlas moths as big as your face, and a 4.42m king cobra killed at the Singapore Country Club. It's not on the tourist trail, but it's worth the trip, especially if you combine it with the NUS Museums nearby.
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Reflections At Bukit Chandu
Commemorating the last stand of the Malay Regiment against the Japanese in 1942, and also a poignant ode to the old kampong days that have now totally vanished from Singapore. Combines first-hand accounts, contemporary artefacts such as old guns and helmets, films and dramatisations to describe the tragic and brutal battle that almost wiped the regiment out.
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Robertson Quay
Robertson Quay was once thronging with boat repairers and timber mills. Near Saigon Bridge are the river's last derelict godown (warehouses), held together with tree roots and rust - given Singapore's appetite for destruction, they won't last much longer! There's a healthy crop of hotels, nightclubs and restaurants clustered around here too.
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Royal Selangor Pewter Gallery
On the western end of Clarke Quay is the Royal Selangor Pewter Gallery. Singapore is devoid of natural resources like gold and silver - pewter is the next best thing. Take a tour (including pewtersmithing demo) then gawp at the shiny stuff in the retail cabinets. The gallery also runs pewtersmithing courses.
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Sakaya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple
In 1927 a Thai Buddhist monk founded the Sakaya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple, usually called the Temple of 1000 Lights. Inside is a 15m-high, 300-tonne Buddha alongside an eclectic collection of deities including Guan Yin, Chinese Goddess of Mercy, and Hindu deities Brahma and Ganesh. At the base of the Buddha's back is a door into a prayer room. Around the Buddha's base are 'Buddha - This Is Your Life!' models - and at least 1000 electric lights.
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Sentosa 4d Magix
Now a global theme park standard, somehow movies in which things fly past your nose and spray water in your face never lose their appeal. Good fun.
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Sentosa Island
Half a kilometre off the Singapore coast is this unfailingly popular resort. The Brits turned the island into a military fortress in the late 1800s. In 1967 it was returned to the government who developed it into a holiday resort. Like its imported sand and piped tin-drum renditions of Summer Holiday, Sentosa is almost entirely synthetic, but kids love the flashy rides and there are some substantial museums and activities for adults to chew on.
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Singapore Art Museum
Magnificently restored, the Singapore Art Museum houses one of the finest collections of Southeast Asian art, both traditional and contemporary, and also hosts frequent travelling exhibitions. Major local artists such as Lim Tze Peng and Chen Chong Swee are also represented.
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Singapore Botanic Gardens
It sounds like an experiment from Frankenstein, but 'Connecting Plants with People' is the catchcry at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Wide green spaces like these are rare in Singapore - perfect for jetlag recovery, picnics, reading a paper or just wandering around aimlessly.
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Singapore City Gallery
The Urban Redevelopment Authority's Singapore City Gallery provides an insight into the government's hell-bent policies of high-rise housing and land reclamation. Highlights include an 11m x 11m scale model of the city, a cheesy 'Know Your Singapore' audiovisual display, and a voyeuristic bird's-eye-view roof camera.
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Singapore Flyer
This is the world's largest observation wheel (beating the London Eye by 30m) and one of the key Marina Bay developments. The 30-minute ride is best done on a clear blue day, or on a clear night, when the lights of Indonesia and Malaysia frame the spectacular pan-Singapore views.
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Singapore Science Centre
The kids might moan when they hear the name, but once unleashed inside they'll probably forget science is boring. A huge collection of interactive exhibits, covering subjects such as outer space, the human body and visual illusions, plus frequent travelling exhibitions, can swallow up a entire day, especially if coupled with Snow City and the Omni theatre screening IMAX films.
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Singapore Tyler Print Institute
The white-walled, polished concrete spaces of the Singapore Tyler Print Institute hosts international and local exhibits, showcasing the work of resident print- and paper-makers. Exhibitions often have a 'how to' component, and there's an impressive programme of visual arts courses year-round.
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Singapore Zoo
This zoo is world-class, and is constantly being upgraded. The zoo's showpiece animals include endangered white rhino, Bengal white tigers, polar bears, baboons and orang-utans. Wherever possible, moats replace bars, and the zoo is beautifully spread out over 28 hectares of lush greenery beside the Upper Seletar Reservoir.
Highlights are many - from the moment you step in to be greeted by free-ranging cotton-top tamarins and white-faced sakis and siamangs cavorting in the trees.
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Songs Of The Sea
Extravagant light and sound show set around a replica Malay fisherman's village. The location and the visual effects are stunning but the Lloyd-Webber-esque theatricality veers towards the cheesy.
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Sri Mariamman Temple
Paradoxically in the middle of Chinatown, Sri Mariamman is the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore, originally built in 1823, then rebuilt in 1843. You can't miss the incredible technicolour 1930s gopuram (tower) above the entrance, key to the temple's South-Indian Dravidian style. Sacred cow sculptures graze the boundary walls, while the gopuram is covered in over-the-top images of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer.
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Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple
Dating from 1855, this is one of the city's most important temples. If you're here in February for the Thaipusam Festival, the procession of devotees, with spikes and skewers driven through their bodies, begins under the temple's gopuram (entrance tower).
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Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple
Dazzlingly colourful, the bustling Shaivite Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple is dedicated to Kali, bloodthirsty consort of Shiva. Kali's always been big in Bengal, birthplace of the labourers who built this temple in 1881. Inside, Kali is pictured draped with skulls, disembowelling victims, and in calm repose with her sons Ganesh and Murugan.
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Sultan Mosque
Kampong Glam's gold-domed epicentre is Sultan Mosque, named after Raffles' buddy Sultan Hussein Shah. Originally built in 1825 with a grant from Raffles and the East India Company, it was replaced 100 years later with the current edifice. The prayer hall can accommodate 5000 worshippers; a glaring red digital clock compromises the atmosphere a little, but at least everybody knows when to pray.
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Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall
An 1880s Victorian villa, the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall was once the residence of Sun Yat Sen, celebrated Chinese revolutionary republican leader. Biographic displays trace his life in great detail from birth, education and revolution to his famed three tenets of society: nationalism, rights and livelihood. Bus 145 or 139 from Toa Payoh bus interchange stops on Balestier Rd nearby.
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Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
A 87-hectare nature reserve in far northwest Singapore overlooking the Strait of Johor, and home to 140 species of birds. It's been declared a nature reserve and recognised as a sanctuary of international importance as part of the East Asia Flyway.
The best time for viewing birds is before and if you go on a weekday the reserve is blissfully serene. Be prepared for encounters with several monitor lizards, some of them unnervingly large, and sightings of playful otter families hunting fish.
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The Battle Box
Site of the former headquarters of the British Malaya Command, now a museum recreating the last hours before the fall of Singapore to the Japanese on February 15, 1942, using reasonably lifelike wax figures and unsettling audio effects simulating the bombing.
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The National University of Singapore Museums
The National University of Singapore Museums houses an impressive collection. On the ground floor is the Lee Kong Chian Art Museum with exhibitions spanning 7000 years of Chinese art. The South & Southeast Asian Gallery features art, textiles and sculptures from across the region. Upstairs, the Ng Eng Teng Gallery displays works by Ng Eng Teng, one of Singapore's foremost artists specialising in imaginative, sometimes surreal, bodily depictions.
Read more about The National University of Singapore Museums
