Wrapping up the five-blog-series of my Singapore year-end trip features a last-minute shopping spree in Chinatown in search of souvenirs, followed by the New Year's Eve Countdown at Marina Bay Sands, all held on the last day of 2024. Is this the best way to end the year? Find out by reading below.
Notes:
- This blog is the last (Day 4) of five parts of our 2024 Singapore Year-End Trip, spanning from Days 1 to 4. See these links for our flights, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.
- Exchange rates between currencies are: 1 Philippine peso = 0.017 USD and 0.023 SGD.
- I apologize for the late posting of this blog due to academic constraints and other circumstances.
Chinatown shopping!
We left our Bukit Merah residence at 13:00 and rode a bus to Chinatown. Various shops and souvenir stores can be found in this ethnic district, including an OG department store and several gift shops.
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| Chinatown on a gloomy New Year’s Eve afternoon. |
We then strolled around the ethnic district; we even ended up buying three Mixue ice creams for S$10.50 (US$7.76, 456.52 pesos)! Mixue has been familiar to us when we kept buying their desserts near our house back in the Philippines.
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| A Mixue ice cream snack to refresh ourselves! |
We then went to a store to buy and bring home souvenirs. There were even letter keychains we bought for my schoolteachers back in the Philippines. My mom also had a slice of the souvenirs, whom she gave to her friends in the workforce. We bought around 20 of the letter keychains, and a few other souvenirs, totaling S$101.10 (US$74.73, around 4,400 pesos).
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| An example of a letter keychain we bought in Chinatown as pasalubong. |
After 1.5 hours of strolling, we rode the MRT to Bugis to by some packs of IRVINS Salted Egg potato chips. As rain drizzled the city, we doubted on how the countdown events would be executed. Fortunately, it subsided just in time for preparatory events leading to the countdown. We returned to Chinatown an hour later for our last dinner of 2024: a dumplings meal with fried rice!
Soon after, at 18:57, we rode a bus back to our residence to rest and prepare for the countdown.
New Year's Countdown to 2025 at Marina Bay
After resting for a few hours, we left at 21:30 and rode a taxi to Marina Bay Sands. Upon arriving, some areas of The Shoppes, including the Expo and Convention Center, were closed off for crowd control management. Security was tight that they also closed the exit to the Event Plaza — where the fountain lights and sound show, Spectra (more information here), is held nightly.
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| The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, two hours before midnight. Some (or most) escalators to the other levels were also cordoned off for security reasons, including access to the casino (on the right). |
We then walked for around 25 minutes to the other end of the mall, which was the only exit open for access to the outdoor area where the countdown would be staged. When we exited, barricades forced people to exit in a "zigzag" way; security officials later decided to remove them altogether as crowds increased. I heard some joyful screaming as the barricades were removed one by one.
The countdown event was part of ONE Countdown 2025, which was held concurrently across 17 locations in the city-state. The countdown parties were the first events that ushered into the sixtieth anniversary of Singapore's independence, also known as SG60.
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| Our viewing point beside the ArtScience Museum resulted in a partial obstruction of the sky (and some fireworks). |
We eventually settled our viewing point beside the ArtScience Museum as huge crowds made us unable to proceed further. This gave us a partially obstructed view of the sky.
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| The third pre-midnight fireworks displays some twenty minutes before midnight. |
A first round of fireworks went off at 23:06. There were three pre-midnight fireworks displays in the lead-up to the new year. I was surprised on this, and despite being pre-announced days before, I learned that the displays were actually all staged and was part of the main event itself. The second chapter began at 23:20, and the last at 23:39.
Happy New Year!
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| Fireworks ring off the new year in front of Marina Bay Sands shortly after midnight of January 1, 2025. Fireworks erupted with us celebrating jubilantly. The stroke of midnight marked the start of Singapore’s sixtieth anniversary celebrations, also known as SG60, which would last for the entire calendar year from January to December. After ten minutes, the fireworks made their last appearance, but some moments later, another set of fireworks simultaneously exploded at 00:09.
We then waited for the crowd to disperse. Hundreds of thousands watched within our area, but the total estimate is far beyond that, because the area surrounding Marina Bay Sands was jam-packed; police closed some fully crowded areas including the Esplanade.
Train services were extended for the convenience of crowds from the countdown events. This was the case every year in Singapore, but in the Philippines, railway lines close at 19:00 for operators to give time for their staff to celebrate the holidays with the families. However, because Singapore's MRT is wide and complex (unlike the small coverage in Manila), there exists the need to extend services until 02:15.
Deciding against riding the MRT at Bayfront station because the entrance that we were passing beside was temporarily used for exits only. We then walked for half an hour to the next station, Marina Bay. It was less crowded than the stations surrounding the Marina Bay Sands area. We then rode the MRT back to our Bukit Merah residence but had to walk a few kilometers as bus services plying the avenue in front of our residence ended for the day. After a short sleep, we left at 08:30 following a short breakfast, to catch up for our flight to Manila at 11:00. Read it here and scroll down to the section of our return flight. For more updates, visit my blog site and subscribe to my YouTube channel, Enzo's Travel Journals! |
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