Singapore: Visit 2: Travelogue

Last week (May 17 - 25), I was in Singapore for business and travel. I attended Casual Connect Asia and some business meetings for the most part and travelled around the city during the rest. It was my second trip there, you can read about my first trip in this post.

Without further ado, here’s the travelogue:

(Bad pictures alert: I had forgotten my DSLR at home.)

Started towards the IGI Airport at about 7pm in the evening to head for the flight towards Singapore on 16th May. The boarding process went pretty smoothly, unlike last time.

Landed safe and sound in Singapore. Everything at the airport was closed though, since I landed at like 6.30am. My flight had arrived 30 minutes before its scheduled arrival. Spent some time wrapping up my presentation for the lecture at Casual Connect. Had some expensive coffee at Starbucks at the airport and at about 10am, went on towards my Hostel: Woke Home Capsule Hostel on South Bridge Road, Clarke Quay. Checked in there, and went on to have a sandwich at Subway at The Central, Clarke Quay. It was a little expensive, but tasted pretty good.

I was tired after a long flight and hadn’t had much sleep in the past two days so I decided to crash for some time. I slept for some time and went to Vivo City towards the evening.

Had a walk around the Sentosa Sidewalk. Experienced shopping at a Daiso store, and got some magnetic items for Huerons.

The best part was food! Had some ramen, chicken teriyaki and fried fish bento at Food Republic, VivoCity.

The day started off with some great breakfast I had at the basement of Clark Quay Central – a place I had discovered after lunch yesterday at Subway (too bad). Had dumpling soup, which tasted quite good. It rained for quite a while and was stuck at The Central for quite some time because none of the shops sold an umbrella!

As the rain subsided, I walked in a random direction and discovered Funan Digilife Mall in my way. I had visited the mall last year, and it has some exciting stock of games, toys and comic books. Went in and checked out some cool toys and electronics.

Had lunch at Food Junction, after which I boarded the bus and headed towards Mustafa Center, Little India. It was huge place that sold items that I couldn’t even think about! Managed to find an umbrella there, which would prove to be very useful the next day!

Met Asar (the developer behind the award winning game Petite) and members of Ogre Head Studios (the team behind making of the game Asura) there. We walked towards Arab Street and had Chicken Shawarma and Falafel. It was amazing! We eventually headed back to the place where others were staying: at B88 hostel. We talked for some time and showed our games to each other. By aroun 9.30, I headed towards my place and dined at Burger King at The Central, Clarke Quay (all other stores were sadly closed).

All in all, a very tiring, yet exciting day!

Checked out early from my hostel in Clarke Quay, and headed towards Evan Hostel, where my stay was sponsored by Casual Connect for 4 days. Took the bus from Clarke Quay to get there.

The place looked amazing! It looked almost like a school. Our rooms looked pretty sweet. I headed out eventually, since I had a meeting scheduled with a potential publisher.

I headed out to Chinatown to meet a potential publisher. Fortunately, there was a direct bus to get there. Chinatown, especially Pagoda Street was beautiful. I had stayed here last year and coming here again was like revisiting memories! We met over a coffee at a local coffee shop. The local coffee tasted different but it was great. We talked for some time about publishing opportunities in Asia.

After the meeting, I headed out to have some food. I headed towards Orchard and discovered an exciting food court in the Basement Level 4 of ION Orchard. It was called Food Opera. I had some Thai Chicken Noodles. It tasted great.

I went on for a walk towards Shangri-la Hotel, where a Pre-Funk party and badge collection was scheduled at about 7pm. Met some local indies there, collected my badge and had a few drinks.

I left early, as I was quite tired from walking all day long. Headed towards Starbucks to get some coffee and rehearse my talk for the next day. It had me quite worried.

Towards the end of the day, it started to rain very heavily, but thanks to the umbrella I had bought the previous day, I saved myself from getting drenched. I took a cab back to the hostel and began planning for the next day, especially the lecture and the indie showcase.

Casual Connect had begun today. Woke up early at about 6.30 and rehearsed my talk. I was very sure I was going to screw it up. Freshened up and had breakfast and by 9am, started walking towards Shangri-la (it was about a 20 minute walk away). Setup my showcase desk, and showed around the game to a few people. By 12.30pm, I had lunch and went to the Ballroom Banyon, where my lecture was scheduled at 2.30pm. The three lectures that were scheduled before me were pretty good. With the blink of an eye, it was 2.30pm, and it was lecture time! I have no clue what I spoke or what happened in the next 20 minutes, but after it was over, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Went back to my desk, where I got some feedback about my game from some people. By the end of the day, all of us headed for the party at Shanghai Dolly.

Had some food and beers at the party and some of us decided to head out to sightsee the nearby areas and come back to the party later (since it was supposed to last till 1am).

Went to the nearby book store called Kinokuniya at Liang Court, which sold tons of manga (both Japanese and English) and western comic books. They also sold tons of other books which are a rare sight at the book stores in Delhi.

We decided to dine at a Japanese restaurant downstairs. It was called Tonkotsu Kazan Ramen. Ordered some Shoyu Ramen and Gyoza. The best part about the restaurant was the ambience. It seemed almost as if I was in Japan! I could hear and recognize some terms like itadakimasu, gochisousama desu, arigatou gozaimasu and yoroshiku onegaishimasu. It was fun!

After dinner, we took the MRT and decided to head back to the hostel, instead of going back to the party.

Day 2 at Casual Connect had a delayed start. We reached Shangri-la by 10am after breakfast at the hostel. I attended the talks, met with some potential publishers and played other games. A lot of games were really great and innovative. Late in the afternoon, I attended a fun session called Game Slam. It was an interactive session where people presented their games, and one of the industry veterans would criticise the game, and the player had to defend it.

By evening, me and two others who had spoken at the event (Diptoman from Zombies Indie House and Sandeep from Sandyloisa) went to attend the speaker dinner. It was fun interacting with other speakers.

After a while headed for the Indie Prize Award Ceremony at TAB, Orchard Road. The ceremony was a new addition to Casual Connect Asia, and was pretty exciting.

There were a couple of indie games nominated from India and one of the games: Petite (developed by Asar and Vishesh from Seven Summits Studio) won the Best Story Award. And of course, there was beer! It was an event that inspired me to make great games.

We headed back to the hostel after the award ceremony.

Day 3 at Casual Connect had kind of fallen into the same routine of the past two days. The attendance on Day 3 was a lot lesser than the first two days and there were just two conference tracks.

By evening, beer and wine was being served. We headed out early and decided to hang out and have fun at Funan Digilife Mall. It was a hub of games, toys and comic books, everything like-minded people like us could fancy about!

We checkout out some toys and games at the stores on Level 5 of Funan. It was an amazing experience. At the food court in Funan (Food Junction), we tried some new cuisines of food which tasted great.

However, the dessert we bought tasted rather bitter and like a medicine! Don't judge a book (or a dessert) by its cover!

Later, we took the MRT back to the hostel and prepared for the next day's adventures.

Day 7 started a little early. We had a meeting scheduled with GSC (Games Solution Center) at Ayer Rajah Cres. (a place near One-North MRT) at 10am. GSC is an incubator for gaming companies based in Singapore that provides them with office space, hardware and software to help make games. The companies can also apply for funding from the Singapore government, which has been taking a great initiative in development of new media based products (games, film, art).

At about 11am, I left from GSC and headed towards a second trip towards Clarke Quay, where I had a meeting scheduled with another publisher over lunch. By the time I got there, it had started to rain, and I got to experience the same event (rain near the river promenade at Clarke Quay) twice. We ate at an Italian restaurant, which went by the name Borgata Trattoria Osteria. The pizza tasted very fresh and delicate to taste. Have never had such great pizza before in India! Later, we went to Starbucks to get some coffee.

Towards the evening, I headed back to Evan Hostel and packed my stuff and got ready for checkout. I headed to a place called The Hive, Boon Keng on Serangoon Road. It was evening already and I was pretty tired, so we played some games at the hostel. Street Fighter, Need for Speed: Most Wanted and the likes on the XBox 360 that the hostel had provided.

By night, we began looking out for places to eat. We discovered that there was another Food Republic at City Square Mall near Farrer Park MRT. We headed there to get some food.

I woke up at about 10am (pretty late) and by 11am, I headed towards another trip to VivoCity.

Had late breakfast (Karaage Udon) at Food Republic @ VivoCity, and started looking around some shops. I discovered a shop that was about to close down and was selling everything it had at at least 50% off its mentioned price.

I was on a low budget, but managed to steal some stuff! (Some figures from Death Note and a Cyndaquil plush.)

Headed back to the hostel to meet up with others (who hadn't been awake yet!) We roamed around the place and had lunch at City Square Mall, Farrer Park (again at Food Republic).

By evening, everyone decided to head out to Pulau Ubin, an island north-west of Singapore, but I decided to stay back at the hostel. Met Asar and we decided to hang out and visit some places. We had some snacks at the Boon Keng Market (near Boon Keng MRT). The market had lots of stuff at low prices. I wanted to get one or two of Pitayas (Dragonfruits) to bring back home, but missed out.

We took the MRT to Orchard. At ION Orchard, we went through a lot of confusion and difficulty in selecting which place to dine at. We decided to have a little snack. We ordered the limited GodZilla pizza, which looked and tasted magnificent!

Eventually, we decided to dine at Menya Kaiko, a Japanese restaurant at B4 ION Orchard, famous for its Hokkaido Ramen. The food was slightly expensive, but good.

Early next morning, we packed our stuff and took the MRT to Changi Airport. The flight was due to depart at 9.15 am. The check-in queue was pretty long, but I managed to check-in and board the flight on time. Six long hours later, I had landed at IGI Airport, Delhi.

An exciting journey had come to an end. :(

But on the bright side, many more such journeys will follow up this year and onwards. :)