Changi Airport is the pride of Singapore has been crowned as the best airport in the world for 6 consecutive years from 2013 to 2018.
Jewel, the newest pride of Singapore was previously parking area at Terminal 1. Today, it transformed to the luxurious 10-storey glass dome with the tallest indoor waterfall Vortex surrounded by beautiful lush greenery, Yotelair, Cinema, Retail stores, Restaurants, Cafes and more.
Rain Vortex & Sky Trains inside the dome and Changi Control Tower at the background.
Being a part of Changi Airport and connected to T1, T2 & T3, Jewel offers convenient airport facilities for passengers to catch their flights.
Early & Fast Check-in Counters.
Why not drop the heavy lugage here and explore Jewel...
Gardens by the bay especially at Cloud Forest because of the misty Cloud Forest Waterfall looks quite similar to Forest Valley in Jewel. For your info, 40m high Rain Vortex with gorgeous light show when the sky turns dark is now crowned as the tallest indoor waterfall in the world, after 30m tall misty Cloud Forest Waterfall at Gardens by the bay stepped down to the second place.
Pokemon merchandise store, Nike with full product showcase, Duplex Muji store
and second largest Uniqlo store in Singapore @Jewel Changi.
The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands is a shopping mall which also has a smaller Rain Vortex. However, The Shoppes housing mostly Luxury Brands, while Jewel has more pocket-friendly shops. For me, most of the time it's just window shopping at The Shoppes, while here I can shop without feeling quilty.
I highly recommend The Canopy Park as it is a theraupatic place
to relax before boarding confined planes.
Delightful meals of either delectable local food or
unique cuisines are ready to pamper your stomach.
For those passengers with time-constraint, please check the queueing time until the food is served. This is to make sure that you don't miss your flight as it might takes up to 2 hours especially those popular restaurants or stores with insane queues.
Do expect long queues and waiting time for popular shop and restaurants.
We spent about one hour waiting at Hong Kong's Michelin-starred Kam's Roast Restaurant and another 45 minutes to get 3 cups of Bubble tea.
Ok, do visit Jewel if you're in Singapore and snap photos with new iconic Rain Vortex and share your experiences with us.
For now, I just imagine me with smiling face holding a passport with ticket to San-Jose, walking to Early Check-in Counter to drop my luggage and ready to attend Connect Live with Local Guides around the world~!^^
Most of the time, my family and I couldn't resist sweet treats. The snacking frequency will normally increase when traveling to taste something different and local delicacies that hardly available in Singapore.
I started to buy and collect some of my favorite Korean beverages such as:
sikhye, milkis, vinegar, barley tea and others canned drinks.
The other reason is to make sure that my two non-stop nibbling monsters will stay sweet and not become moody monsters. They eat more than me because they're in growing stage. My daughter even told me that she need to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks because she's underweight! Therefore, Korea is perfect place to bring my them along for holiday because you can easily find diversity of affordable and delicious snacks at almost every corner... a real food paradise~!
While in Korea, do make sure to try various local food throughout the country, which the tastes and flavors entwined in its history, culture and regions. Here are some of the places awaiting you for tasty journey of street foods, snacks, desserts and drinks in Korea. Please click the link for more information:
1. Local Markets
Traditional Market is now a popular tourist attraction because not only you can purchase local products at cheaper price, it's also the best place to find the real taste of Korean local street food.
Street vendors, carts, stalls, cafes are usually sprouting around crowded shopping districts such as Myeongdong, Sinchon, and high human traffics touristy area such as Hangang Park. It's actually awesome, because you can have 2-in-1 shooping and food paradise at the same place!
Street foods in Myeongdong - source of happiness from 1,000 won.
Must-Try: Tornado potato, Dokkaebi hotdog, 30cm ice cream cone, assorted meat skewers, egg bread, Korean sweet strawberry, fresh juice, and many more.
Insadong is the place for you to experience the traditional aspects of Korea
in the heart of the city. You can find traditional Korean food and
Pojangmacha is a small tented wagon (布帐马车) selling variety of popular and comfort street foods such as hotteok, gimbap, tteokbokki, sundae, dakkochi (Korean skewered chicken), gyeranmari omelette, odeng, ramen, dalkbal chicken feet, squid, and anju (dishes accompanied with drinking) at reasonable price.
Many of these establishments serve alcoholic beverages such as soju, makgeolli and beer in the evening. It's a popular place to have a snack or drink late into the night.
In Seoul, you can find pojangmacha tents lining around Jongno 3-ga outside subway station.
You probably seen a lot of scenes of the main characters went there, ordered food and soju.
Jeonju Pojangmacha at the backstreet near JIFF Street.
Jeju Must Try: Skewers, tteokbokki, corndog, twigim.
4. Food Trucks
Recently the food truck leads new trend of food culture. In Korea now the food truck is the most popular form of street food. On the basis of proving food truck's real worth as a form of street food in park and culture-art space and so on
100 years Traditional Hotteok available from food truck near Unhyeongung Palace.
The food trucks parked at the colorful Market Ground in
Wide selection of menus ranging from drinks, desserts, local food and also foods from different countries such as Hamburgers, churros, hamburgers and onigiri can be purchased from these fancyly decorated food trucks near Konkuk University.
5. Traditional drinking Houses / Taverns.
Makgeolli is the oldest alcoholic beverage in Korea. Nongju is another name for Makgeolli, which means “farmer’s liquor.” It's considered as healthy form of alcohol because consist of lactic acid bacteria and dietary fiber. It is made from grains such as sweet rice, regular rice, barley, wheat and malt, which gives it milky off-white color, sweet and slightly fizzy from the fermentation process.
It's long popular among the older generation, now gaining its popularity and trendy drink for younger generation. There are a lot of places like bars or taverns serving makgeolli and anju.
I asked my friend to recommend good restaurant around Garosugil when I participated in Psy Wiki Korea Contest. Although I didn't win the contest, but I went there because I like to drink Makgeolli.
Chez Maak (셰막) is a Makgeolli House that famous for their Baekryun White Lotus Makgeolli and Makgeolli Cocktails. They also serve Fusion Korean foods that matched well with Makgeolli.Pajeon is the best dish to accompany makgeolli.
We only ordered Rice makgeolli + Stir-fried squid, but
the table was full with side dishes including exotic dishes:
Silk worm pupa (번데기) and Fermented skate (홍어).
6. Food Themed Streets
Korea has many food-themed street throughout the country, where numerous restaurants lining a long the streets or alleys where visitors can conveniently taste and experience unique or special delicacies.
If you think, a small cup of tteokbokki is not enough, head to tttekbokki town where you can have a large portion because this spicy dish is served as full meal with lots of ingredients such as dumplings, boiled eggs and glass noodle, cheese and ramyeon.
You can find cafes almost everywhere in Korea. I think Korea really like to drink coffee after their meals. Well, I'm not drinking coffee, but somehow there are a lot of unique and interesting themed cafes in Korea where serving wide varities of beverages and desserts. Here are some of the themed and popular cafes I visited:
It's the firstthemed cafe I visited during my second trip to Korea in year 2013. It's actually Hanbok photostudio where you can rent beautiful Hanbok and take snap photos. Then you can enjoy a few sips of different Korean traditional teas and practice your Hangul brush calligraphy skill.
Wiki Cafe is located at romantic Samcheongdong-gil is owned by the K-pop idol Super Junior's Sungmin's mother. We went there during VIP Invition Tour and lucky to met his handsome brother in the cafe.
This cafe serve eye-catching and cute cakes with cute and fun 'nicknames' such as: 기분좋아 케이크 (Feel Good Cake) is the pleasant nickname for 'Rainbow Cream Cheese Cake' and 'Oh My God' (오마이갓 케이크) for M&M 'Choco Choco Choco Cake',..
My Korean friend introduced Caffe Bene and patpingsu to us when we're in Busan. This Korea coffee chain is mostly available everywhere and most of the time we just resting and enjoyed one or 2 servings of Patpingsu.
Sulbing (설빙)
Sulbing is another dessert cafe chain in Korea. Don't care whether it's scorching hot or snowing outside, kids still want to have their favorite Korean Bingsu.
Savoureux (샤브르)
154, Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul
Savoureux is famous for its shaved layered ice cream sorbets.Originally, sorbet was a dessert made in France to eat frozen juice to refresh the mouth after the meal. Savoreux introducing new concept sorbet ice cream dessert made with the creamy softness of premium milk.
Traditional tea house offer teas like Sipjeondaebotang (traditional Korean medicinal tea with 10 different ingredients), Jujube tea, Citron tea, Ginger tea, Sikhe and Sweet Red Bean Soup (단팥죽 = danpatjuk).
I was craving danpatjuk after ate this, and I ordered Chestnut Sweet Red Bean
Porridge (밤단팥죽) from Gmarket Korea but it tasted salty instead of sweet.
Therefore I learned to cook it (click here for the recipe).
This traditional hanok-style cafe also serve danpatjuk which the taste is similar to what I had in Seoul. It also serves various types of teas and patbingsu.
Duimo cafe is owned by CLC (씨엘씨) Yoojin's (최유진) mother and auntie at Jaman Mural Village. A perfect cafe to stop by for a cup of traditional fruit tea, bingsu and healthy bibimbap waffle after strolling charming Jaman Mural Village.
The best ice-cream that they've ever tasted. It's because this was their fruit of labour... first time ice cream making experience at Wind Village using Samyang premium milk produced from the dairy farm in this village.
8. Convenience Stores / Stalls / Marts
Need quick bites, to occupy your mouth and munching on the go, or buy Korean snacks for your own stocks or as gifts before traveling back to Seoul or your home sweet home...
Dosirak, Ramyeon. breads, snacks and banana milk are some of the items that we usually grab from the convenience stores in Korea. Cheap food and easy to prepare a simple hot meal as you need to add boil water for ramyeon or just reheat using microwave provided there. You can also dine there as they usually provided tables and chairs inside or outside the stores.
Gimbap rolls: our must buy which mostly available at train stations.
Regional delicacies such as Hwangnam bread (황남빵), Chalboribbang (찰보리빵),
Choco Pie, and others available at chained-stores at train / bus stations.
Bought local snacks and corn makgeolli from peddlers at Chujeon Station.
Minimart and stalls at bus resting areas.
Ginseng and MarketO Real Brownie: Must buy from Lotte Mart.
9. Food Courts
Food courts is easier to taste various local delights at one stop at affordable price. However, it might quite difficult to get seats during lunch or dinner time.
As you know I have a sweet tooth, and that's explained why I love to go to buffet restaurants to indulge myself in yummy cakes, desserts and ice cream. Just can't stop myself for sweet temptation!
.JPG "Our table almost full with all sort of seafood")
