Chris and I are flying from Vancouver, Canada to Singapore via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. This post is all about our check-in experience with Cathay Pacific and some of the issues we faced, how we handled the very small 7kg carry-on limit, what the flights to Hong Kong and Singapore were like, all the forms we needed to fill out to land in Singapore, what our transfer through the Hong Kong airport was like, how we checked out the waterfall at the Singapore airport, and how we got from the Singapore airport to our hotel.

Let's start with the issue we faced with check-in. Because we're slow travelers, we only booked a one-way ticket to Singapore, not a roundtrip ticket. When we tried to check-in, the Cathay Pacific website gave us an error saying we didn't have the right visa. As Canadians, only going for a few days as tourists, we shouldn't need a visa. We googled a few things and we think we were getting the error because we're not booked on a round-trip ticket.

We did book a bus ticket on the 707 bus line from Singapore to Malasia as our onward ticket. So hopefully everything will be ok at the airport and immigration.

Before we got to the airport, we also filled out our Singapore Arrival Declaration online. This is required for most tourists, though what you need depends on the country you hold your passport in among other things.

Now let's talk about Cathay Pacific's really restrictive 7kg carry on limit. That's only 15 pounds. If you've been following us, you know that Chris and I like to travel carry on only. But since we're slow traveling around South East Asia for the next few months, 15 lbs is pretty tight. That limit includes both our personal item and our carry on.

So our plan is to take our carry on bags like we always do, but not meet the weight requirement. If they tell us our bags our too heavy, we'll pull some of the items out into the small backpack we keep in our bags, and check everything else. And then hope it arrives in Singapore!

But in the end, they never weighed our bags, and we never saw them weigh anyone else's. Watching all the bags coming on the plane, it looks like people wern't too worried about the carry on weight restriction. So that 7kg limit did not seem to be enforced for the flights we took.

Because our flight to Singapore is over 14 hours, we splurged on the bigger peremium economy seats that came with amenities like a pillow, blanket, water bottle, and amenities kit.

Cathay Pacific also has a huge selection of movies. It took me a while just to even scroll through them all.

Our first meal was chicken on rice with the usual sides. The bun was served warm which I wish was more common.

The flight went by quickly as I slept for most of it in our comfy seats. Next thing I knew, it was breakfast time, with both traditional western breakfast and noodle options.

Once we landed in Hong Kong, it took us about 15 minutes to walk to our next gate. We had to go through security screening again, but we did not need to clear immigration. The entire process was pretty easy.

Landing in Singapore airport, our first goal was to check out the famous Jewel and waterfall. We wouldn't be coming back to this airport, so we wanted to check it out now.

To do that, since we landed at Terminal 4 with Cathay Pacific, we just hoped on the bus to T1, which has the Jewel.

To get to our hotel, we walked over the bridge to Terminal 2 and followed the signs for the MRT. We just tapped our credit card to get through the gates. I had previously used Google Maps to find that our hotel was closest to the Raffles stop.

Now we're in Singapore and have 3 days to explore the city. As slow travelers, only having 3 days in a city feels a bit tight! In our post video we'll talk abouteverything we did in Singapore, where we stayed, and how much it cost us.

Chris and I are kicking off our slow travels through South East Asia in Singapore. Normally we stay in places for a few weeks or longer, but we're only staying in Sinapore for a few days. This blog post is all about what we did, where we stayed, and how much it cost us.

So let's start with the cost of food here in Singapore. Our first meal in Singapore was this delicious dumpling noodle soup for $4.50.

Like many major cities, there is a huge range of food prices. You can go for very elaborate and expensive meals or you can do what we did to save some money and eat at the Hawker Centers. Hawker Centers are all around Singapore and are similar to food courts. Some of the stalls are even recommended by Michelin. We pretty much only ate at the Hawker centers the entire time we were here.

We shared the large Clay Pot Chicken for $13.00 and refilled our waterbottles for free.

We also tried the strangely named black carrot cake. Which doesn't contain any carrots. It's mostly rice flour with radish, eggs, garlic, and soy sauce. And it tastes delicious!

By focusing on the Hawker Centers, we kept our eating costs to about $30 Singapore dollars per day. That's the total price for the two of us. But keep in mind that we shared plates quite often - the servings weren't huge, but we found them satisfying. If you're looking for something that doesn't feel like a food court, there are also some fun looking restaurants on the water or in places like Circular Road that run about $15-$20 Singapore Dollars per plate.

A quick note about payments though. Most places in Singapore accept credit cards. But for the Hawker markets, you'll need some cash. We just used an ATM to withdraw $100 Singapore dollars which was more than we needed for our time there.

Next up, let's talk about activity prices in Singapore. As slow travelers, we try to keep our activities costs low, like we would if we were in our home base. Otherwise we'd spend way too much money on tourist stuff and we wouldn't be able to travel for as long we do. And fortuntely there are lots of free things to do in Singapore. We were able to walk around fun areas like Chinatown, check out Fort Canning Park, explore Little India, and view the Sultan Mosque, all at no cost. Just don't forget to take breaks from the heat.

One of my favourite parts of Singapore was the walkway along the river. One section of the walk takes you past the famous merlion statue.

Another part of it takes you past the Esplanade theatre that looks like the very smelly durian fruit.

The Gardens by the Bay is one of the most famous sites in Singapore. There are plenty of ticketed attractions in this area but grounds are free. We made our way through the Silver Garden, indian garden and walkways by the ponds. Probably the most famous part of the Gardens by the Bay is the Supertree Grove, which is free to check out from the ground level.

We also continued to find ways to take breaks from the heat.

Let's move onto the cost of transportation is Singapore.

With the MRT subway system being as well-placed as it was, we used that as our only paid method of transport here. The MRT is really easy to use as you can just tap your credit card to get on. Just make sure each person in your group uses a separate credit card to tap.

We paid about $3 Singapore dollars to get from the airport to our hotel on the MRT. Trips within the center part of the city cost about $2 Singapore dollars. We walked a lot too, so we spent less than $15 Singapore dollars on transit during the 3 days we were here.

Now let's talk about accommodations. This cost was the biggest reason we kept our time here short. I would have actually loved to spend much more time in this amazing city and maybe our slow travels will take us back here one day. Our hotel room at the Hotel Clover 7 was very tiny! Seriously, I've seen camper vans bigger than our room. And we spent $150 SGD per night on it.

But of course you can go more upscale too. Singapore has plenty of high-end hotels, the most famous one being the Marina Bay Sands, which runs around $1000 SGD per night.

Now let's get back to the Gardens by the Bay for the free night show, called Garden Rhapsody. When we were there the shows ran at 7:45 and 8:45pm nightly, and lasted about 15 minutes.

So after all that, how much did our 3 nights in Singapore cost us? We spend $450 Singapore dollars on our very small hotel room, $90 on food, $0 on attractions, and about $15 on transportation around the city for a total cost of $555 Singapore dollars. This is definitely more expensive that we usually allow for our slow travels so we'll need to bring our costs down as we continue to travel through South East Asia.