Good Tidings for Christmas 2020 !
I realised that it has been a little more than 6 months since I last updated this blog. How time flies...
This year, the pandemic year, has largely affected me, just as it did everyone else. I have only travelled internationally just once, in January, to Bangkok, Thailand. This is before international borders start to close.
Without travel, I turn to work to occupy my time. So yes, 2020 has to be my most busiest work year, since I started working many years ago.
Of course, some procrastination sets in as well haha!
So what do I think of 2020 ?
Well, in my personal opinion, it has not been a great start to this decade. At the start of the year, news broke out about the coronavirus from Wuhan, China. It is infectious and can be transmitted between people. In this time and age, given that air travel has been able to connect countries and people from around the world. In the first three months of the year, this coronavirus seems to be spreading only within China.
Soon after, towards the end of March, it is inevitable that this coronavirus spread quite quickly to all over the world, and prompting all countries, save for a few, to close their borders to foreigners, a first in modern history.
Till today, borders remain closed for many countries. Travel is very much restricted for international tourists. Naturally, the tourism industry was badly affected. Airlines stored most of their airplanes. Hotels see very few tourists. Tourist attractions were closed to contain the coronavirus.
Today, nine months since the pandemic affected us, life has since returned to some normalcy, at least for Singaporeans. For countries which has managed the pandemic well, they have started to reopen their economies. Since borders remain closed, they encouraged domestic tourism instead. This works great for places such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam which have a large land area and many tourist attractions to explore. In particular, the United States has many great outdoor attractions and nature parks. In Europe, countries on that continent has opened up to each other, allowing travel and tourism to continue on the continent.
Unfortunately, nine months later, there seems to be no end of the pandemic in sight. The number of cases in the United States, Europe and many other countries is still climbing. Some countries have experienced waves of coronavirus infection, affecting the reopening of economies.
Fortunately for Singapore, it has since kept the pandemic under control, with no recent local cases and only imported ones. The domestic economy has basically reopened. To encourage tourism, it has tried to form a travel bubble with Hong Kong, but alas, it didn't work out in the end. Singapore also unilaterally opened its borders to few other countries, though they declined to reciprocate. Basically, Singaporeans still cannot travel.
For me, as a Singaporean, domestic tourism is very much limited. We have a small land area, so the number of tourist attractions, both natural and man-made are few. There are not many major attractions, Universal Studio, Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands are basically it. Singapore can be more or less be explored in a few days.
Luckily, being an island nation, we can turn to explore the outlying islands near Singapore. There is St. John Island, Sisters' island, Kusu Island and Pulau Ubin to check out. These, however, are relatively small islands which can be explored in a day trip.
In addition, as it is the year-end school holidays now, hotels are also encouraging staycations for Singaporeans. Hotel rates have dropped from the pre-pandemic levels, across all types of hotels. Four or five star hotels in tourist precincts such as Orchard can be had for under S$200 a night. This is since supply far outweighs demand, which is the opposite pre-pandemic.
For me, I have since explored most, if not all of Singapore's tourist attractions and the outlying islands. I have also turned to staycations, having stayed at 5 local hotels to date, ranging from four to five stars. I will be reviewing these staycations in my subsequent posts.
Singapore's home carrier, SIA, has since suspended many flights and parked its planes. It has organized various aviation related activities such as dining in an A380, tour of its cabin crew training grounds, trying out its plane simulators and purchase of its premium meals. The tours are however limited in numbers and sell out fast . I haven't been able to join in the tour so hopefully SIA can continue to hold such popular activities.
Finally, there is the Singapore's cruise to nowhere. All passengers are subjected to testing before joining the cruise.
2020 is ending in about a week's time, and I am still looking forward to 2 more staycations before welcoming 2021.
As the year draws to a close, now is also the time to think of my new year resolutions. That will be covered in my next post. 😀
