Europeans' FIRST TIME In Singapore (honest reactions)

I'm Oscar and I'm Dan and I'm Dan's brother and I'm Dan's mom and today we're in Singapore! We have been to Singapore close to a dozen times and one of our closest friends April Lin is from there. As soon as we meet a Singaporean somewhere in the world we just know we're gonna get along because there's just always something that clicks so well with our personalities. Although we're just two Ang Mo Sla. So when we were doing a trip around Thailand with Dan's mom and brother we of course wanted to include a stop in the garden city so they could experience it for the first time. We just landed in Singapore. My mom and Jacob are behind me. We of course know what lies right outside the terminal but they have no idea. So just a few years ago right before the pandemic they opened a mall at the airport which is where we're heading now. We're pretty excited about it. So nice for Christmas. It's a Christmas miracle. What kind of airport is this? Greatest thing ever. We're gonna go all the way up to one of the top floors for dinner. It's so perfectly extra right now for some reason. For Christmas yeah. It's amazing. It's like even more amazing than usual. It's like we're in a Singaporean version of Home Alone. Having our first meal in June. They got laksa and vegan chicken rice. Let's dig in. How's the laksa? In this video we'll show my family's first reactions to Singapore and their takeaways and then at the end when we head up to Phuket we'll show you the best hotel we've ever stayed out there. Let's go. Alright so we're currently in Koh Samui, Thailand and we're about to fly to Singapore. Singapore. That's the name. And we're about to fly to Singapore tomorrow. In many parts of Western Europe they're very skeptical of things that work better than their home countries. So what are your preconceptions about Singapore going into it? I'm thinking very modern probably. What about the negative sides? No I'm just interested in finding out. I mean obviously we're gonna meet up with your friends so we're gonna have a chance to ask them how they experience living there and what it's like with the government that they have and what their daily life is like. Now she's suddenly very kind. I'm not saying we agree with it but you guys very strongly disagree with having such strict punishments for what we deem to be light crimes. Yes I have strong reservations about things like caning. Hopefully you don't experience it. No we are hoping not. I'm very curious about what the people are like there and what they think about the way their society is run. I mean I just think it's interesting to go to a very well functioning society that has completely different ways of running than Sweden or other countries in the west to see that maybe what we think is the best way of handling things isn't always the best way for every society. Exactly. So let's go. So we made it to our hotel. We are so tired. It has been a really fun evening but now we're ready for bed. Singapore day one. Good morning. Let's explore Singapore. Are we excited? So excited. It's so warm. I know this is supposed to be the really wet season so our taxi driver from the airport yesterday was like we have four seasons here in Singapore hot, very hot, wet, and very wet. We'd meet our friend Aprilin and her family in the afternoon after exploring the most iconic parts of Singapore on our own. Oh my god. Cute. You get a fine. So I just read that apparently since 2019 the otter population in Singapore has more than doubled so I guess it must have something to do with the pandemic and apparently on very rare occasions they have attacked people in public parks so we were lucky that they stayed on a Lina, show us what you got in your hand. Towel. Sweat towel. Okay I don't know the full origin or the story but the national symbol of Singapore is the merlion a mermaid lion. Google to the rescue the merlion originally arose to symbolize Singapore's origins so the fish part or the mermaid part is from Singapore's origins as a fisherman's village and then the lion is because Singapore or Singapura means lion city. If you say you don't like Singapore you lie. Delicious. Can we see the results? Looking good. Pretty decent. So we're taking cover in the air conditioning. We're gonna have some lunch at a place called Coco Veggie Nyonya Cuisine. Nyonya, I hope I'm pronouncing that right but it's a cuisine that's sort of like a mix between Chinese and Malay food. Oh my god. As always we went a little overboard. We've got laksa, satay, satay, satay. So what do you think? Very tasty. It's really really really spicy. It's bubble tea time. Jacob is so funny he looked at the menu and he was like what do I least understand what it is and what sounds weirdest. I'm gonna try it out it's like at the high mountain something something tea with the sakura cognac jelly. It sounds delicious. There's something you couldn't find anywhere else. Now this is fancy bubble tea. It's so good. It's like gourmet bubble tea. Yeah. How's your contact? Okay I'm excited. I haven't tried it yet. It was really gross. Our next stop with our bubble tea in hand is Gardens by the Bay. This was the very first site we ever came to the first time we came to Singapore and that was like the third time we ever met April Lin after meeting her in South Africa and then in Thailand after that. And speaking of April Lin that little weasel is gonna weasel her way in here any minute. So we are going to the Flower Dome and my mom is the biggest flower lover in the world. I think that's her biggest passion. Okay wow it is not cheap. It's 53 dollars per person, Singapore dollars. So we're gonna do the Cloud Dome first so April Lin can join us in the cheaper Flower Dome after. It seems like there's a special like avatar experience right now for the new movie. The drum. What's that here? Very tropical. So right here there's a place where you can apparently avatarize yourself. We have to try this. Okay let's see how this goes. What? That is not very far. That was such a waste of time. What a stud. What a stud. So that was really nice. Now we're heading to meet April Lin and she's like I'm not gonna greet you first. I greet your mom because it goes by seniority level. I'm like what the hell. We feel so lucky to have a friend like April Lin. Someone so kind, selfless, honest and reliable. We feel like she in many ways embodies some of the best Singaporean ideals. Although we're 11 years apart, the age gap has never been a problem and we feel like she brings out some of the best sides of us while we bring out some of the best sides of her and that we think is an indication of a great friendship. So we are having dinner at Hi Tea Lao today which is an extremely trendy place for hotpot. The wait is usually about two hours. The line outside is insane. Yeah we waited for two hours even though April Lin added us to the list. But you get like free drinks, free snacks while you're waiting. So now we've met up with April Lin's entire family. So we're doing their first ever hotpot. What is this mystery? It's like a soup broth and then it just keeps on boiling. And anything that you eat, it comes raw. You just dip it in. Then it's cooked. Then you just take out. Then you just eat like that. So it's like a very communal kind of like thing. You cook on the stove. So there's it's a very Chinese thing. Yes. Our dinners with April Lin's mom, fiancé, sister and nephew have become a bit of a tradition each time we visit Singapore. We always love the conversations we have at these dinners which often end up at the cultural differences between Europe and Singapore or more broadly between the West and Asia. So we're making a hotpot sauce. I mean this is so fun. They have some standard recipes listed up here but you can just mix whatever you want to make your own. Oh there's music. All right yesterday's dinner was so much fun but we obviously didn't have much time to record anything but we had so many interesting conversations. I was like don't hold back, grill them. And then yeah it was some things you would never hear in your wildest imagination in Europe. Yeah. Anything you learned or any like reflections? Well I think it seems that you know things are changing in Singapore. They're modernizing. They're quite conservative value base. They're treating their children with a little bit more. April Lin's mom has a very high conviction that you need to beat your child to embrace them which is totally contrary to the Swedish way. But here she's like no kid will turn out good. Yeah. April Lin's boyfriend is like his slogan is stop caning and start talking. I think that's a good slogan. I like that one. Do you think there's anything Sweden or Europe could learn from Singapore? I think that they've done an amazing job for building a society that's very wealthy and efficient, well organized, clean in a short period of time. But people who live here seem to appreciate their society in a way that we do not actually. That's true. It's not the same thing as patriotism you know the kind of patriotism you might get in the United States for instance. This is a different kind of pride. We're catching the MRT because you can't go to Singapore without experiencing the MRT. It's an amazing thing about the Metro in Singapore. It's not Metro. They have all these characters that encourage you to do good things on the Metro. Now is it Metro again? We have Hush Hush Hannah. She encourages you to shut up. We have Stand Up Stacey. She encourages you to give your seat to someone elderly or someone pregnant or someone who needs it more than you. And we have Bag Down Benny. She encourages you to put down your While we're here we're also going to see Haji Lane which is one of the cutest streets in Singapore. Haji Lane is such a cute street. It's been so many years since we went here last so I'd kind of forgotten how amazing it is. We stumbled across this vegan store that has vegan soft The cheapest impossible burger in Singapore apparently. So good stuff. Creamy. It's like IKEA. After a second day of exploring it was time to head to the airport and finish off the trip with a bang. And then once we get to Changi we're hopping onto a flight to go to a very very special hotel that we've been waiting to go to. It's going to be a very very nice book end to this trip. As we were planning this Southeast Asian trip we were looking for places to stay in the last stop of the journey Phuket. This part of Thailand can be a little tricky because the vibe can be so different depending on where on the island you stay. So we were having a bit of trouble deciding. That's when we received a message from a viewer who said she'd love to have us stay at her own resort north of Phuket. And we were like oh my god this place looks insane. So we absolutely need to Holy crap. This is Alinta Resort north of Phuket. So a huge shout out to Anchalika and of course Max and Oscar for inviting us to stay here. We are so grateful especially being able to give this to my mom and brother. It's just amazing. So let us show you around. So welcome home. You can see that the windows are just a little bit taller than me. We have this whole living room area. Kitchen. Here's my mom and brother's room. But we will show you our room. Sorry our bags are already sort of unpacked. We got comfortable. I'm gonna have some water after a long day on the town. And one of the best parts is this. And we can't believe that we're staying here thanks to you guys. This is honestly one of the best beaches we've ever been at in Thailand. No rocks, no seaweed, nothing on the sand. The beach is wide. The scenery is beautiful. It's just amazing. Despite many visits to Phuket, we've never been to the iconic Phang Nga Bay. So this time we finally got to go on an excursion there. Time to go. Private tour. The tall island landscape here is just breathtaking. But we're in the most idyllic setting and we're heading into a cave alone. Our boat driver is not coming with us. Oh my god. Wow. We got to try the resort's new vegan fine dining restaurant. It was such an awesome experience and we're so happy to see that veganism is getting more and more recognition, even in the high-end luxury space. The awesome thing about Elinta is that it's not on Phuket Island, but it's just to the north of it. So although it's super close to the airport, it feels so secluded. It feels like you have your very own beach. It feels like we're in the middle of nowhere when you're actually not. The fact that thanks to you guys, thanks to our community and our channel, we can stay at one of these places and take my mom and brother to have such a special experience is just so mind-blowing. Incredible. So amazing. We're so grateful and thank you so much to Angelica, Max and Oscar for inviting us. We feel so honored. What an amazing way to round off the trip. So on that note, until we see you next time, see you around the world.