It’s been a little over a couple of months since I came back from Singapore. Whenever I catch up with my friends and relatives, the ice breaker is naturally, “So, how was Singapore?”

Oh my… my… my… where do I begin?

The trip was, technically, an academic one. I was in Singapore to attend and present at a conference. But somewhere between conference rooms, beaches, temples, art galleries, shopping malls, late-night cab rides, and an alarming amount of walking, it became a trip that felt much larger than the conference itself.

So this is not really a conference report. It is Singapore from my POV.

Landing in Singapore

I landed in Singapore on 29 July with a conference ahead of me and a suitcase that was probably heavier than necessary. My first introduction to Singapore was, naturally, Changi Airport. I had heard enough about Changi before the trip to know that I could not simply collect my luggage and leave. I had to explore it. I wandered around the airport, saw the iconic terminal spaces, and eventually made my way to Jewel Changi. It was a slightly surreal introduction to Singapore.

After exploring the airport, we thought we were energetic enough to explore immediately, only for our bodies to remind us that we had been travelling for hours.

After resting, however, I decided that sitting in the hotel was not an acceptable way to spend my first evening in Singapore. I looked up East Coast Beach and decided to walk there. The beach was about half an hour from the hotel, and that walk was when Singapore properly introduced itself to me.

The airport had been spectacular, but airports are designed to impress everyone. The walk to the beach felt different. I was seeing the city at street level, watching it transition into evening. Lights came on. People appeared. Restaurants and shops became brighter. The city seemed to change character as daylight disappeared. By then, evening was setting in, and Singapore was beginning to come alive. When I reached East Coast Beach, I spent the evening there. After the long journey and the excitement of arriving in a new country, sitting by the sea felt like exactly what I needed. There was nothing particularly ambitious about the evening. I simply spent some time at the beach and eventually walked back to the hotel.

Conference Day 1

The actual purpose of being here officially began. On 30 July, myself and the other scholars headed to the conference venue for Day 1 of ITU TESOL Conference 2026. We registered, collected our conference kits, and settled in for the day’s sessions. We attended Dr. Kooi Cheng’s talk before heading to our respective rooms for the presentation sessions.

At exactly 11 a.m., I started to sweat profoundly. I was asking my peer, “Why is it hot here?” “Is the AC turned on?” The poor girl just smiled at me. The actual answer came from someone else announcing in the room, “The next presentation will be delivered by Reshma Janarthanan.” You see, conference participants may walk around to any presentation they find interesting. Apparently, a lot of people were curious about what I had to comment on “assessment in AI-mediated English language teaching”. Trust me, A LOT! Somehow, I mustered up the courage to face the crowd after finding the one face that would give me comfort and confidence at the moment: my research supervisor’s. She gave a soft smile, and I started my presentation.

Then came the most “fun” part, the Q&A. I did receive quite a number of questions which I was actually in my capacity to answer. When I heard “no more questions”, I heard myself let out a big sigh, something that signalled bottled-up anxiety, apparently. PHEW!!! There is something different about presenting your research in another country. Even when you know your material well, there is always that little nervousness that comes with standing in front of a new audience and speaking about something you have spent months working on.

I had lunch at the conference venue and then headed straight to NUS to meet Dr. Navera. The academic discussion was obviously the main purpose of my visit, but I also managed to acquire some NUS merchandise: a hoodie and, more importantly, a hat.

Singapore’s climate was absolutely not going to let me flaunt the NUS hoodie, and taking that hoodie back to India did not exactly solve the problem. The hat, on the other hand, was both practical and perfectly suited for showing off where I had been. It became a necessity in Singapore and a flaunting accessory at the same time. I am still not entirely sure whether I was representing NUS or simply making sure everyone knew that I had been there, but either way, the hat did its job. And, apparently, I decided that I was now an unofficial NUS merchandise ambassador.

After my discussion with Dr. Navera, I headed to Chinatown. I explored Chinatown for a while before heading back to the hotel. It had been a long day, but it was only the beginning.

Conference Day 2

The second day of the conference was much more relaxed for me because I no longer had a presentation hanging over my head. On 31 July, I attended the sessions and then went back towards Chinatown to explore the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and the area around. I did secure some cool mirrors and accessories. I spent some time exploring before we eventually headed to Bugis Street. I, along with three other scholars, walked around Bugis and explored the shops and malls.

At one of the malls, four of us scholars decided to take a photostrip photograph in a photobooth. It was one of those completely spontaneous things that you do while travelling and then end up valuing much more than you expected. We had gone to Singapore together for an academic conference, but somewhere along the way we had also accumulated these small, silly memories that had nothing to do with research or presentations. It was a small thing, but somehow that photograph became one of those little memories that makes a trip feel personal. Not every memorable moment has to be a landmark. Sometimes it is just four people squeezed into a photobooth.

After Bugis, we headed back to the hotel.

A Whole Day to Ourselves!

The following day was different. We had the entire day to ourselves.

No conference. No presentation. No sessions. Just Singapore.

So naturally, we started with Merlion Park. We took photographs, wandered around the area, and even cycled around Merlion Park. It was one of those tourist experiences that you know is obligatory when visiting Singapore, but I actually enjoyed it. There is something satisfying about finally seeing a landmark you have encountered countless times through photographs. You cannot really go to Singapore for the first time and not see the Merlion.

From there, we headed to Sentosa.

Now, Sentosa had grand plans for us. We had grand plans for Sentosa. Our wallets had other plans.

The cable car rides were expensive enough for us to collectively decide that perhaps we did not need that particular experience after all. So we explored Sentosa without taking the cable car, which meant that we technically went to Sentosa and did not do very much. However, I discovered a Pokémon merchandise shop. So I bought gifts for my Pokémon-obsessed cousins. Therefore, I would like to formally declare that I did, in fact, accomplish something at Sentosa. At least I did not leave empty-handed. By then, we were exhausted and headed back to the hotel.

I thought the day was more or less over. It wasn’t.

An Evening at the National Gallery

Later that evening, my mother and I went to the National Gallery Singapore. I had been looking forward to seeing the gallery, but I did not expect one particular painting to stay with me as strongly as it did. I came across He Xiangning’s work and was completely blown away by it.

There are paintings that you admire because you understand why they are significant, and then there are paintings that simply stop you for a moment. You don’t necessarily go looking for that particular experience; it simply happens. I spent some time looking at the work and taking it in before continuing through the gallery.

After leaving the National Gallery, I dropped my mother back at the hotel and headed to NUS once again.

This time, I was going there for dinner.

Dinner at NUS, the Supertrees and the Adventure to Mustafa Center

Dr. KC had very kindly hosted a dinner for us, and I joined four other scholars at NUS. After spending the previous couple of days moving between conference sessions and exploring Singapore in small groups, the dinner was a nice opportunity to simply sit together and talk.

Of course, we were not done for the night.

After dinner, we headed to Gardens by the Bay to see the Supertrees. The Supertrees were probably one of those places that I had seen so many times in photographs that I thought I knew what to expect. Seeing them in person at night was different. We spent quite a bit of time there, taking photographs and simply enjoying the atmosphere.

By this point, any sensible person would probably have gone back to the hotel. We were not sensible people. We decided to go to Mustafa Centre to buy souvenirs. So we got on the cab from NUS to Mustafa. During the ride the biggest performances of our lives were performed. Not about our research. Not about our university. Not about the conference we had travelled halfway across the world to attend. We were lying about our identity.

Our cab driver had started asking questions. Personal questions. The kind of questions that make you look at the other people in the car and silently ask, Are we all thinking the same thing?

Our driver was Tamil-speaking. Initially, this seemed convenient. But then came the questions.

Where are you from? What are you doing here? Who are you travelling with? What do you do?

The questions kept coming. Then we looked at each other and somewhere in that silent exchange, an emergency plan was born. We were students. Not PhD scholars. Definitely not.

And when the conversation continued, we escalated. Fake phone calls. Imaginary professors. Invented academic obligations. A completely fictional chain of events involving people who did not exist and places where nobody was waiting for us.

The absurdity of it made us laugh even while we were trying to maintain our stories.

It was probably the most ridiculous forty-five minutes of the trip. And also one of the funniest. We arrived at Mustafa around 12:30 a.m., shopped, bought souvenirs, and eventually left at approximately 1:30 a.m. We reached the hotel around 2:15 a.m.

At that point, Singapore had been reduced to three things: tired feet, shopping bags, and five scholars who had somehow spent the night pretending to be undergraduate students.

So, That Was Singapore…

When I look back at my Singapore trip, I don’t think of it simply as a conference trip anymore.

I remember Changi Airport and Jewel on the day I arrived. I remember the walk to East Coast Beach and seeing Singapore come alive at night. I remember the nervousness before my presentation and the relief afterwards. I remember my visit to NUS, the conversations there, and the NUS hat that somehow became both a practical necessity and my unofficial Singapore-trip badge.

I remember Chinatown, the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, Bugis Street and the photostrip we took together. I remember the Merlion and cycling around the park. I remember discovering that Sentosa was more expensive than we had anticipated and then finding Pokémon merchandise that made the trip worthwhile anyway. I remember standing in front of He Xiangning’s painting at the National Gallery and being completely captivated by it. I remember dinner at NUS, the Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay, and wandering around Mustafa at an hour when most sensible tourists would have been asleep. Most of all, I remember the people I experienced all of this with and the ridiculous little situations that could never have been planned into an itinerary.

Perhaps that is what I liked most about Singapore.