There are a few well renowned shopping districts in the world. Fifth Avenue in New York, the Champs Élysées in Paris, and Oxford Street in London, United Kingdom. The Orchard Road shopping district in Singapore arguably fits into this category as one of the world’s greatest shopping districts; with thousands of stores available. The area is exceptionally easy to access, highly walkable and is always an engaging part of my travels to Singapore.

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Shopping at Retail Giants on Orchard Road, Singapore

“Orchard Road in Singapore is one of the world’s most renowned shopping districts and a must visit for anyone serious about shopping in Singapore. The Singapore Ice Cream Sandwiches are also an added bonus “

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We enjoyed the twenty-three hour stopover in Singapore. It’s limited what you can actually achieve in this short amount of time but we certainly made the most of it.

About Orchard Road:

The area of Orchard Road, Singapore is the countries primer shopping district. The area is flagged with many retail International luxury brands. The area also contains some coffee houses and light restaurants. Although I don’t find it to be an area for evening entertainment as other areas of the island are more interesting for that.

Getting there

We took the MRT from the Westin Singapore up to Orchard Road. We were picked up by family at the Hyatt (now flagged as the Grand Hyatt) and we were able to get in a family visit with at a lunch at the private Tanglin Club. Even after the dip in the pool at the Westin Singapore, the Tanglin Club pool was calling me on this hot day but unfortunately it was not to be on this short visit. 

Shopping on Orchard Road:

After lunch, we got dropped off at Orchard and Scotts Road and headed to the Orchard Road shopping district. The shops of Orchard Road are laid out into separate mall structures; each known for a general speciality (luxury, student fashion, electronics etc…)

We started at the bizarrely laid out ION Orchard. MrsWT73 did some damage at Uniqlo, which at the time of this article hadn’t made it to our home of Vancouver, Canada.

To pass the time after the initial shops had been visited, I ended up going outside and taking some photos of the “Rodeo Drive” of Singapore and all of it’s modern mall sculpture.

The older Tangs Plaza across from ION Orchard contains the faux Asian Tangs tower that houses the Singapore Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel.

The Paragon Center, which is home to high end fashion such as Gucci, Coach and Miu Miu, along with a convenient outdoors store and a Marks and Spencer.

One of the best parts of Orchard Road are the vendors outside on the walkway. If you’re lucky, you can find a vendor that sells Singapore Ice Cream Sandwiches. The unique Singapore Ice Cream Sandwich is a brick of ice cream wrapped in bread. It sounds strange but they are super tasty and are usually under $2 SGD. I can usually find them outside Takashimya Department store.

Sadly, the Borders Bookstore at Wheelock place I used to love and frequent here, is no more. However, I’ve had some luck finding books in the Takashimya mall at Kinokuniya.

After a flurry of shopping, we ended up taking the MRT back to the Westin Singapore well in advance of rush hour.

Our twenty three hour Singapore layover summarized:

Singapore has suffered a decline of tourist visits in favour of other regions of South East Asia compared to years past. I still find it worthy of a visit, despite the man made attractions. Shopping remains a great past time here and I certainly found it fun to spend a few hours between flights exploring old haunts.

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If you’ve shopped on Orchard Road in Singapore, did you come away with anything good?

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