Asian Civilisations Museum is housed in the former Empress Place Building built in 1864.

Its ground-level facade features grooves that form a base for the double-height pilasters above.

World Heritage Site: old town of Galle in Sri Lanka

Discovering Seoul's bohemian soul

To my surprise, I encounter a statue of Deng Xiaoping in front of the museum. A marker declares he was the first senior Chinese leader to visit Singapore, and his 1978 visit spurred the subsequent decision to implement China's reform and opening-up.

I then take St. Andrew's Road and head to Raffles Singapore. The hotel, standing on the corner of Beach Road and Bras Basah, is dubbed the "Grand Dame of the East".

Enveloped behind gardens perfumed with blooming frangipane, the hotel shines with the colonial glory of a grand old dame. Wooden fans swirl lazily in bars, and an antique grandfather clock stands majestically in the lobby.

Together with ornate wrought-iron porticos and the neo-Renaissance architecture, the aesthetic makes me think of the 1920s and '30s heydays when the grand hotel hosted the elite, who arrived and departed in carriages and vintage cars.

Suddenly, a tour bus stops and a Chinese tourist group swarms the hotel.

I snap back to real world.

Yes, it is no longer the colonial era when the Sarkies brothers opened the hotel in 1887.