Currency:
SGD is the local currency. Many places accept credit cards, and you can find many money exchangers. (There is one in the Kent Ridge MRT and airport)
Some hawkers, like the ones in NUS, do not accept credit cards but only cash. For a week long travel, you are quite safe if you have around 200 SGD in cash. A typical meal is less than 10 SGD but fancy places can cost more than 50 SGD.
Transportation:
•Walking: The pedestrian walks are well built and maintained in Singapore. But the tropical climate makes long distance walking quite an ordeal. Remember to wear sun cream, bring an umbrella and water if you prepare to walk a lot during the day.
•MRT (metro)+bus: very convenient ways of traveling. You can pay with Visa, apple pay or google pay. You can also purchase ez-link cards at MRT stations.
•Taxi: fairly cheap and convenient. You can find them in nearby taxi stands, but it can take a while for one to come. Uber is no longer available. The local version are Grab and ComfortDelgro. But even with these apps, the taxi driver often expects you to wait at a taxi stand.
Food:
The local flavor involves spice, seafood, rice and sugar. Most of them are oriented for cheap daily consumption. You can usually find them in all sort of canteens and restaurants near Chinatown.
Canteens: NUS has several pretty good canteens that provide cheap food. If you are attending IMS, Science Canteen nearby offers a good selection of Asian food, e.g. noodle and Chicken rice.
Restraunts: Kent-ridge terminal and the nearby Geneo shopping mall have a lot of small restraunts.
Seafood: Singapore has a lot of seafood. The most famous one is chilly crab. You can find it many places. I would recommend Dancing Crab on top of Vivocity.
Roast Duck: somehow Singaporeans also like ducks. The ducks here are not as fat as the Peking version, but still worth trying. You can find them in one of the Crystal Jade.
Points of interest:
Trip advisor gives a fairly good list. Here are a few things I would recommend.
Cultural:
•Buddha tooth relic temple: one of the most magnificent buddhism temples. The upper levels exhibit a good collection of relics.
•Chinatown heritage center: if you are interested in seeing immigrant life 70 years ago, this is worth visiting.
•Clarke Clay: it is like Chinatown, but next to a river. You can find many eateries along the river.
•Merlion-Marina Bay: a good waterfront area.
These are all located in or near the Chinatown. You can see the markets nearby, there are also many restaurants nearby.
Malls: malls are the centers of Singaporean city lives. Vivocity, Jurong East and Orchard road have some very well built malls. You can also find many good restaurants inside.
Sentosa: it is an island of amusement parks. The aquarium and beaches there are quite interesting. You can get there by the Sentosa express located at Vivocity.
Nature:
•Southern Ridges: it is a 1.5 hour walk on top of a rainforest. You can see the high rise buildings of the city during the trip, and the magnificent Henderson Waves. You can start the walk from Kent Ridge Park, or HortPark, and have a dinner at the vivo city.
•Botanic garden: it is a beautiful and well organized park. You can spend 2-5 hours there. There are easy accesses to beverage, shops and shelters. You can also get there by MRT.
•Garden by the bay: I don’t think it is as good as the botanic garden. But it is close to the Mariana Bay, and the Cloud Forest is also quite interesting.
•MacRitchie: a real hike in a rainforest around the lake. The scenery is quite amazing. I only did the part near Lornie Rd. I heard the Tree top walk is also amazing and worth going. There won’t be much shops inside the park, so go prepared. You also probably need a taxi to get there.