Where to stay: 1Pan Pacific Hotel. 7 Raffles Boulevard, 00-65-63668111, www.panpacific.com/ singapore.
Old-style standards of luxury and service in the most modern of settings are found in this five-star hotel, which has been voted Asia's leading business hotel by World Travel Awards for three successive years. It boasts a vertigo-inducing full-height atrium, and top-notch Chinese and Indian restaurants. There are Herman Miller chairs in the rooms.
2Rendezvous Hotel. 9 Bras Basah Road, 00-65-63360220, www.rendezvoushotels.com.au/singapore. This four-star hotel, part of an Asian-Australian chain, is conveniently located near one end of Orchard Road.
3Raffles Hotel. 1 Beach Road, 00-65-63371886, www.raffles.com. The iconic Raffles Hotel offers a unique atmosphere and historic associations - at a price, of course. It sits today on a city block that has been completed with the upmarket Raffles Shopping Arcade, built in matching colonial style.
Where to eat
• Maxwell Food Centre (at the junction of South Bridge Road and Maxwell Road in Chinatown). If you want to eat what the Singaporeans eat, you have to go to a hawker centre. Maxwell Food Centre looks like something between a hangar and a bazaar, with a dizzying array of food options at prices that seem impossibly low by Irish standards.
• Banana Leaf Apollo. 54-58 Race Course Road, 00-65-62938682. Lay out your food on a banana leaf that takes up half the width of the table at this Little India restaurant, which boasts a world record for servings of a local speciality: fish-head curry. Look away if you're troubled by the eyes, which are regarded as a delicacy.
• Coriander Leaf. 3A Merchant Court, 2-3 River Valley Road, Clarke Quay, 00-65-67323354. The award-winning Coriander Leaf, in the buzzing Clarke Quay area, describes itself as an "Asian food hub", and the combinations are rewardingly imaginative. It also runs cookery courses.
Where to go
• Singapore Flyer. 30 Raffles Avenue, 00-65-68545200, www.singaporeflyer.com. The just-opened Singapore Flyer is the world's tallest observation wheel. On a good day, it is said, you can see north to Malaysia and south to Indonesia. Savour the Singapore skyline, marvel at the level of sea traffic using one of the world's busiest ports, and peer straight down at the course for the night- time Formula 1 race, which took place in September.
• Night Safari. 80 Mandai Lake Road, 00-65-62693411, www.nightsafari.com.sg. The Night Safari may sound a bit corny, and the strangely stilted guided commentary is certainly something either to be loved or hated. But the animals themselves, in artificial light like bright moonlight, are true stars.
• Sentosa Island. This is Singapore's own resort island, which can be reached by road, cable car (from Mount Faber) or monorail. There's a small admission charge ($2), but the various shuttle buses on the island are free. It's a resort heaven or hell, depending on your attitude and needs.
• Little India. Escape the spic-and-span finish of ultramodern Singapore with a visit to the looser, louder, bazaar-like atmosphere of Little India, where 21st-century, high-rise efficiency has yet to penetrate.
• The Esplanade. 1 Esplanade Drive, 00-65-63485555, www.esplanade.com. The Esplanade Theatres on the Bay is Singapore's largest 21st-century arts centre, with a full, year-round season of events taking place in a large concert hall (where the Singapore Symphony Orchestra regularly plays), theatre, various smaller venues, and an outdoor arena. There are regular free events and the complex includes a shopping mall.
• Asian Civilisations Museum. 1 Empress Place, 00-65-63322982, www.acm.org.sg. The pan-Asian collection of the Asian Civilisations museum is rich enough to be dizzying to the European eye.
Where to shop
• Chijmes. 30 Victoria Street, 00-65-63377810, www.chijmes.com.sg. This offers a quieter shopping experience, with restaurants and bars as well as silks and jewellery from Thailand, Indonesia and Burma in the cloisters of what used to be the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus. The convent's chapel is now a performing venue.
Hot spots
• Clarke Quay. Singapore's year-round warmth (typically 28-32 degrees day and night) and even division between night and day means you can party in the dark from early evening every day of the year. Clarke Quay is a buzzing complex on the Singapore River, where restored warehouses now house restaurants and clubs, including Clinic, where you can sit outside in wheelchairs at operating tables, and order drinks that you suck through a drip-feed tube.
Cool coffee
The local Coffee Club chain offers a superior alternative to the ubiquitous Starbucks. The adventurous can head downmarket and seek out Singaporean coffee (extremely strong, sweet and milky) and have it with the local kaya roti, a custardy condiment spread on toast.
Irish connection
An Irish name you'll find recognised in Singapore is that of Mayo-born Joseph McNally, a De La Salle brother and sculptor who founded the Lasalle College of the Arts (1 McNally Street, www.lasalle.edu.sg). It now houses a museum named after him, in which his studio is preserved.