All your friends (and their parents) are probably fawning over the opening of Singapore’s first official Apple Store on Orchard this weekend. Sure, it’s a big deal, but if you’re the cool kid in the group, you might also want to check out the endless events taking place, like that Gatsby-themed party, a film screening of Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise at The Projector, or that super futuristic Human+ exhibition at ArtScience Museum.
Friday, May 26
PARTY
Keep your Fridays fresh at Refuge as DJs Drem & Gravity spin a repertoire of old school hip hop and R&B beats throughout the night. May 26
FILM+PARTY
The Glory Hoes trio, made up of Becca D’Bus, Bobby Luo and Prashant Somosundram, will be hosting the screening of Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise, and a debaucherous, fun night of partying right after, at The Projector. May 26
FOOD
Two big-time Japanese chefs will be taking over the kitchen at Me@OUE for the restaurant’s inaugural food fiesta, Japan Edition. Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai and celebrity chef Chen Kentaro will be creating dishes like stir-fried chili Tachiuo fish with Okinawa purple sweet potato and French pork pate macaroon and roast beef. May 26
FILM
Catch Amelie, the French comedic romance film depicting the story of a waitress who arrived in Paris and started dedicating herself to helping people around her before finding love along the way, at The Hive. May 26
PARTY
You can Party like Gatsby for the first time here in Singapore, well and Asia, at a party called Pearl of the East, thrown by a guy calling himself Jay Gatsby. From the pictures of the previous events, the party looks like it’s going to be massive, grand and flamboyant with performers and lots of dressed-up individuals. Location is not confirmed yet, after fans expressed their concern on the venue, Tanjong Beach Club. May 26
EXHIBITION
Robots have invaded the ArtScience Museum and everyone’s invited to take a peek at what the future of cybernetics, artificial intelligence and genetic modification might look like at the HUMAN+: The Future of Our Species exhibition. Come with an open mind as you interact with life-like humanoids and find out how robots are already living among us. Through Oct 15
Saturday, May 27
CONCERT
The atmospheric, enchanting and trippy work of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel—better known as Air—is the stuff of soundtracks and reflective moments, and they’re set to bring their unique sound to Singapore for the very first time at the Esplanade Theatre. May 27
RACE
Take part in one of Singapore’s tastiest treasure hunts in Chinatown, where you’re required to save Emperor Qing Long’s treasure, which was rumored to be here in Singapore since 1930s, before it falls into the wrong hands. There’ll be a series of challenges (yes, it involves food) at historical sites like the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Chinatown Food Street. May 27
MARKET
Learn how you can grow your own food or bring home some seasonal organic vegetables, spices, fruits and herbs, as well as hand-made delights at the farmer’s market taking place at Hotel Jen Orchardgateway. You can even get the hotel’s chefs to whip up a tasty meal to take home. May 27
PARTY
The highly anticipated two-day island party at St John’s Island by the people behind the After Dark party series and local party group Blackout will see a solid music line-up, with names like Brendon P, Fat Fish Familia, DJ KFC, Sunju Hargun (Bangkok) and Jonathan Kusuma (Jakarta-based). Camp Kilo Charcoal Club and Selva Foods will be on food duty, serving up BBQ delights and acai bowls. May 27-28
FESTIVAL
Before we bid our final goodbye to the iconic New Majestic Hotel next month, Keepers and Straits Clan will be taking over the hotel for a huge-two day festival, with more than 50 local designers and artists transforming over 30 rooms into cool concepts. May 27-28
MARKET
This edition of Open Deck’s annual fundraising market will see prominent local labels, book stores and artists putting out an array of everything from photographic prints to artsy collectibles. The line-up includes local literary store BooksActually, local online boutique store The Lorem Ipsum Store and more. Also on board and will be performing are electronic outfit Intriguant and Nada. May 27-28
DRINK
Also happening at Open Deck this weekend is Mikkeller Bar‘s first anniversary. They’re celebrating it with Singapore’s first Scandinavian tap takeover (over 20 beers from some of the best Scandinavian breweries will be on tap), and launching their very own bottle shop, which will house more than 30 different Mikkeller bottles. May 27-28
DRINK/EAT
Sustainable wines are gaining more traction lately, and you’ll get to taste over 30 of them at Peace of Vino. The Straits Wine Company will be supplying the wines, while Camp Kilo serves up a platter of protein (prawns, ribs, pork belly or chicken) with a choice of one side. May 27-28
ART
The first-ever Faber-Castell Art Festival will see a range of craft workshops take place. But the main draw (pun intended) here is the 5-meter long color marker mosaic depicting the Singapore skyline and which uses 25,000 connector pens to make. The massive artwork is set to go down in history as the biggest mosaic done using color markers in Singapore. Try spoting your favorite Singapore landmarks at this massive installation. May 27-Jun 4
FESTIVAL
Claymore Connect will host the inaugural Peranakan Festival, where performances, arts workshops and exhibitions have been lined up over four weekends to promote the Straits Chinese community’s heritage. May 27-Jun 17
EXHIBITION
Slither over to the Singapore Zoo if you like your reptiles as they will be launching their new exhibit, Reptopia, over several weekends. Expect charm-eleon greet and meet sessions, workshops, and if you’re really into scaly fiends, go for their Camp Fest over the weekend of May 27-28 where you can snooze with nightlife of the wild kind. May 27-Jun 26
FOOD
The Indian Food Festival at Melt Cafe, which usually serves up a buffet spread of international and local dishes like Hainanese chicken rice and Vietnamese lobster spring rolls, will see a variety of Indian dishes by specialty chef Santosh Kumar such as an authentic South Indian recipe of salmon tikka, saffron marinated tandoori lamb chop and more. Through May 28
FILM
Part of Voilah! French Festival 2017, National Museum will be presenting a comprehensive look into the works of Jacques Tati, a French screenwriter, director and actor, at Playtime: The Complete Works of Jacques Tati. His cinematography style has inspired greats like Steven Spielberg, David Lynch and Rowan Atkinson. Through Jun 4
EXHIBITION
Calling all Harry Potter fans—if you’re in withdrawal after reading Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts, time to ooh and aah over some Harry Potter stamps, prop replicas, toys and other memorabilia from private collectors all around the world at the Singapore Philatelic Museum. Through Jun 25
FOOD
Goodwood Park Hotel’s annual durian festival returns, unfrazzled by the suspension and food poisoning cases last year, with all-time favorites like durian puffs and crepes and new creations like a designer cakes shaped after the fruit itself. Through Jul 31
Sunday, May 28
WELLNESS
Car-Free Sundays is back, with road closures in the CBD and Civic District and the entire Telok Ayer area. Other than the usuals like community cycling, craft-making workshops, trishaw rides and other fun activities, they’ve also extended the road closures to Bencoolen Street to celebrate the work done to enhance the street. This brings the cycling route to about 6.7km. May 28
CONCERT
Multiple Grammy winner Sting, known for seminal hits like “Shape of my Heart”, “Desert Rose” and and “All for Love”, a collab with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart, returns to Singapore after five years as part of his “57th and 9th”’s tour. The former lead singer and songwriter of The Police, will be playing songs from his 12th (!) solo album, his first rock/pop album in over a decade. May 28
COMEDY
One of UK’s comedic greats, Russell Howard, is making his debut in Singapore with his biggest global comedy tour, “Round The World”. Catch the writer/actor of BBC Three’s Russell Howard’s Good News as he shares anecdotes of his life in a whimsical and silly, yet optimistic, way at Kallang Theater. May 28
FOOD
Salon de Royal, a chocolatier cafe from Kyoto that was founded in 1935 is having a pop-up store at Japan Food Town, bringing their limited-edition pecan nut flavored ice-cream that’s specially made for Singapore and other popular sweets by them. Through May 31
FOOD
Enjoy the best Polish dishes by six Polish chefs at various restaurants, along with an array of movie screenings, parties and a concert at Singapore Botanic Gardens at the first-ever Polish Food Festival. Through Jun 3
EXHIBITION
The photography series “Hong Kong Shop Cats” by Dutch visual artist and photographer Marcel Heijnen has garnered quite a following since 2016. This year, the exhibition will be held outside of Hong Kong for the first time, right here at Artistry. Through Jun 4
EXHIBITION
Eitaro Ogawa, Tamae Iwasaki and Tomohisa Miyauchi have turned their 700-page soft cover photobook HDB Homes of Singapore into a photo exhibition of the same name, which will be showcased at SPRMRKT. Through Jun 27
FOOD
Ah Hoi’s Kitchen at Hotel Jen Tanglin is throwing a Festival of Crabs where you can feast on not one, not two, but 10 different styles of meaty Sri Lankan crabs. There’s no way to eat all of them (at one go at least), so be smart and get your claws on the Salted Egg and Crispy Yam Crab, Glass Noodles and Chinese Wine Crab or Claypot Crab Beehoon. Through Jul 31
