Marina Bay Sands SkyPark

Marina Bay Sands is the building that rebranded a country: three 55-storey towers carrying a 340-metre "SkyPark" like a surfboard across their tops, designed by Moshe Safdie and finished in 2010. The infinity pool up there is the most famous swimming pool on Earth — and hotel-guests-only, which is the first thing to know. The Observation Deck on the cantilevered prow is the public's share, and it's the right side of the building: you face the Supertrees and the shipping lanes one way, the financial district's towers the other, with the evening light show playing out below.

The deck is open-air — wind, warmth, real air, none of the glass-glare that curses tower views — and the sightline down onto Gardens by the Bay is the aerial photograph everyone has seen, available in person. Time it for an hour before sunset: day view, the pink hour over the Strait, and then Spectra, the bay's own water-and-light show (8 and 9 PM), which from 56 floors up looks like the city performing for you personally.

Book the timed ticket online — walk-up prices are higher and sunset slots thin out. The insider alternative: the rooftop bars on level 57 (CÉ LA VI and neighbours) admit non-guests, and a cocktail there costs little more than the deck ticket while adding a chair and better angles on the pool — but the deck's prow cantilever is the unobstructed photograph. Doing the SkyPark and Gardens by the Bay as one evening (deck for sunset, gardens' 8:45 show after) is the definitive first-night-in-Singapore plan.