Where Do You Park, Eat and See a Doctor in Chinatown?

This Chinatown practical guide covers a district that is easy to reach, hard to park in and full of small details worth knowing: which stations to use, where the pharmacies and clinics are, and which hawker centres are close.

Distances are straight-line from the Mondrian on Duxton Hill.

Chinatown is one stop among the sights across Singapore.

MRT stations for Chinatown

Chinatown station serves the North East Line and the Downtown Line, and Telok Ayer station on the Downtown Line sits at the south-east edge of the district (LTA's MRT system map).

Maxwell is a Thomson-East Coast Line station, and the LTA TEL brochure lists the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Chinatown among the places it serves.

Outram Park station is the stop for Singapore General Hospital.

Parking in Chinatown

The attractions car park list shows no rate for the Chinatown Heritage Centre and points to street parking on Mosque Street and Temple Street.

It names Chinatown Point and Hong Lim Complex as car parks within walking distance.

Short-term parking at URA and HDB car parks is paid with coupons or the Parking.sg app, with rates on the signboard (the URA coupon page, the HDB car park page).

Many HDB car parks are free on Sundays and public holidays under HDB's conditions (HDB free parking scheme).

Pharmacies in Chinatown

Pharmacies across Chinatown appear in HSA's open pharmacy dataset.

VivaHealth Pharmacy is at 91 Upper Cross Street by Chinatown MRT station, 730 metres north of the hotel.

Guardian at Chinatown Point is 800 metres north, and Essentials Pharmacy at People's Park Centre is 760 metres north.

Doctors and clinics in Chinatown

Minmed Clinic at Chinatown Point is 760 metres north of the hotel, and Family Medicine Clinic Chinatown is in the same mall.

Cross Street Medical Clinic and Chinatown Wellness Clinic are both at Block 531 Upper Cross Street, about 720 metres north-east of the hotel.

Doctors For Life Medical is at 3 Pickering Street, 850 metres north-east of the hotel.

Call ahead for hours, because evening and Sunday options are limited and none of these listings is a 24-hour service.

The nearest hospital emergency department is SGH Emergency Department, and the NurseFirst helpline is 6262 6262 (SCDF).

Hawker centres and markets in Chinatown

Chinatown Complex is 440 metres north of the hotel, Hong Lim Market and Food Centre is 830 metres north-east, and People's Park Food Centre is 710 metres north.

NEA centres close for cleaning on set dates, listed in the closure dataset.

Stall-by-stall picks are in the hawker centre guide.

Temples, shophouse streets and the heritage centre are covered in things to do in Chinatown.

History and character of Chinatown

The Chinatown Historic District has four conservation precincts: Telok Ayer from the 1820s, Kreta Ayer from the 1830s, Tanjong Pagar from the late 1880s and Bukit Pasoh from the early 1920s (URA's Chinatown conservation notes).

Conservation status was gazetted on 7 July 1989.

Telok Ayer means "bay water" in Malay and marks the old shoreline where immigrants landed, and it is home to Thian Hock Keng and Fuk Tak Chi temples, Al-Abrar Mosque and Nagore Durgha Shrine (URA's Telok Ayer heritage notes).

Kreta Ayer means "water cart" in Malay.

Al-Abrar Mosque and Nagore Durgha Shrine on Telok Ayer Street are among the district's national monuments.

The Chinatown Heritage Centre opened in July 2002 (NLB Infopedia).

Sri Mariamman Temple is 520 metres north-east of the hotel and the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple is 360 metres north-east.