Singapore stopover January break

[KillingEvenings]

We're stopping off for a single night in Singapore on the way back from Australia this Jan and wondered if anyone had any recommendations for we might enjoy if we are there for just one night and one day.

We will have my DS15 and DS12 in tow, and both are pretty amenable to whatever. DS1 is keen to practice his GCSE Chinese, and we are all pretty excited about the food.

It's really not much time to do much of anything, but we stopped over last time we made this trip (albeit in a different city) and found breaking it up really helped recharge our bones after a hectic Christmas holiday with lots of extended family (and family dramas) .

I feel at a complete loss looking at hotels though, not even sure where to start. Had hoped for something less than £350 total for the night, but maybe that's really unreasonable? We don't stay in hotels very often and certainly not in big modern cities so not sure what to expect.

In the evening, I’d suggest seeing the Gardens by the Bay light show. It’s free and absolutely out of this world, especially if you stand right under the ‘trees’!
The next day, you could explore Chinatown and the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre then take the cable car over to Sentosa Island. There’s loads to do on Sentosa but out favourite activity is Skyline Luge.

I was going to say Sentosa. We stayed at the Hard Rock and got the skyline into the main town. There is so much to do, can you extend even by just another night?

The Chinese speakers speak Hokkien which isn’t a usual dialect to learn. So your DS might struggle (I don’t know, I don’t speak Chinese). Most people speak English as they all do it at school.
Hawker centres: Lau Pa Sat for satay, and boa in China Town (quite expensive comparatively). To be honest you can go anywhere but different places have different specialties. You also want to try roti prata which usually comes with fish head curry sauce (my friends uses to have this for breakfast). Sweetcorn milkshake is nice and unusual too. Little India was good for restaurants. Also head to Orchard road.
Singapore is expensive but not sure what the current going rate is for hotels. It’s a small city so don’t worry about being further out as long as you’re close to an MRT.

If it’s one night I’d be tempted to stay in an airport hotel and use the transit system to head to wherever you fancy. CHVRH is great for restaurants and highly recommend gardens by the bay at night.

Second most of the above (especially Lau Pa Sat and Little India for food in an evening), but I guess what you can fit in will depend a lot on your arrival/departure times.

thanks everyone for suggestions so far. Interesting about the dialect - I thought I had read that Mandarin was one of the official languages. He's not expecting any lengthy conversations, but is excited by seeing characters around.
We arrive later afternoon and leave late late the following evening so not much time unfortunately but enough for a meal or two and one or two sites