Eventually, I made it back to terra firma where I realized that land-based activities, like the Mirror Maze (for which I’d been given a foam noodle to tap the space in front of me as a way to avoid bumping into a mirror) were more my speed. Indeed, while Cirque du Soleil-style recreation is novel and fun (ahem, for some), Changi is at its best when it conjures something of the spirit of its home, of Singapore, the polished “city in a garden.”

Green, blooming spaces — cactus, water lily and orchid gardens; ponds alive with koi; Jewel’s indoor forest — beckon with flowering plants, palms and water flowing over rocks into pools and ponds. The soothing sound of water is one of Changi’s most delightful features. Even in Jewel, while flitting from store to store, at some point you become aware of a quiet roar. Turn in its direction and where you expect to see yet another string of dazzling shops, you find instead that the wall has fallen away and in its place is an opening to another world: that massive waterfall splashing through a garden, a fine mist spraying up from the valley below.

We followed the waterfall below ground, riding an escalator to the basement levels of Jewel, where the water barrels through an immense clear column encircled in part by tables for nearby eateries. A couple on a bench were chatting, facing the falls, as if in a park. Others were snapping photos of children as they pressed their palms to the column between bites.

Lunchtime restaurant-hopping

With award-winning restaurants and specialties from Singapore and throughout Asia (Singaporean cuisine from Violet Oon Singapore; hotpot from Beauty in The Pot), we treated lunch at Jewel like a cruise ship smorgasbord. A friend who lives in Singapore joined us for dim sum (prawn dumplings, shredded chicken spring rolls, barbecue pork buns) at Tim Ho Wan, an outpost of the Hong Kong-based Michelin-star winner (even so, it’s surprisingly affordable). Afterward, it was on to Japanese Soba Noodles Tsuta, a branch of the first ramen restaurant to receive a Michelin star, where we had the Shoyu soba; followed by raw milk, soft-serve ice cream from Japan’s Icenoie Hokkaido; and “botanical gelato” in flavors like white chrysanthemum (imagine the taste of flower florets and cacao nibs) from Birds of Paradise.