Singapore
Travel Location: Singapore,Singapore
After leaving Kuala Lumpur we headed south on a five hour journey by luxury coach to Singapore. When we arrived we managed to work out the train system and got the MRT to the Little India area of the city where we checked into Footprints Hostel.
On our first full day in Singapore we headed to Orchard Road, the main shopping and tourist area of the city. The whole stretch of the road is covered with malls and we spent the most part of the day wandering around them and buying a few bits and pieces.
The second day began by being woken up at 5:45am by the ‘call to prayer’ from the local mosque. This happens five times a day and is a man “singing” (I use the term very loosely) through a loud speaker for about 2 minutes. I guess we missed it the first morning being tired from all the traveling but it has since woken us up at 5:45am everyday! After then getting up at a normal hour we spent the day at the Harbour Front. We had a look around the huge new mall called Vivo City along with the Harbour Front mall and its surrounding area. In the evening we headed to Bugis Street, an area full with street stalls selling all sorts of clothes and accessories. It was very busy but had a great atmosphere.
On Saturday we took at trip to Chinatown and spent a while looking around the shops and local streets before visiting Thian Hock Keng Temple. The temple is Chinese Buddhist and was very pretty and intricately decorated. We headed back to the hostel in the afternoon and that evening went out to go on the Singapore Flyer – a huge big wheel much like the London Eye that is the biggest in the world. We got the train to the nearest station and began to walk to the flyer but soon realised there was an event on meaning a lot of roads were closed and there were people everywhere! We therefore ended up walking the extremely long way round to get to the flyer and were knackered by the time we got there. We found out it was Singapore’s national day and as such there was a parade and military demonstrations taking place. While we were on our flyer trip we saw an Apache Helicopter display, a Chinook Helicopter with a Singapore flag trailing underneath it, war ships shooting from the bay and, best of all, three F16 fighter jets flying overhead… so it turned out we timed it pretty well!
The next day we headed to the Singapore Botanic Gardens which were stunning, but very humid. Within the gardens they have the National Orchid Gardens which we paid to go in and have look around. It was fantastic, the flowers were incredible and it was immaculately kept. They had an area of wild Orchids, a Mist House which had rare Orchids and a Cool House (heaven) which recreated a tropical forest. After the Orchid garden we had a wander around the rest of the park where we had a picnic lunch and also visited the Ginger Garden.
On Monday we headed over to Sentosa Island, also known as Singapore’s playground with lots of attractions including a man made beach. First stop for us was the Sentosa Luge run by the same company as the Luge we went on in New Zealand. We had two rides down the track and although it was smaller than the other ones we have been on it was still good fun. We had some lunch and then went up the Tiger Sky Tower which at 110m gave great views out over the island and onto Singapore. We could see the huge amount of construction work that is going on as they’re building a Universal Studios theme park that will open next year. After the tower it started raining so we hit the gift shop then headed back to the mainland.
The next day we went to the Marina Bay area to visit Merlion Park and see the Theatres on the Bay. In the park there is a huge sculpture of a Merlion, a half lion half fish creature which, along with the Orchid, is one of Singapore’s national symbols. The theatres were equally impressive though they do look a bit like fly eyes so they’re not the prettiest of buildings! The Marina Bay area, like the rest of Singapore, is covered with malls so we spent the rest of the day wandering around them.
On Wednesday we headed north out of the main city to Singapore Zoo, one of the best in the world for animal welfare. It was fantastic, we saw Parrots, Giant Tortoise, Elephants, Lions, Rhinos, White Tigers, Leopards and a whole host of other weird and wonderful things! They also have the worlds largest primate collection including Orangutans who live in their free ranging home in the trees within the zoo. We watched an ‘Elephants at work and play’ display and saw the Polar Bears being fed. At the end of the day we watched the ‘Splash Safari’ which included a Sea Lion named Carlos doing lots of tricks.
Today is our final day in Singapore – and of our travels!!! We will be spending the day packing and having a big sort out of all the junk we’ve managed to accumulate over the last 9 months. We have a day at the airport on Friday before a 13 hour flight home at 11:05pm, arriving on Saturday the 11th at 5:25am.
Hope you’ve all enjoyed the blog!
Until next time…
Teresa and Barney xx
