Singapore
October 19-22, 2017
The Start Of The Journey
Singapore, the island city/country at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula.
It took eighteen hours of flight time for Air Canada Airlines to take us from Vancouver, through Hong Kong, to finally land us in Singapore. Since we didn't know when, or even if, we'd make it back to this part of the world, we decided to spend a few days here before the cruise.
A very modern country of just under six million people, Singapore has an amazing culture, wonderful and varied architecture, beautiful green spaces and more to see than what we could cover in the few days that we had allotted for this part of the trip.
The view of Singapore from the top of the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel
A highlight of the visit was the Gardens By the Bay. It's a massive garden area that includes some amazing metal sculptures that look like something out of the movie Avatar, and two incredible metal and glass domes that create two unique environments in which an abundant selection of plants flourish.
Gardens By The Bay, Singapore
We saw a number of other tourist sights while on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus, and we took time to visit Raffles Hotel. It's a historical landmark in Singapore, and has the distinction of being where the Singapore Sling cocktail was invented.
We thought of trying one, but the huge long line waiting to get into the lounge, and the $32.00 per drink price persuaded us to just head back to our hotel. A scrumptious dinner for about the same price seemed like a much better use of the funds.
Not only a hotel, Raffles functions well as a tourist attraction for visitors to Singapore. So being said tourists, we visited their gift shop arcade and surveyed the vast assortment of products they had on offer. One could buy just about anything from clothing to chinaware, decals to delectables. The assortment was truly diverse and it was a challenge not to go crazy buying things that were incredibly nostalgic.
The Amazing And Diverse Architecture of Singapore
One of the first things that struck us when traveling around the city on the hop-on-hop-off bus was the huge diversity in the city’s architecture. From giant skyscrapers to two storey culture driven designs, the assortment was seemingly unending. Even things that were, not technically speaking, a building demonstrated that a lot of thought had been put into the design. Not just for function, you understand, but for aesthetic appeal as well.
Gardens By The Bay
The outer gardens covered a vast area and were free to the public to wander at their leisure. Full of fountains, waterways, boardwalks and artwork of all forms, one could spend hours wandering amidst the beauty that was created here. Then there’s the interior of the amazing structures which house the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest.
The Flower Dome
The Flower Dome is the largest of several incredible structures that house floral displays from five continents. Within its 1.28 hectare enclosure plants range from thousand year old olive trees to orchids to magnolias. All of which are laid out in a clever arrangement that highlights many works of art that compliment the various scenes.
The Cloud Forest
Once finished in the Flower Dome you follow a path that takes you through a sort of tunnel on route to the Cloud Forest. As you pass through the tunnel the walls are all adorned with large backlit images of exotic flowers. The first thing you see, and sensually experience once entering the Cloud Forest enclosure is the very high humidity, along with the overwhelming scent of tropical plants. The structure of the Cloud Forest itself is an amazing piece of engineering, as it’s many stories high with an internal and external walkway that only adds to the experience of the plants that live all over the structure. At the very top you come out into the open, where there are amazing displays of carnivorous plants and other unusual things. It was a very unique experience.
Around The Hotel
The view from our hotel room shows the blending of low height homes amongst the high-rise buildings. Which came first?
We stayed in Singapore at the Hotel Jen, which was centrally located and attached to a large shopping complex similar to a mall, but more vertical than spread out horizontally. What was most interesting about this “mall” was the food establishments. It seems that cooking in the very small flats that people live in is difficult, so the locals find it easier and cheaper to go to the mall and eat there. We walked around the shopping area just around the dinner hour and the amount of people jammed into each eatery was amazing. The busiest food outlets were serving basic local cuisine, and most people seemed to order much the same thing.
