Today there was no messing around, we had tons to see and not enough time to do it. We started early with a taxi right to the Gardens by the Bay. This whole complex of indoor and outdoor gardens and manmade 7 story trees dripping with tropical plants was spectacular. Apparently they spent over a billion dollars creating this garden area- join effort between the Sands Hotel and the Singaporean Government. They had two huge indoor gardens which creates a tropical environment of spring all year long. The first glass house was filled with flowers and their current exhibit of Chinese New Year’s flowers and zodiac displays. We discovered that I was a Monkey- definitely my year and Sam’s was really the next best fortune as a Horse :) But the actually upcoming year is the year of the Goat. Apparently the Chinese zodiac was created based on the story that the god of the heavens conducted a race with all the animals on earth and the twelve fastest would make up the zodiac.
We explored into the next glass house that had a 7 story rainforest mountain waterfall inside dripping with exotic flowers and orchids and a winding aerial path that went around it so you could see the layers of the rainforest on the manmade mountain. Inside the mountain they had a large collection of stalactites and stalagmites. We loved walking around and taking note of the different flowers and plants. They also had a sky walk between their manmade trees which we walked over that also had a good view of the surrounding bay and area. There were many other gardens that were free and open to the public. When we were done we walked to the Marina Bay Sands hotel which is the iconic hotel and building with it’s huge infinity pool that sits on the 57th floor. It looks like a huge ship suspended on top 3 large hotel towers. There we met Eunice our friend from Singapore. She was generous enough to take us to lunch at Sky on 57th. After taking a look around the hotel and adjoining shopping mall where we rode a boat through the mall, we enjoyed a delicious lunch overlooking the city and then took a walk through the pool area which is the iconic view and shot over Singapore and it’s bay at the Marina Bay Sands hotel. Eunice is a Singaporean clone of my mother. It is just hilarious. I hope they have a chance to meet. I can’t believe there are two Nancy’s in this world, but I think I have found her Asian clone. Love for them to meet.
Following lunch we rode the Singapore Flyer- the huge and largest Ferris Wheel in Asia which gives you even greater views of the surrounding area and city that rose into a modern commercial city and one of the world’s largest ports in the past 50 years. It is the country’s 50th year anniversary since they were actually kicked out of Malaysia. They used to be a fishing village and their Prime Minster of Singapore and the leader of Malaysia in which they were a part of didn’t get along and so they were expelled from the country and forced to become their own. In just 50 years without resources like oil like Dubai, they created this incredible high tech, modern and clean city. It has one of the smallest unemployment rates in the world and it is very safe and clean. The number of ships coming into their harbor is jaw dropping, never seen so many containers stacked and huge carriers mored in the bay.
We caught a taxi to the Bird Park. Sam is totally hooked on bird parks, I guarantee he would pick going to a good one over almost anything. We have now to been to The World of Birds in Cape Town- still my favorite with more birds than anywhere we have seen. Then we went to the Wildlife Park in Sydney- fun, small and interactive, not really a bird park but lots of birds but also saw many Koalas, Kangaroos. In Bali we went to the Bali Bird Park. It was actually really good and we felt was better than Singapore’s, since it was more manageable and more interactive and you could hold lots of birds. We had high expectations for Singapore’s Bird Park. It was really big and lots of walking up and down, they had a good bird show we saw right away and Sam of course was in it, like all the parks we have gone to ;) His favorite part was the Larakites enclosed area where you could feed the birds. They were hopping all over his head and arms and he was loving it. While we were near the end of the park we were around the Parrots and Macaws and it began to rain, the birds went crazy! All squawking and just went nuts- flashback to kangaroos in Wildlife Park in Sydney.
We left the park right near closing time and there were dozens of people in the taxi line and no taxis. Sam cleverly remembered that we had Uber and Singapore is so modern he was sure they had Uber, which they did! Smart boy! Within a couple of minutes we hopped in an Uber car and it took us right to the Night Safari, which everyone told us was a must do. We got there a few minutes before and had watched the opening show and then rushed into our seats for the animal show. It was entertaining and they had a variety of animals in the show. The place was packed and people are lined up waiting to get in - the park is only open at 7 p.m. and so you really have to hustle to see everything so we opted out of the Tram ride right away and walked up the paths instead. We saw all kinds of animals from huge hyenas and leopards to giant White Cloud Rats and small and large wild cats. Sam could walk up to an enclosed and was always the first to spot an animal- since it is dark out and there is minimal lighting as to not disturb the nocturnal animals.
The temperature dropped and with it I regained my energy. I was really fading at the bird park, but the Night Zoo I had my energy back and we were both having fun spotting the variety of animals. One of the most shocking was the Giant Flying Squirrel. Looks like the size of a fox and leaps from trees. We also ran into the Flying Fox Bat which is so freaky in the bat enclosure- that took all our guts to walk through. We took the tram at the end of the night which takes you all around the park and explains a bit about each of the animals and actually that is when I saw the animal I was hoping to see that looks like a huge pig/ant eater but it’s pinkish with a big black stripe and saw the white lions.
We caught Uber back to the hotel. Our driver was asking us if we had seen China Town. We were SO tired and honestly hungry because we hadn’t had anything since lunch and it was after 10 p.m. He talked us into doing a drive by to see it at night, which was better than the day since it being Chinese New Year everything is decorated and lit up. It was awesome!! We drove down the big roads and all around China Town and since he opened up the sunroof on his car we just stood up and was able to see it all and down into the streets that are for pedestrians. Wish we weren’t so tired and could have dinner in the streets, but we were exhausted. We made it back to the hotel around 11 p.m. We worked on blogs while our dinner arrived and honestly I was too tired to really eat and we fell sound asleep.
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