My last day in Singapore. I didn’t get up early enough to go exploring before it got too hot. It was overcast so that helped. I went to the botanic gardens. So, if you don’t want to see way too many pictures of plants, then today’s blog is not for you. It was hot, but not unbearable until about 2:00pm. I only saw about half the gardens. There was so much more I wanted to see, but the heat chased me out. I loved the ginger garden. So many plants I didn’t realize were ginger or related to ginger. Banana trees are related to ginger. Who knew? I also loved the Evolution Garden. It started out as just rock and water like when the earth was born and transformed as you walked through it as the plants on Earth would have transformed. They even went to the detail to have dinosaur tracks on the path during that time period and animal tracks during a later period. I was quite impressed with the gardens.
I went a shopping center in the Orchard Road area. It was one that Pat recommended. It was where she found that perfume the cheapest. It had a very similar feel to a Thai mall. It was huge and I gave up on it pretty quickly.
Went out to dinner with Judy, Andy and Ivan.
Here are a bunch of plant photos. Go.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Giant Palm Leaves
This must be fabulous when the trees are blooming
Iconic perfect lake complete with swan
This came from the tree in the next photoThe flowers and nuts come from the bottom, not the top of the treeA ginger
artist idea of the first trees on the planet
Dinosaur tracks
You can eat a burger at FatBoys and then get the fat frozen off upstairs
First order of business of the day was to check out the East Shore Park. It looks like a long boardwalk along the beach. I got a cab down there and it let me off at one end where there were a bunch of restaurants and shops. It’s Monday so most of the shops and restaurants were closed. It looked like a ghost town. There were no cars in the parking lot. I did find a place to have breakfast. To my surprise, my french toast had peanut butter in it. Unnecessary.
I walked around the park for awhile. It doesn’t seem like a tranquil island beach when you look out to the water and see nothing but a solid mass of cargo ships. The park overdid itself like I imagine all the parks in Singapore do. It had benches, exercise equipment, bbq grills, separate walking and biking paths along with a lot of other amenities. It was spotless clean too. I did walk by an area of tents, boats and roll away garbage bins. Not sure what that was all about. I’d have thought it was homeless if it wasn’t for the fact that the garbage bins outnumbered the tents.
It was getting too hot for humans to survive outside. So, I decided to do the shopping I needed to get done. Oh, crap, how do I get anywhere? I’m at the ghost town beach and the only taxi is the one that let me off hours ago. I actually did see a few taxis, but they all went by me. I ended up going through a highway underpass to another part of town which was half a ghost town and getting a taxi there.
Orchard Road is the big shopping area, but it’s very high end and probably very expensive. Judy had suggested that I got to Mustafa’s. It’s cheaper and it’s a madhouse that needs to be experienced. It is one store that is 5 or 6 levels tall and has almost everything ever made in it. The isles are too small for two people to be in them at once and there are already 4 people in every isle. There is a small order to things such as all the cosmetics are on one floor, but if you want perfume, it’s in 6 different places on that floor. I was looking for perfume that Pat wanted me to pick up. I also wanted to buy some cosmetics for myself. Everything in Thailand has whitening agents in it because they think light skin is pretty. I’m now darker than most Thais and am happy to pale naturally over time without whiteners. I also wanted to get a gift for Judy for letting me stay at her place. After wandering the first floor, I decided I was up for the challenge of the other 5 floors. It was like a maze – just when you thought you got to the end of the store, there was another room on that level. After 2 hours I gave up on tackling the whole store. It was not possible and people are so rude and pushy, I couldn’t take it anymore.
Last night when Judy asked what I was going to do today, I told her I wanted to see Henderson Waves. She hadn’t seen it, looked it up and wanted to go so we decided to do it after she got home from school. From what I had seen on line, it looked like an undulating bridge, but I couldn’t figure out how you would drive or walk on it. Andy decided to join us. It was a foot bridge between two really big parks. It is the highest bridge in Singapore. The wave part is off the side of the walking part. It is stunningly beautiful with great views off either side. It is a serious piece of art, in my opinion. Bravo. We stayed up there for quite awhile taking pictures.
After Henderson Waves, we took the train to Sentosa. Sentosa is a landfill island, meaning, the island was made from the extra dirt of other construction projects over the years. It has a huge park, Universal Studios, beaches and who knows what other wonderful things. It was almost dark when we got there. We went to the shore and I put some of Scott’s ashes in the water! So, now he’s in Singapore too.
Off to dinner and then Judy’s neighborhood bar. She introduced me to a guy named Ian who works with or runs or owns a company that teaches English for hospitality industry workers. She was hoping he might have some future work for me. He was with family that was visiting and was not the least bit interested in talking to me. Oh well, it was worth a try to make a new connection.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Facinating – poles for laundry built into building
I spent most of the day near the Gardens by the Bay and the Marina Bay Sands. The Gardens by the Bay is a big garden area with big art and sprawling gardens. They have these huge metal and plant trees called the Super Trees. You can go up on a floating walkway up in the canopy of the trees. Near the Gardens by the Bay is the Marina Bay Sands which is a huge hotel, casino, and shopping mall. I met a few of the people over there to go to the Art Science Museum.
The Art Science Museum is an amazing concept. It’s dedicated to the mix of art and science. One of the exhibits they had was on gemstones. The other was an exhibit of interactive light art. The first exhibit was a room with a “painting” on the wall. It was flowers that grew, bloomed, and then the petals blew away. Butterflies also came out of the flowers. Then as the painting moved, the parts that moved off the painting became blurry and went up the walls, ceiling and floor consuming the entire room. There’s a short video of the “painting”. There were rooms where kids could draw things and what they drew then became part of a movie on the screen behind them. One was an ocean scene with fish swimming around. The fish were all the drawings kids had made. Another was a table and things were projected onto the table – gnomes, rain, flowers, butterflies, ladders, etc. If the gnomes were on the table and you put your hand down, they interacted with your hand by jumping over it, going around it or one time they set up a ladder and crawled up Amie’s arm. You could catch the rain in your hand and divert it somewhere else on the table. It seemed like there were an endless number of interactions. Sorry, no video of this one. There were some other exhibits, but the final one was a room you walked through with hundreds, maybe thousands of lights. They moved to the music, change colors, and moved through the room. It was supposed to mimic the way particles and light behave in space. I could have stayed in here for ever. I posted three way too short videos for this. It reminded me of the Cubitron at Burning Man a few years ago, but way better.
Amie and I hung out the rest of the afternoon. We walked around the gardens as it was getting dark. I found the floating baby statue. It’s called Planet. Not sure why. It was too dark to get a good photo or I’m just bad at night photos. Then we went up to the Marina Bay Sands at night. You can pay to go to the observation deck or you can go to the lounge and have a drink (with the price of drinks here, it’s about the same). The Marina Bay Sands has the largest infinity pool in the world (or the longest or the highest or something like that). I got a really bad photo of it, but you get the idea. Of course, people not staying in the hotel can’t get very near the pool. You can only marvel at it from afar. The rooms run about $600 a night and up. The view of the city is amazing from the top (56 floors?).
Out in front of the mall that is attached to the hotel they do a water and light show every night. After drinks we went down to watch it. They spray a thin wall of water and then project a video and lasers on to it. It’s all set to music too. In general, I didn’t find the show to be too exciting, but the concept of projecting video onto water was brilliant. I added a short video of that too.
I think I’m in love with Singapore.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Random Footbridge
Largest Infinity Pool in the World
Super TreesMarina Bay Sands LobbyLight and Water Show
It’s official, I am too old for staying in hostels. The top bunk was too much. I didn’t hurt myself, but it made me quite grumpy. Then I have to go upstairs to go to the bathroom. My suitcase is in a locker so I have to figure out what I need and throw it up to the top bunk and if I forget something go through the whole locker process again. I know first world problems. Still, I got in around 3:00 and it was a room full of snoring men. I put my ear plugs in, but it wasn’t enough. The sound resistant walls were useless. They were air condition resistant walls though. So, even though the air conditioning was on, it didn’t reach me. Someone packed up all their stuff and left at 4:00am. This involved a ridiculous amount of in and outs and my bed is right next to the door. Then other people got up at 6:00am and more at 8:00am. So, I barely slept. Last night, one of my new friends offered that I could stay with her in the future. I emailed her. The future starts tonight. I went looking for the breakfast that comes with my room and didn’t find that so I promptly checked out and caught a cab to Judy’s. Now I have a queen sized bed and bathroom to myself with air condition that works.
Another travel day. I left Bali way too early. I told my hotel when my flight was and they called a taxi for me. I basically went an hour too early. Oh well, time enough to get some food.
When I decided to go to Singapore, it was just me. Two of my friends told me they knew someone there and put me in touch with these people. They both gave me pointers on what part of town to stay in and said they’d love to hang out in the evenings. Yay! New Friends!
Singapore is so expensive. I couldn’t find a hotel under $100 a night. Hostels ran $28+ per night. I found a hostel that said they had sound resistant walls and looked all futuristic and high tech so I decided to book there. I arrived and the place was so hot. The place has air conditioning, but none of it was on. By the time I had settled in and changed clothes, I was sweating so bad that outside seemed like a cooler option. The beds don’t look all futuristic, but they still look pretty cool. Unfortunately, I got a top bunk. Hope I don’t kill myself in the middle of the night.
So far, I like Singapore. It is a very clean and safe city. There are trees and gardens everywhere. The streets aren’t crazy like all the other places I’ve been lately. They drive like civilized people and stay within their own lane and follow basic traffic rules. Most large cities I’ve been in have an aggressive feeling to them and I figured it was just the hustle and bustle of a big city. Singapore has hustle and bustle, but without the aggressive feeling. Also, all the buildings are unique and have quite a bit of an artistic quality to them.
I headed out to find my way to dinner. One of my new friends set up a dinner with me, his boyfriend, a woman he works with and two other people that were visiting Singapore. We started off with dinner at an Indian restaurant and then went and checked out some of the Singapore night life. Everyone was wonderful and so funny. I had a great night. I’m so glad I decided to come here. Thanks Erin for introducing me to my new friend!
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Leaving BaliArriving in SingaporeMy very expensive bedNew fun friends
Rraine Drops 