Singapore Part II

Tuesday 

We woke up and had breakfast provided in the hostel lobby area, consisting of toast, watermelon, oranges slices, and dragon fruit. Also coffee. This is gonna be a long post, so you might want a coffee yourself before continuing.


Our first destination was the Henderson Waves bridge beside Mt. Faber. This is a really cool pedestrian bridge which connects two high hill natural parks. Though it was early, it never really gets cool in the tropics so it was a sweaty climb. Luckily the sun was low and there was plenty of shade. AFter seeing the bridge we hiked up to Mt. Faber and enjoyed some sights from the peak. There's also a gondola up there that can take you all the way down to the island of Sentosa, but we did not ride.

Instead we marched down and caught the MRT back toward the city center. At breakfast the hostel manager had told us about something called the City Gallery near to Chinatown, so we thought we'd check it out. After having lunch at the Maxwell Food Center (hawker market). I'm just gonna throw a lot of pictures up here while I've got good internet.

We found the Singapore City Gallery, which turned out to be a high-tech museum about city planning and how great Singapore is. Lots of architectural stuff, the challenges of being a self-contained city-state, sustainability, etc. It had some very nice interactive exhibits, numerous scale models of the island, and it was free! And air-conditioned!

Oh did I mention than the MRT trains are all air conditioned? And that the stations below ground are even kept cool? I half-jokingly suggested we just ride the MRT in a big loop around the city all day and never get off. Here's a picture of another giant room that's thoroughly air conditioned:

We went back to the hostel to rest up before making another excursion in the evening out to Marina Bay. We went to the MRT station that is right by the Marina Bay Sands hotel/shopping center...a very distinctive building which from many angles resembles three modern buildings with a huge sausage laid across the tops.

We went across the Helix Bidge, another fancy bridge (but we agree Henderson Waves is better) when goes across the water where we went to another food center, this one less authentic than maxwell, slightly more expensive, but generally the same vibe. Here's me on the bridge:

Then back across the bridge and off to the Gardens by the Bay. At 7:45(?) we were going to catch a light show here at what they called the Supertree Grove...big metal vaguely tree-shaped structures. They looked nice all lit up. Here's a "photosphere" I took:

I think I accidentally uploaded the blurry version of this pic.

When the light show commenced, we were treated to booming speakers playing the 2001 Overture, then some other music, all in <1 minute snippets, including numerous Disney songs. Some random motivational pop-punk song was in there too. Meanwhile some lights flashed around above us in simple patterns. Overall the experience was more bewildering than awe inspiring. But I guess when it comes to building ostentatious crap and engineering strange but impressive structures, Singapore has got you covered.

Wednesday

Woke. Breakfast. Went back to the Gardens, where we bought tickets to enter two large, glass, roundish buildings. One is the Cloud Forest, and the other is the Flower Dome. We went to the Cloud Forest first and OH MY GOD the blast of cool air that hit us upon entering was impressive. Ahead of us loomed a tall artificial mountain, with a waterfall pouring down the side. Exotic plants all around, and despite being in what appears to be a giant glass greenhouse, it was cool, downright cold if you stood in the wet spray of the waterfall for too long (which I did with pleasure).

Forgot to rotate. Don't know how in blog.

The cloud forest is a large garden showing off exotic cloud forest plants. It has high walkways and some interior exhibits in the mountain, and was generally pretty awesome.

For lunch we trekked back to the Sands and found a food court. Then hiked back to the gardens to hit the Flower Dome. Less awesome than the cloud forest, but still air conditioned. The Flower Dome exhibited plants from all around the world, from Baobabs to Olive trees to cacti, and, right also flowers, but fewer than you'd expect given the name of the building.  

Before leaving, we hopped back into the Cloud Forest to bask in the waterfall mist and quickly run through the cloud walkway thingies again. And after that, we left. Stopped at a mall near the hostel to pick up some supplies. It is currently about 6:00, and we aren't sure what to do tonight. Eat probably.

Ok, that's a lot of stuff. Tomorrow evening we fly to Denpasar, Indonesia, explore...On the 6th we head to Banyuwangi where we're hopefully meeting a guide to hike us out to Kawah Ijen. After that back to Denpasar and on to Yogyakarta for a bit and then Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on the 11th. Or something like that.