The flight was a little over two hours long, so the girls had no problem keeping themselves entertained. Singapore has many draws including English being the official language and everything running smoothly. This means that at the airport we easily got a clean taxi with an English speaking driver who drove us to our Airbnb apartment on wide, tree lined roads with no traffic.
The major negative of Singapore is that it is very expensive, so we thought it would be more economical (and more comfortable) to use Airbnb rather than paying over $200 a night for a small hotel room. We have learned that the trick on Airbnb is to look for "super hosts." Those are hosts that consistently receive good reviews from the people who rent from them. We got a great apartment, and our hosts were very accommodating.
One of the best parts of the apartment was the view. Most of the rooms had big windows with a seating ledge. The girls spent a lot of time looking out the windows.
Singapore is such a green city! Our hosts also provided a bunch of things for Elena, like a pack and play to sleep in and toys to play with. She felt right at home.
We had ambitious plans to go out and do things our first night, but the girls (especially Elena) were a little fussy, so we opted for exploring the complex instead. The condo complex had a really cool design.
As we walked around the property, we found playgrounds, pools, and a little store where we bought food for dinner and breakfast the next morning. The girls woke up the next day in a great mood.
Our first adventure of the day was the Singapore Zoo. We discovered that the best way to get a ride from our apartment to the zoo was to use Uber. A friend had also recommended the Klook website for discounted tickets to Singapore attractions, so I had already purchased zoo tickets ahead of time. The zoo, like the rest of Singapore, had beautiful trees and flowers.
The first animals we found were otters swimming around.
The girls both loved the white tiger too.
It was really easy to see most of the animals. Elena got especially excited about the baby rhinoceros.
She waved an enthusiastic hello to the zebras.
And we had a hard time getting her to look away from the giraffes long enough for a picture.
Even though Singapore is cooler than Bangkok, it's still hot, so we got some air conditioned relief in the polar animals exhibit.
We had brought bathing suits since the zoo has a water play area, but it was closed :-( Vivian took it well, especially since we softened the blow with a souvenir slushy and a merry go round ride.
When we got back to the apartment, Elena crashed for a nap, I did some school work, and Jeff took Vivian to the pools there to compensate for no water time at the zoo. Vivian also found a friend and had a lot of fun at one of the condo's play areas.
After that, it was time for the second adventure of the day, cable car rides! The condo had a shuttle to the Harbour Front MRT stop. That's also one of the cable car stops. There are two cable car lines. The one that stops at Harbour Front and goes between Sentosa and Mount Faber, and then the one that runs along Sentosa itself. Klook came in handy again, and we had passes for round trips on both lines that we picked up at the mall near the MRT stop. We saw the cable cars as we were walking from the mall to the building with the station.
At the station, the cars didn't stop. The door just opened, and you hopped on as it rolled by.
We decided to go to Sentosa first, and we saw Mount Faber out the back window was we glided off towards Sentosa.
The views from the cable car were fantastic. We were up really high. It's definitely not for the faint of heart.
After these pictures, Jeff switched to his big camera to take pictures of the Sentosa cable car ride and the ride up to Mount Faber. Unfortunately, we made the tragic discovery the next day that there was no memory card in his camera :-( Luckily, we still have our memories of the fabulous rides, and it just cemented our decision to come back to Singapore at least one more time before we leave Asia. After all, we need to take pictures, right?
What a fabulous trip for you guys! I love the architecture of your condo building, too- like lego blocks. Next time you're living back in the States and the girls want to see a white tiger, you'll have to bring them to New Orleans, since our zoo is famous for a white tiger, too. :-) And I'm very impressed that you all did the cable cars! You'll definitely have to go back to get more pictures. I like that logic! lol Miss y'all!
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