That was not a problem, because one of the things we wanted to check out was the Science Centre. It's a science museum that was pretty close to our apartment.
The Science Centre turned out to be a big hit with the girls. Elena had a little tumble when we first came in, but I got her distracted by having her count reflective spheres.
It's interesting that when Vivian was this age, I could get her calmed down by singing her the ABC song. That doesn't work with Elena, but she loves to count. Vivian has grown up to be really strong verbally, so we're wondering if Elena is going to be more of a numbers person. Only time will tell :-)
We had a lot of fun in an exhibit about the brain.
Elena had fun playing with everything and following Jeff and Vivian around, but she definitely didn't get the brain part. When she saw this display of part of the brain, she delightedly yelled, "Dinosaur!"
After that, we found a virtual reality area where Vivian pushed on a sphere to move a virtual rock.
Elena was impressed.
Unfortunately, she was not too impressed with the next part, which was a Tesla coil demonstration.
It was LOUD. I had to take her to a different area, because it made her cry. She prefers things like pushing buttons to make a metal ring go from one side to the other.
She pushed this button at least 20 times and giggled every time.
The Science Centre also had a special human body exhibit. It cost extra and involved climbing, so Jeff and Vivian went in while Elena and I hung out in the natural disasters area.
They had to climb in the mouth, and then go down a tongue slide.
Once they were inside they traveled through various organs.
The funniest part, though, was how they got out. Elena and I went around to the "exit", which was basically a huge poop hole. The cherry on top was that it made farting noises when people came out. Vivian, of course, found this hysterical.
She ended up ranking the science museum as one of her favorite Singapore experiences. After the museum we went back to the apartment in the hopes that Elena would take a nap, but she was having none of it. By then it had stopped raining, so we decided to carry on to Gardens by the Bay.
At this point, we still didn't know that there was no memory card in Jeff's big camera, so we only have a few pictures from my phone from the first part of our trip.
When we came in the main entrance, there was a tram that said audio tour on it. I had realized as we drove up that the gardens are HUGE, so I thought we should get on the tram and get the tour rather than walking in the heat. I quickly figured out where to get tickets and got us on. It ended up working out perfectly, because we got a great overview tour to start off with.
After the tour we collected our tickets (thank you Klook!) for the two domes. The big visual features of Gardens by the Bay are the super trees and the domes.
The two domes have two different types of plants. One is a cloud forest, which is meant to be a mountain rainforest. The other one is called the Flower Dome and it has flowers from all over the world, including a tulipmania display.
We went into the Cloud Dome first. It's hard to get pictures because there's so much glass, but the centerpiece has plants growing everywhere and a huge waterfall. You take an elevator up the middle, and then walk down the paths around and inside it. Jeff took better "pictures" with his memory card free camera, but luckily I was so impressed by it that I tried to take some pictures with my phone.
It was an incredible experience walking around inside that dome. It was one of my favorite things in Singapore. It was also quite chilly though, so when we go next time, I'm bringing a sweatshirt.
Next, we went into the Flower Dome. It was divided into sections by continent, with different types of plants in each part.
Again, lighting was a bit tricky, but we got lots of nice pictures.
The Tulipmania exhibit is seasonal and quite impressive.
The Flower Dome was also air conditioned, so by the time we were done in there, we were COLD. We spent some time outside warming up, and then we found some dinner. Our goal was to stick around until 7:45pm for the super tree show. They do a light and music show twice a night.
This is what the super tree grove looks like in the daytime.
The space ship looking building in the back is Marina Bay Sands. It's a hotel and casino. Getting to the bar at the top is on the list of things to do next time we come to Singapore. This is what it looks like at night.
On the left of the picture, towards the bottom is the OCBC Skyway. It's a bridge connecting six of the super trees. We were planning to go up there in the evening, but the line was so long that we had to scrap that idea. Just another thing to add to the list for next time. There's also a restaurant at the top of one of the super trees, which intrigued us.
The light show was great. They played show tunes this time. One of our friends went when they played Disney music. I got a little video at the end.
It was late, Elena hadn't had a nap, and she had experienced Tesla coil trauma earlier that day, so she spent most of the show with her head buried in my shoulder. Vivian loved it though. After the show, we went over to the taxi stand and easily got a cab back to the apartment. It took about ten minutes, since there was no traffic. Have I mentioned that I love Singapore?
Your phone took great pictures! What a fantastic time you guys must have had. I giggled out loud at the trip through the body pictures, and particularly how you "leave"- on a brown mat, no less. ha! So glad you had such a memorable time in Singapore. Keep the updates coming! (and yes, I'll try to do the same!)
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