Singapore Part 2

We knew that we were going to go to Gardens by the Bay on our second full day in Singapore, but we weren't sure what else we would do that day.  When we woke up, the weather made the decision for us.  It was an inside activity kind of morning.

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?

  

Singapore Part 1

We've spent the past year using our vacation time to explore Thailand, so we thought it was time to check out a new country in the region.  Lots of our friends have recommended Singapore as an easy and fun family destination, so this spring break we got out our passports and got on a plane to Singapore.  The girls did great on the plane.  Elena and her magazine reading especially cracked me up.

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?