FAREWELL SINGAPORE

Today, Friday the 8th, we’re leaving Singapore for Malaysia. We haven’t posted for a while as we’ve been pretty busy exploring, getting home late, then crashing. (Also, we haven’t had 100% reliable Wi-Fi all the time, so sorry this is being posting on the 9th now that we’re at our next destination with Wi-Fi.)

We had spent 2 full (and I mean full… 8am to 8, 9, 10pm) days out and about. Wednesday we explored the Colonial District then Chinatown.

[Temples in the Colonial District]

 

Some various temples in the Colonial District

 

[Temples in Chinatown]

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

Inside the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

“Street of the Dead” – The start of the Chinatown Market

Having walked for the better part of the day, after lunch we took a much needed 2 hour break at the main library. Air conditioned (YES!), play structure for Tai, and a bunch of English language books. It was the perfect time to cool off, relax, and for Kim and Tia to catch up on homework and their journals.

We then met up with my good friends from New York, Yoko and Shilpak and their 2 kids. Dinner at their place was delicious, and the pool was spectacular and very refreshing. A big Thank You to Yoko and Shilpak!!!

Thursday we did a bit of an excursion to a tech company called Third Wave Power in the south western part of Singapore. For more on that morning excursion, see my other post, “Visiting Third Wave Power”.

After lunch we headed out to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel/Casino. It was like stepping into Vegas. We didn’t hang around that long. 🙂 We contemplated going up to the observation deck, but didn’t really want to spend the money. We later found out you can just say you’re going up to the bar for a drink, then just walk through to the observation deck.

The highlight of the day for us though (other then dinner with new friends later that evening), was the Gardens By The Bay behind the Sands. Gardens By The Bay is a very large complex of various outdoor gardens and indoor gardens as well as the famous metallic structured very large rainforest “trees” covered in vines and flowers. They have a sky walk that goes between 2 of the trees. That was very well worth the admittance price and offered an amazing view of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel/Casino.

View of Marina Bay Sands from atop the Skywalk @ Gardens By The Bay

Gardens By The Bay

After walking around for a bit, we followed signs to the Children’s Garden and play area. It was not at all what we expected. IT WAS AMAZING! The kids truly loved it! The water park was large and had more water spouting structures than I’ve ever seen. There was even a smaller water park for the little ones that Tai liked.

Children’s Garden @ Gardens By The Bay

As posted on Facebook that day, finding places for kids to run around, relax, cool down; just some down time; is key to having them both enjoy the trip overall and not run out of energy to keep walking and exploring with Mom and Dad.

After playing in the water for about an hour, it was time to meet some new friends for dinner near downtown and Chinatown at the Lau Pa Sat Hawker market where they close the street down right outside for some Satay street dining. Thank you to Ernie and Mari An for the great local food! Truly delicious!

Again, we didn’t make it home ‘till well after dark. Fortunately we already packed (mostly) that morning so it was a quick cold shower and straight to bed!

All in all we had a great time in Singapore. And as all our friends here said, it was the perfect place to start our trip… South East Asian culture, big city, cosmopolitan, safe… a good transition from USA life.

Now onward!