Singapore

Date: January 18, 2019 – January 19, 2019
Location: Singapore

Since leaving Kilcoy, Australia, we have been to 6 countries, been on a 14-night Asian cruise, and are currently are on a 16-night cruise. I have not stopped doing the blog but have been enjoying each new location and my days at sea with no internet. I’ll get posts done to share about each location as time and internet availability allows.

Brian and I watched the prices of cruises as there are always new promotions and discounts as cruise dates get closer. We saw a 14-night Asia cruise for a great price of $133.48 per night for both of us and booked the cruise. That price included all taxes, fees, gratuities, meals, lodging, nightly entertainment shows and transportation on the ship from Singapore to Shanghai. The cruise was within our daily budget and allowed us to visit places that we were not originally planning to see during our year of travel.

As the cruise departure date got closer, we flew from Brisbane, Australia to Singapore. We had two nights in Singapore before boarding the Celebrity Constellation.

January 18, 2019 was spent traveling on our 8-hour flight from Brisbane, Australia to Singapore. Singapore is 2 hours behind Brisbane but it took much longer than expected to get from the Singapore airport to our hotel. We pre-arranged transportation from the airport to our hotel but had to wait about an hour for the airport shuttle that would take us to our hotel to arrive. The bus was shared with others and the stop at our hotel was the last one. There was also a lot of traffic in the city so it was slow going anywhere. It was almost 9 pm when we arrived at the hotel so we stayed in that night.

The next morning walking around we saw many decorations for the lunar new year on February 5, 2019. 2019 is the year of the pig so many decorations included pigs.

Singapore is a large city so we took the subway to get around. On the subway, we found it interesting how it specifically says that durian fruit is not allowed. Durian fruit even with the husk on can have strong smell that most people do not like.

We got off the subway at the Bayfront stop and started walking towards Gardens by the Bay.

Behind us was the back of Marina Bay Sands. Marina Bay Sands is a luxury hotel with an infinity pool and restaurants on the top. On the lower floors there is also a mall. The building may look familiar as it was shown in the movie Crazy Rich Asians.

Gardens by the Bay is a nature park that is 250 acres. There are many attractions in the park. There are 4 heritage gardens to show the history and culture of Singapore told through plants. This is the Indian Garden.

There were some statues as well as a Banyan Tree in the center.

We then visited the Flower Dome less than an hour after it opened, hoping it would be less crowded. As we were leaving we saw tour groups going in so the timing worked out well. The Flower Dome is the largest glass greenhouse in the world.

There were some special displays set up for the lunar new year.

Among the succulents, some charters from Alice in Wonderland were hiding.

This succulent is called Tiger Jaws.

We saw a Baobab tree with leaves on it! If you have been to Walt Disney World on the Safari ride at Animal Kingdom, you probably remember them talking about the Baobab tree. The trees look like they are upside down with their roots in the air. The trees store water in their trunks and may only have leaves a few months out of the year.

Throughout the dome there were animal figures.

There are also many beautiful flowers.

This was a display for the lunar new year.

After the flower dome we went to the Cloud Forest dome.

The forest dome also has animal figures.

The walkway that sticks out in the below picture is the cloud walk, which we were able to do.

At the top is the lost world where some of the plants were made out of LEGOs.

Before leaving the cloud dome, there is a theater with a short movie about the average temperature increase of the world. It portrayed images depicting what will happen over the next 80 years if humans don’t change our current actions. Over that time, it assumed that the world temperature would increase by 5 degrees celsius, about 9 degrees fahrenheit.

While the ticket to the domes cost a little over $20 we feel that it was worth it as they both were very interesting.

Walking in Gardens by the Bay we saw the floral clock.

Possibly the most well-known attraction in Gardens by the Bay are the Supertrees. The structures are actually the exhausts for the Gardens’ bio-mass steam turbines that generate electricity for the Flower and Cloud Domes.

The Supertrees are covered in plants.

There are many temples and mosques in the city. We visited a few of them.

This is Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, one of Singapore’s oldest Hindu temples.

Masjid Malabar, also known as Golden Dome Mosque, is Singapore’s only Malabar Muslim mosque.

This is Hajjah Fatimah Mosque. It is Singapore’s ‘Leaning Tower of Pisa’. The tower leans about six degrees because of the sandy soil it is built on.

The final mosque we visited was Sultan Mosque. Sultan Mosque is the largest mosque in Singapore.

Even though we stayed in Singapore for two nights before getting on the cruise ship, we stayed in different hotels. We changed hotels because we booked a Four Points Sheraton hotel with points, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough points to book two nights. There were many less expensive hotels in the area so we chose one of those to stay at the first night. In the afternoon we moved our luggage from one hotel to the next. I liked the window seat that was in our room at the Four Points.

This was the view from the window seat.

After dinner we went to Merlion park.

The Merlion has a body of a fish and a head of a lion. The Merlion is the official mascot of Singapore.

From Merlion Park we watched the Marian Bay Sands light now.

The show also includes some fountains in the water. From where we were across the bay it was hard to hear the music that went with the show, but it was still a nice place to watch from.

Walking along the bay we saw the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre where a band was playing. We were able to walk behind the stage to continue along the bay.

The bridge in red is the Helix Bridge, which is a steel, pedestrian-only bridge.

We went to the Supertree Grove in Gardens by the Bay to see the Garden Rhapsody Show.

Each night there is a light show accompanied by music.