8 days in the East - Trip Report

[Aussie Wendy]

When researching this trip, the number of trip reports for Hong Kong were so paltry I promised myself I would add to the collection on return so here it is. (NB since when did the number of pics allowed in one post shrink to such a measly few?)

For those who haven’t stumbled onto my TRs before, I travel with my DH and we are frequently joined by our 20+ DD who has grown up loving our travel adventures so much we have trouble sneaking away without her. This trip ticked off castle number 5 for DH and I, coincidentally also finishing a consecutive run of castles from the original Disneyland in 2011, to Japan in 2012, Paris in 2013 and WDW in 2014 (trips honestly weren’t planned to unfold that way).

For those of you just interested in Disneyland you have a long wait – til the end of the Trip Report. I will insert links below so you know when to tune in. For the rest of you interested in a 24 hours stopover in Singapore and four days in Hong Kong…..” just keep reading, just keep reading”.

Introducing us



Shortcuts
Parts 1 "Off we Go" - Travel Day to Singapore see below
Part 2 Raffles
Part 3 Marina Bay at night and Makansutra

Day 1 "I Know every mile will be worth my while" In Singapore Part 1
Part 2 Chinatown and cable car
Part 3 Resortworld and Universal Singapore
Part 4 Universal New York
Part 5 Universal Sci Fi City
Part 6 Universal Ancient Egypt
Part 7 Universal Far Far Away
Part 8 Unable to Escape from Far Far Away
Part 9 Universal Madagascar
Part 10 Love to Ride those Cable Cars
Part 11 At Gardens by the Bay
Part 12 In the Cloud Dome
Part 13 the strange Lego plant
Part 14 More flowers
Part 15 It's a long way down
Part 16 In the secret garden
Part 17 Exploring the Outer gardens
Part 18 Supertree Grove and Rhapsody
Part 19 Rhapsody continued/URL]
Part 20 Marina Bay
Part 21 City at night

Day 2 "Adventure is Out There"
Part 1 Arrival in Hong Kong
Part 2 The Harbour Light Show

Day 3 "There's a big blue sky waiting right behind the clouds"
Part 1 TST waterfront by day
Part 2 Hong Kong Island architecture
Part 3 On the way to Hong Kong Park
Part 4 To and in the Aviary
Part 5 In the Aviary
Part 6 Back to Kowloon and Kowloon Park
Part 7 Kowloon Park
Part 8 Our apartment in Yau Ma Tei

Day 4 Look for the 'bear' necessities
Part 1 Mixing with the locals
Part 2 To Ocean Park
Part 3 Not so Kung Fu panda
Part 4 and more panda's
Part 5 More 'Amazing Asian Animals'
Part 6 Up to the Summit
Part 7 South Pole Spectacular
Part 8 Arctic Foxes
Part 9 North Pole Encounter
Part 10 Halloween paths to Marine World
Part 11 Halloween and shark horrors
Part 12 Sea Jelly Spectacular
Part 13 More jellies and cable cars
Part 14 Some Australiana in Old Hong Kong
Part 15 Farewell Ocean Park
Part 16 In Stanley
Part 17 Tin Hau Temple
Part 18 Sunset by the sea
Part 19 Dinner in Causeway Bay

Day 5 "The Whole World at Your Feet"
Part 1 To Lantau crystal delight
Part 2 Not for those with a fear of heights
Part 3 Ngong Ping
Part 4 The Bodhi Path
Part 5 Stairway to Buddha
Part 6 Meeting the four heavenly kings
Part 7 Buddha's of the three worlds
Part 8 The Grand Hall of 10,000 Buddha's
Part 9 Seeking Wisdom
Part 10 Cable car return
Part 11 The Flower Market
Part 12 The Bird and Goldfish markets
Part 13 Night time explorations
Part 14 Temple St markets

Day 6 "I'm Where I'm Meant to Be"
Part 1 The Peak
Part 2 Looking down
Part 3 A new Disneyland
Part 4 Castle number 5
Part 5 Breakfast snacks
Part 6 Main St at Halloween
Part 7 Adventureland & Jungle Cruise
Part 8 Headhunters & water spouts
Part 9 Arriving in Grizzly Gulch
Part 10 Runaway Mine train
Part 11 Entering Mystic Manor
Part 12 Museum Pieces
Part 13 Mayhem in Mystic Manor
Part 14 Garden of Wonders
Part 15 Toy Story Land
Part 16 Lunch & MIckey's Philharmagic
Part 17 Festival of the Lion King
Part 18 Getting ready for Halloween

"In this town we call home, everyone hail to the pumpkin song"
Part 1 Sunset
Part 2 Starliner Dinner
Part 3 Paint the Night Parade with Cars and Monsters Inc
Part 4 Paint the Night with Ariel
Part 5 Paint the Night with Toy Story and Mickey
Part 6 Cycle of the Spirits
Part 7 Leaving the Spirits for the Curse of the Emerald Trinity
Part 8 Haunted back streets
Part 9 The Miners and the Cowboys

"Hooray for Hollywood" - Hotel that is
Part 1 Art Deco Delights
Part 2 Our Room
Part 3 Views
Part 4 In the Grounds
Part 5 Butterflies and Buses

Day 7 "Hakuna Matata"
Part 1 Main St characters
Part 2 Tarzan's Treehouse
Part 3 Meet Jane and an elephant
Part 4 Corners of Adventureland and Fantsyland
Part 5 Winnie the Pooh
Part 6 Flights of Fantasy Parade with Mickey and Pooh and Friends
Part 7 Daydreams of Princesses
Part 8 Jumpin' Jungle Jam
Part 9 From Pixies to Toy Story
Part 10 Sunset over the ocean
Part 11 The promenade to Disneyland
Part 12 It's a Small World..."
Part 13 ...after all"
Part 14 It's a Small Small World
Part 15 Playing with Toys
Part 16 Fireworks
Part 17 Farewell Castle
Part 18 Colourful fountains

Day 8 "There's a great big hunk of world down there with no fence around it"
Part 1 Breakfast at Walts
Part 2 DLH and the Esplanade
Part 3 Established and new hotels
Part 4 More DLH interiors
Part 5 The Promenade between DLH and DL
Part 6 Holiday over


8 days in the East - Trip Report


Part 1 "Off we Go"

Our travel day started as they always do with an early wake-up call, but at least this time it was daylight. At immigration I got bomb checked – as always. I must look like the most unlikely and therefore, likely candidate, for drug or bomb smuggling.

We remembered how awful Brisbane International Airport is after clearing immigration…. after clearing immigration… sigh. Joined the long queue at one of only two cafes for a coffee kick start and banana bread and lamented our lack of any FF lounge status (looking at you with envy Zanzibar138).

DH always buys something that means joining the queue for a TRS refund; this time he failed. Though the queue didn’t appear all that long when we left him there, he rejoined us at the gate to say that they were on a go-slow and he would have needed over 2 hours or more to get through in time so he lost those anticipated savings, a warning to anyone else planning to do this. Maybe he was unlucky; in the past it’s been up to an hour queue but never this bad.

The flight with Singapore airlines was its usual lovely smooth, good IFE, good service, good food, trip. I ticked off some missed movies (including Tomorrowland which I loved and is now on the Xmas wishlist).

Farewell Brisbane


Flying over inland Aus



A pic of our lunch meal, we all chose the very tasty beef brisket and noodles which was followed by chocolate and raspberry icecream (not photo’d).




I skipped the second meal served close to landing, a choice of chicken pie or a rice and seafood dish, but the pie was rated good by DD.

Once we arrived we made our way to the SIA counter (hidden past MacDonalds) as we had chosen a stopover package as we had done in 2013 (when DD missed out to her chagrin so this was a re-do for her really). This includes a ton of freeby vouchers including Universal Studios (worth $70 pp) among others and hotel transfers. Our last visit had been a quick transfer; this one we were a bit late landing and got caught up in the start of peak hour traffic and then had pesky people to be dropped at the V Hotel in Chinatown so it took a while. Then on check-in at the Peninsular Excelsior Hotel (again a revisit as we found it such a great location last time), it turned out they hadn’t pre-organised a room for 3 of us though it had been booked for months and there seemed to be a lot of debate as to where to put us. Finally, it was agreed an extra bed could be added to a twin room and we were given our keys to a high level floor in the Excelsior Tower.

Found the rooms seemed more recently refurbed than our last stay in the Peninsular Tower and to DD relief the added bed that arrived soon after was a proper mattress not a skinny trundle bed – in fact we decided hers was the more comfortable.

Pic from the internet as not for the first time, we neglected to take pics of our hotel room here




Our tower, the Excelsior



Exploration and a chance to start ticking off freebie activities awaited – no time to linger – so I hustled everyone out. DD had complained that whenever we stopped over in Singapore she saw the inside of hotel rooms and pools, or once the zoo, and apart from 1997 when she was a wee little thing and couldn’t remember much, she hadn’t seen Singapore properly so our first stop was a walk around our immediate neighbourhood.

The neoclassical Capitol Theatre was built in stages between 1929 and 1933 and has recently reopened as cinema cum theatre complex, hotel and luxury shops. I thought it looked very art deco.




Chijmes is a beautiful Catholic convent and school originally dating from the 1850’s and now turned into a restaurant bar area, very lively at night. It was too early for partying at sunset but a nice time to take pictures. The complex won a Merit Award in the UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation in 2002.




The convent of the Holy infant Jesus Chapel is in Anglo-French style and was consecrated in 1905. Today it featured a display as part of the SG50 (celebrating 50 years as one people) celebrations.




Hidden Mickey's almost?

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Stain glass over the door in the Chapel



Next we wandered over to the Raffles Hotel and Shopping Complex. Raffles infamously opened its doors in 1887 and was established by Armenian hoteliers the Sarkies Brothers. The hotel is named after British statesman Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who founded Singapore as a British colony in 1819.

Strolling through the gardens and veranda’s



During WWII and the Japanese invasion staff buried the hotel silver, including the silver beef trolley, in Palm Court.



Pretending to be ladies in our scruffy airplane clothes






Tiny insect bats were busy catching dinner




The Singapore Sling was invented at the Long Bar by Ngiam Tong Boon.







Entrance to the hotel proper



The plan had been to ride the Singapore Flyer (a freebie) before dinner but time had escaped us so instead we made our way down to the waterfront of Marina Bay heading towards Glutton Bay Hawker area to trade in our vouchers for free sampler plates for dinner. There were lots of roadworks ongoing all around this area and the Padang, I believe in part preparations for SG50 celebrations later this year. On the way we walked through a shopping centre that was closing up and bought a big bag of croissants and Danish’s they were selling out at end of day, for breakfast tomorrow. An underpass popped us out by Theatres on the Bay.

Singapore has public art work in abundance.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

The Merlion and Fullerton Hotel and the new Jubilee Bridge



Close up of the Merlion




Turned out we had walked the wrong direction so turned to walk back across Jubilee Bridge and paused to watch the 8pm Wonder Full Light Show. The plan was to watch this from the Marina Bay shopping centre side tomorrow night, mainly to show DD as we had seen it last time. From this side of the bay you saw the lasers more effectively though. The hotel shooting lasers is of course the infamous Marina Bay Sands with its boat-like cap SkyPark which houses a bar, restaurant and the hotel’s infinity edge pool, the largest outdoor pool at that height in the world. What I neglected to discover in my research was you can actually go up to the observation deck for S$23/ticket. The pool is restricted to hotel guests only but next visit if it is clearer than this trip, we might have to explore this option just for a sticky (note for photographers no tripods allowed)!

From left to right: The Helix Bridge, Art Science Museum (in the lotus shape building), Marina Bay Square shopping centre with Marina Bay Sands Hotel behind



Wonder Full light show



The Flyer and lasers




More lasers



Proof we were there




We then found our way to Makansutra Glutton’s Bay, a collection of Hawker food stalls. It was a bit muddly working out how to trade our vouchers for the free sample plates but you give them to one of a cluster of women sitting at one of the tables who seem to keep an eye on the area and they arrange for one of the stall holders to go from stall to stall and collect the plates for you and bring them over to where you are sitting, you don’t collect them yourself. We only asked for two sets. You can also buy a sampler set that includes a lot more items (and costs around S$29).







The SIA sampler included Sambal Stingray from Red Hill Rong Guang BBQ seafood, satay sticks from Alhambra Padang Satay, BBQ chicken wings from Huat Huat and sugar cane and lemon juice from Glutton's Bay Bar

Glutton’s Bay bar.


The sugar cane juice with lemon just wasn’t to our tastes (it's the brighter drink in the pic) – made me feel sick but we bought lime juice here too which was delicious. The Stingray sambal was very hot, too hot for DH and I but the stingray itself was like eating a bit chewy fish – OK. The satay and chicken wings were very good and we went back and bought extra serves of each to share. DD was amused watching a tiny mouse scurrying about squeaking incredibly loudly given its size but it hid in the bushes by the time she got her camera out.

By now our early start was catching up with us so we walked back to the hotel and soon were fast asleep.

Highlights of the day: catching up on some great movies on the plane, strolling around Raffles, crispy chicken wings and satay at Makansutra, we're on holidays!!
Downside: delays getting to hotel and getting into our room, running out of time to explore, sugar cane juice with lemon - yuck!
Steps walked: 14,500 (around 9.7 km)

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Day 1 "I Know every mile will be worth my while"

Part 1 Chinatown

Today started well and ended badly for me at any rate. We were all wide awake at 5am so had an early breakfast of our delicious baked goodies and coffee in our room waiting for it to get light – revealing a very hazy, grey sky. News reports were stating the pollution haze was at the cusp of dangerous and not to go out unless you had to. The haze was caused by illegal forest fires burning in Indonesia and spreading across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines etc causing some tense discussions between governments who felt Indonesia wasn’t doing enough to stop it as it had been ongoing for several weeks and was getting worse each year.

Luckily (so far) none of us suffer from asthma or anything, so we took no heed and around 8am headed out for a slow wander down to Chinatown, admiring old government buildings such as:

The central fire station, the oldest in Singapore dating from 1908



The old Hill St Police Station dating from 1934, now a government building housing the Ministries of Information, Communications and the Arts, and Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth. The building has a total of 927 windows and the colours on the top two stories supposedly intensify to accentuate the cantilevered balconies.



Showing the depth of the haze, North Bridge, the Clock Tower on the Victoria Theatre and the Marina Sands Hotel.



On Boat Quay



Chinatown (the pineapples as an icon of our State were our favourite!)




Nankin St sculptures



Sri Mariamman Temple dating from 1827, the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore,
dedicated to the Goddess Mariamman known for her power to cure illnesses and disease.





Details

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Part 2

Details of some of the architecture in Chinatown











Smith St, known for its food stalls




There had been a delay on the MRT line to Harbourfront but this was now fixed so it was only a couple of minutes wait for a train to take us to Vivocity to catch the Sentosa cable car. The SIA deal (oddly for Australians only) gave us free entry to Universal Studios and this visit we had decided to take advantage of the deal worth around $70 pp. This meant getting to Universal at opening at 10.30am before the crowds and the heat of midday. The cable car rides were also included in our stopover deals ($29 pp value). We were early enough that there was no queue but as time was ticking away and visibility was poor we decided to go straight to Sentosa and not via Mt Faber.

Views from the cable car, we spent a lot of time on cable cars this trip!
Looking back at Harbourfront Centre






Approaching Sentosa



Hard Rock Hotel




We disembarked at Imbiah Point and walked down to Resortworld, passing the Sentosa Merlion

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Part 3

We also walked past gardens with cute statues that held shows at certain times some days






And the Lake of Dreams that has a little light show in the evening I gather




Resortland




We soon found the customer service desk right behind the ticket booths, where we exchanged our vouchers for tickets and were given extra vouchers for discounts on food and merchandise – bonus!

The entrance globe looks familiar




My plan of attack was to head to the popular rides first and ride them then double back to take in the details of theming and lesser rides and to leave by lunchtime to spend the afternoon at Gardens by the Bay. While Universal is small you could comfortably spend a full day here taking in the shows and queueing for character photos. It was very quiet as it was not long after opening so DH and I headed straight to our favourite ride ‘Transformers’. I am putting up all the pics we took land by land though. Universal was dressed for Halloween nights.

You enter through Hollywood, a street mostly of shops which is covered over



The Blood Moon – Darkness is coming….



Then if you turn left you find New York. It seemed Aliens had invaded the city.




We would be returning to this zone for lunch. The show Lights, Camera, Action was not running, removing one decision from my day.
Another Halloween fright area.




I made DH do a spot of hard labour.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Thanks for the breadcrumbs! I was hoping you would start your TR soon.


WOW! Singapore looks great. I really need to head back there one of these days. Looks like a great way to start this vacay.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Thanks PIO

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Part 4

Not the NY Library!!






The Sesame St Ride, a nice kiddies dark ride which we rode on our second pass around the circuit after lunch



It was still another walk-on, though by the time we rode crowds were starting to gather. You are joining the Sesame St gang stopping Macaroni the Merciless from stealing all the spaghetti on earth.












Me and a minion



Entering Sci Fi City and Transformers. DD gets motion sick on simulators especially with 3D (and to her chagrin everything is becoming 3D!) so she took a Kwell beforehand so she could join us though she said she had to shut her eyes a couple of times as she still felt very dizzy.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Part 5

These inside pics show some detail of the queue line and how quiet it was.














Thrill seekers head for this coaster here, Battlestar Galactica, newly opened after a two year closure while they revamped the ride including new seats. Human versus Cylon, Human side you ride on the track (red) with no inversions; Cylon you hang below (blue) and this is the more intense experience with zero-G rolls, vertical loops, corkscrews etc. We gave this one a miss but if you love coasters go for it.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Part 6

Next zone is Ancient Egypt. The theming here is excellent except for the intrusion of the Battlestar coaster in some directions. The zone houses the Revenge of the Mummy, with the ride quite similar to its Orlando counterpart but with some different details and ride moves including changing the ride attendant gag. Sorry for all the detail – I love Ancient Egypt!




The troops are having a rest waiting for me to take piccies - it was a very hot (around 34C), humid, energy-draining day today.















Another Halloween set - I suspect this would be a scary one



Treasure Hunters Ride is like DL Autopia with a few gags and moving objects in the props around the outside. We didn't ride as I can never see the point as adults who can drive but you could see most of the ride from around the outside.







The scarab beetles looked like they were moving towards the jeep as it moved around

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Part 7


On the back route to far Far Away Land







Lost World. When we got here Lost World wasn’t opened (it opens at least an hour later than the rest of the park – hypothesised to force people into some of the less popular areas and spread the opening rush out), so we continued on our circuit. We left it too late though, as we got caught up in other lands and on our return after lunch the wait time for the Jurassic Park Rapids Ride was around 50 mins - we weren’t waiting that long so unfortunately missed out.




None of the other rides or activities here were on my must do list: Dinosaur Soarin’ (a circling ride in a Pteranodon, mostly for the littlies like Dumbo) and Canopy Flyer (a hanging figure 8 track above the land – in Orlando adults can’t ride this one so if you want a ride, here is the place to try it-I would have had a ride if there had been time). The rock climbing wall here did look fun though but it costs extra.


The next land had a castle worthy of the Magic Kingdom, Far Far Away Land. There were lots of references to the movies here with detailed theming which we loved.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Part 8
Still in Far Far Away Land. We really liked how they had music from the movies playing in each land so here I danced along to 'I'm on my way' by The Proclaimers; DD loved Jurassic Park music in Lost World etc.








ss




Inside the castle we watched Shrek 4D Adventure which was a lot of fun and all the effects were working - the spiders running up your legs were very effective!



There is a new coaster only opened earlier this year here, Puss in Boots Giant Journey; a family style (very low key) coaster which we all rode (yaay!) joining Puss and Kitty to save San Ricardo's orphanage from closing by I think stealing a golden egg but they get spotted by the Great Terror and a gosling called Tattletale.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Part 9

Far Far Away also has another junior coaster called Enchanted Airways but it has no real theming which to me is half the fun and we skipped. We weren’t in the land at the time some of the shows were on like Donkey Live and the Dance for the Magic Beans.

So to the last land, Madagascar.

First some shots across the lake including the gigantic container ship that houses the Madagascar ride.









Riding Madagascar: A Crate Adventure it would help if you knew the movie. This is a water ride through scenes from the movies.














After this ride we circled back to New York for an early lunch using our $5 voucher per person for a pizza meal (pizza, pudding of the day and drink which cost us S$10pp instead of S$15) at Loui's NY Pizza Parlour. The pizza's were OK, thin crust style, but we get a lot better at home (reviewers on Tripadvisor seem to love them?) but very limited choice of 3 (ham and pineapple, a meat one like pepperoni DH got and a plain Margarita), the puddings were like English blancmanche, so so - I do wonder if this was where I picked up tourist tummy/gastro that decimated me tonight though DD ate exactly the same as me?

Remembered belatedly so apologies for half eaten pizza.



It was now around midday as the park hadn't opened til 10am. We sat by a window to eat watching the flow of people pouring into the park. Then we walked around again taking pics and riding a couple of the quieter rides - by now queues for the biggies were 45 mins to an hour though you can buy an Express Pass that lets you skip the crowds. Even if we had been thrill seekers we could have ticked off all the major rides as walk-on's by arriving at opening.

We debated long and hard about waiting around 30 mins for the next showing of the Waterworld stunt show which DH and I remembered from long ago when it was the stunt show at Movieworld on the Gold Coast - we remembered it was quite good but in the end we were very hot and very tired and decided a spell in the air con in the hotel or a swim in the pool before all the walking around the gardens later today was in order so we headed out.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Hmmm. Universal Singapore looks like it might be worth a visit.

A few people have said that it is small. How does it compare to the US versions and how many days do you think you might need here?

 

[Aussie Wendy]

One full day for Universal to take in the various shows and live performances if you arrive at opening or if you buy the Express Pass. Its smaller than HK Disneyland. We/I rode the majority of attractions in 2 hours with short stops to look at things still. We skipped the big coaster and missed Jurassic Park (which is on a round raft here not the big drop like in Orlando) but could have fitted it in before 12 if we had thought to double back there after the Far Far Away show - it didn't feel like we were rushing. You could take a longer lunch and in the afternoon watch the shows and live performances most of which didn't seem to start til the afternoon anyway so that is obviously when everyone goes, and maybe try out the couple of other kiddy things like Enchanted Airways coaster and Canopy Flyer. Some times/days of year they have an evening show on the lake. I am not sure even with a hotel break in the hot part of the day if you stayed on Sentosa there is enough to warrant a two day visit without a lot of re-riding/re-watching. Universal Osaka sounds a tad bigger and now has Harry Potter I see (same as IOA side with Forbidden Journey etc).

Sentosa does have a lot of other attractions as well - a lot corny/run down so do your research. I would like one day to visit Fort Siloso which sounds interesting and well done and the beaches are nice for an hour or so. There is also a brilliant ropes course area with an amazing high and long flying fox that we saw from the cable car that stretched from a mountain top all the way down to the beach and had me and DD keen. Last visit we also enjoyed the luge from Imbiah Pt but ran out of time this visit as we did have a voucher for 2 attractions on Sentosa. So a stay for a couple of nights on Sentosa wouldn't be too bad though it is only a 20 min commute or so from eg the area we stayed in and you can walk along the boardwalk or catch the Sentosa tram over there rather than messing about all the time with cable cars.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Part 10 Sentosa Cable Car

Since our Cable Car pass gave us access to the new Sentosa Line which now links Imbiah Point to the Merlion and Siloso Beach we did ride the circuit first - but it was too hot to get off at the beaches as we didn't have our swim gear with us. Some pics below. Unfortunately we never got a pic of the amazingly high and long flying fox that is part of the attraction at The Megazip Adventure Park and is on a wish list now (before I get too old! 450m long and from a height of 72m above sea level - we were too busy gawking working out that was what it was (since googled it!)



The beaches. I love the flotilla of cargo ships that always surround Singapore.



Slightly more close up view




Then it was back on the main cable car line for the ride back over to VivoCity. We passed over the top of Adventure Cove Waterpark.





The Maritime Experiential Museum I think




In VivoCity we didn’t linger in the shops but headed back to City Hall MRT and the short walk to our room. We were all feeling a bit heat strokey actually and DD was concerned as she was being eaten by mozzies (had RID with us but didn’t think to put it on) and working in a lab whose key focus includes dengue fever she is well aware of the risks in Singapore!

It was lovely to just relax on the bed in the cold air conditioning – DD and I were too lazy to even bother going down for a swim and I was starting to feel just a tad queasy but I blamed the heat. If we had had another day here we would have stayed put or maybe gone down for a late arvo swim but none of us wanted to miss the Gardens so we stirred ourselves after about an hour and a half, put on some mozzie proof gear and spray for an evening in the gardens and followed our (to me and DH) regular route back down to Marina Bay. For some addled reason I put on denim and regretted it every step???? A short debate ensued about detouring to The Flyer but we decided with visibility still not good we’d do it tonight for the lights so we carried on over the Helix Bridge and across to Gardens by the Bay.

Sculpture on the esplanade




In Gardens by the Bay a pretty frangipani



Outside of one of the domes

 

[PrincessInOz]

Sentosa does have a lot of other attractions as well

We've seen some of the other Sentosa attractions.....before the theme parks moved into Sentosa. It was "charming" in those days, rather than corny. I guess times have changed.





Another great update. I'm enjoying the couch-side view of Sing.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Looks like you're the only one but the HK boards are pretty quiet. That's cool.

 

[FencerGirl]

I'm reading along. I've never been to Asia, so this is very interesting.