Sights and Sounds of Singapore
This is my second post about my trip to Singapore, see first post here. On our Third day in Singapura, We bundled 6 tourist destinations in 1 day, we had to make up for lost time since our first day was dampened by a whole day of rain. The itinerary was Merlion, Esplanade, Singapore Flyer, Suntec City(Fountain of Wealth), Sentosa Island, Bugis. Seems like a lot for 1 day but with a lot of determination and walking, it is manageable.First stop was Merlion Park, We took the MRT and got off at Raffles Place, getting out of the station we were brought to Boat Quay(pronounced ki) on the southern bank of the Singapore river. We walked down towards Merlion park and we passed by Cavenagh Bridge, the First Generation and The River Merchants Sculptures, the Fullerton Hotel, Anderson Bridge and the Esplanade Bridge. Beside the Merlion park is One Fullerton, a mini-mall of alfresco dining establishments, also below the Esplanade Bridge is a Starbucks.
Across the river is the Esplanade, with a mall on it’s side beside it is a Grand stand facing a floating platform where Soccer/Football can be played, this is very interesting as the platform is floating on the Singapore River.
A couple of meters on is the Singapore flyer, the newest attraction in Singapore and is the largest observatory, the only other structure similar to this is the London Eye. It takes 30 minutes for one full rotation and below the wheel is a 3 story mall and a nature park in the middle. On the peak, one gets a full view of Singapore as well as some islands, Indonesia and Malaysia on a clear day. The Hippo and Duck Tours also have offices on the first floor so if your up to it, you can have a tour of Singapore on a Amphibian or go on a whole day of hop-on hop-off of all tourist spots. One of the best stores in the building is Popeyes, with it’s famous chicken and coleslaw, however the it had a different coleslaw from the Hong Kong Popeye, weird.
Moving on, a couple of blocks is Suntec City, passing inside Millenia Walk before getting to Suntec 5. Millenia Walk is the uber high class mall, hence the name. In Suntec City, we headed straight to the Fountain of Wealth, the largest fountain in the world. I three full circle pass on the middle of the fountain while touching the spring was suppose to bring us good luck. As we were not there for shopping, we moved pass Suntec 4, 3, 2 and 1 quickly and went down to the underground pass towards the City Hall MRT station.
The underground pass was actually a underground mall, It seemed to be a hundred or two meters of shops leading to the MRT station.
Next stop was Vivo City to ride the mono-rail to Sentosa. The mono-rail station is at the top floor of Vivo City and riding it is an experience all by itself. First stop was imbiah station where the Merlion, sights and sound of singapore, butterfly garden, 4d theater and tiger sky tower was. A walk around this huge mountain was tiring enough, and to think Sentosa was a whole island, I dreaded the thought of walking from one end to another.
After reading some info and facts, I found out that the island bus was free and will bring us from end to end or from one attraction to another. As the attractions were pretty much expensive, we decided to focus on the Songs of the Sea show at 7 and the 2 in 1 Pink Dolphin and Underwater World. The pink dolphine show was a bit different from what we experience at the Hong Kong Ocean park, there were only 3 pink doplhins and the venue was the white beach front of (amusingly) Palawan beach. The show was more intimate as volunteers could go into the shore, get wet and play with the dolphins.
After the show, we frolicked a while on Palawan beach and headed on to Siloso beach on the other end of the island, we were off to the underwater world. Also a different experience from HK Ocean Park as there was a conveyor that took us around and there was a overhead view of the fishes in the aquarium. One of the attractions was the dugong. Outside the attractions and almost everywhere were free roaming animals such as monkeys and peacocks, which made the feeling and setting of being in an island park more suitable.
We then headed on to Siloso beach and took a couple of pictures before heading off to the Songs of the Sea show. We had to be at the beach side venue early as good seats get snatched up, being at the venue 30 minutes early afforded us a good view of the show in the middle of it all. The laser, lights, water and stage show was great, it was long enough to enjoy. It is a must for all who will be in Singapore.
Before heading home, instead of riding the mono-rail from the beach station, we decided to walk up the merlion park and ride from the imbiah station. The park had colorful tiles and water fountains, also the view from the tram and luge can be seen.
Back at Vivo City, since there was still some time, we decided to drop by Bugis and do a little shopping, the Bugis MRT is directly below the Bugis Junction mall and across Bugis. Bugis seems to be like an in-door night market or ladies market of Hong Kong, all the cheapest shirts, watches and everything you could think of is available.
After bugis, it was time to go home and rest.
The next day was as full as the previous, First stop was Mustafa, the 24 hour department store with everything for sale, from groceries, chocolates, bags, apparel, jewelry to electronics. Getting there took a while as from boon lay MRT to Farrer Park MRT was really far. Around Mustafa where a lot of persian/indian stores and restaurants. The smell of curry was hypnotizing but my wife would not dare eat persian food.
Next stop was Orchard Road, I decided to alight at the Orchard MRT station at the end of Orchard road and walk down this famous street towards Somerset MRT. After getting out of the station, first stop was Takashimaya, it was really hot outside as it was already noon and the cool mall gave us respite, across Takashimaya was Lucky Plaza, made famous by throngs of Filipinos converging in it every Sunday. We decided to eat lunch here. As expected, lunch was interesting, ate a 5 dollar meal of meat and vegetables which seemed to taste really bland, but interesting still.
After Lucky Plaza, moving down, we passed by a couple more malls and ate 1 dollar sandwich ice cream. Moving down a couple of malls brought us to Somerset MRT station and I made a mental note, spend half day on Orchard Road on my next visit.
Next stop, Chinatown. The recently revitalized chinatown was surprisingly clean and orderly, a couple of stalls selling everything Chinese and a couple of restaurants in the middle and at the farther end. Looking at the map, there were also hindu, buddhist temples nearby but as we did not have enough time, we decided to move along.
Last stop before going home and packing for the trip back home was Clarke Quay. It was early afternoon and the Quay was still quite and serence, although a couple of people rode the reverse bungee, mental note, ride the bungee on my next visit. We stayed on the river side for a while and rest before going home.
And so ending our whirlwind tour of singapore with Clarke Quay, I envisioned of coming back to singapore and spend a more leisurely walking tour of the riverside, nature parks and museum. Little did I know that two weeks after this visit, Cebu Pacific will have another sale and I got hold of 3k round trip tickets back to Singapore on June, Hooray ! Singapore here I come(back), see you all in two weeks time.