(Singapore Flag)
(Singapore Map)
MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 2016:
My plane touched down in Singapore right on time at 9:00am.
I made my way to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel for a three night stay.
Click on the images below for the original full-size image.
After getting settled in my luxurious hotel room, I took the elevator to level 57.
The 1120-foot-long SkyPark is set on top of the world's largest public cantilevered platform.
From here you get an outstanding view of the city of Singapore.
Looking down on Merlion, the symbol of Singapore.
The spectacular infinity pool atop the Marina Bay Sands.
Swissotel The Stamford seen behind the Marina Bay Sands infinity pool.
The world's largest rooftop Infinity Pool sits 57 levels above the city of Singapore.
On the other side of the SkyPark the view extends over Gardens by the Bay and out to sea.
The Singapore Flyer at a height of 541 feet was built in 2008.
The Singapore Supreme Court.
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Hello everyone, Yesterday in Doha I had a late breakfast at the hotel and then went to see a movie in the mall adjacent to my hotel.  Around 5:00 I headed to the airport. I had dinner at the Qatar Airways business class lounge. Below is a picture of the giant teddy bear in the Doha airport.  My flight to Singapore left right on time at 8:45. I love the new Qatar Airways A350. It is the most comfortable airplane I have flown on yet. Flying time to Singapore was just under seven hours. It was a pretty bumpy flight. The flight crew even had to sit down a couple times during the flight. On the plane I tried to watch a movie I had been wanting to see but I couldn't stay awake. We landed in Singapore shortly before 9:00am local time. Big change in weather. The temperature is about the same but the humidity went from 0% to 100%. Feels like Indiana in the summer time here. I am staying at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel which is pictured below.  I have a nice room on the 43rd floor of the middle tower. Below is a picture of the view from my room.  There is a sky park on the roof / 57th floor.  The world's most spectacular infinity pool.  Below is a nice look at Sands SkyPark, a one hectare roof terrace.  When I was filling out my immigration card on the plane I like the warning they printed on it. "Mandatory death sentence for all drug traffickers." With the 100 different drugs I take I thought I might be in trouble. But they let me live. I'm going to be here in Singapore for three nights. Tim |
TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2016:
Tuesday morning I ventured across the bay and walked though Merlion Park.
From Merlion Park I began a bumboat cruise on the Singapore River.
The lower part of the Singapore River flows through Singapore's central business district.
Watch the video below to see my Singapore River bumboat cruise.
I took a ride on the Singapore Flyer.
Watch the video below for my flight on the Singapore Flyer.
In the afternoon I rode the Singapore Cable Car over to Sentosa Island.
Sentosa is a popular island resort in Singapore, visited by some twenty million people a year.
Watch the video below to see my afternoon on Sentosa Island.
I jumped off the subway for a few minutes in Chinatown.
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Hello folks, My feet are a little sore, but I managed to slowly accomplish everything I wanted to do today. I had breakfast on at the 55th floor club lounge at my hotel. After breakfast I journeyed to the other side of the bay to visit Merlion. He is the icon of the city.  Up until two seconds before the picture above was taken, there was a gusher of water coming from Merlion's mouth. They literally turned it off as I was framing the picture. They never turned it back on. It is still off some 12 hours later. The picture below is how he looked yesterday. It is a zoom shot from the top of my hotel. From Merlion Park I took a bumboat cruise on the Singapore River.  There were nice clear blue skies this morning. Temps around 80 but it feels much hotter with the 100% humidity. Below is a picture of the skyline from the bumboat.  Next I took a ride around the city on the open top bus. I got off at the Singapore Flyer. This was the world's largest ferris wheel until the one in Las Vegas opened last year. They are also building one in Dubai which will soon be the biggest. Three times bigger than the London Eye. This one sure isn't as popular as the one in London. Almost no one on it. Below is a picture of the Singapore Flyer from the top of my hotel.  Below is the view looking toward Marina Bay Sands (my hotel) and the Singapore skyline from my capsule at the beginning of the flight.  Below is a picture of Gardens by the Bay which is located just behind my hotel. I have not been there yet. Maybe I'll go tomorrow if my feet are up to it, looks like a lot of walking.  I had lunch at a Subway at the Singapore Flyer. Next I hopped on the subway and went to Harbourfront. From there I took the cable car to Sentosa Island.  Right off the cable car glided over two cruise ships that were in port. On the way back both ships were gone.  Below is a picture taken from the cable car looking back toward the skyline. That's Harbourfront along the bay. It is a large shopping mall with a boardwalk along the harbor. That little strip of land jutting out into the water on the right is the monorail, another way of getting to Sentosa Island.  There are a lot of things located on Sentosa Island, Universal Studios, Madame Tussauds, waterparks, beaches and a lot of other things. It's a very large resort complex.  That's the Sentosa Merlion located at Merlion Plaza on Sentosa Island. I stopped and had a delicious banana smoothie here.  I took another cable car on the island that crossed a good part of the resort. The picture below was taken from that cable car looking back at the other cable car. Below is one of the beaches. Look at all the ships at anchor out in the bay. This is a very busy port. The only other time I was here was just for the day while on a cruise. I remember when we sailed away it was like threading a needle to get through all the ships at anchor in the harbor.  After two or three hours on the island the skies really began to get dark, so I started heading back.  I had to change subway lines in Chinatown, so I hopped above ground to have a quick look. There was a KFC just outside the station. So I decided to pop in and take some food back to the hotel for dinner. I had room service last night and was charged $69 for a sandwich and a milk shake. I got an original recipe rice bucket. It was good. It wasn't like the rice bowls we used to sell. It was huge. I had to eat around the mushrooms though. Had I known there were mushrooms in it I probably wouldn't have ordered it. It's after 11:00 here now. Singapore is 13 hours ahead of Indiana. You're all waking up when I am going to bed. I'll sign off for today. I hope I didn't bore you with too many pictures today. Tim |
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2016:
I spent most of Wednesday at the Gardens by the Bay.
The Flower Dome's theme was Christmas.
The Flower Dome replicates the cool-dry climate of Mediterranean regions
like South Africa, California and parts of Spain and Italy.
Well-loved stalwarts of the holiday season like poinsettias, amaryllis and
Christmas roses grace charming yuletide scenes, while majestic conifer trees
of different kinds fill the air with their woody, evergreen scent.
Designed with glass that sits on a steel grid which acts like an eggshell, the two Cooled
Conservatories at Gardens by the Bay are the world's largest columnless greenhouses.
Next it was on to the Cloud Forest Dome.
Entirely different from the Flower Dome, the Cloud Forest showcases
plant life from tropical highlands up to 9800 feet above sea level.
The "Cloud mountain" itself is an intricate structure completely clad in epiphytes such as
orchids, ferns, peacock ferns, spike- and clubmosses, bromeliads and anthuriums.
I strolled along a walkway in the clouds for an aerial view of the canopy and mountainside below.
The Cloud Forest features a 115-feet-tall mountain covered in lush vegetation,
shrouding the world's tallest indoor waterfall.
Gardens by the Bay is a nature park spanning 250 acres of
reclaimed land adjacent to the Marina Reservoir.
Supertrees are tree-like structures that dominate the Gardens' landscape with heights that range
between 82 feet and 160 feet. They are vertical gardens that perform a multitude of functions,
which include planting, shading and working as environmental engines for the gardens.
I took a walk on the OCBC Skyway, an elevated walkway between two of the larger Supertrees.
Watch the video below for all my activities at Gardens by the Bay.
As the sun was setting I took another bumboat cruise on the Singapore River.
I then returned to my hotel for my final night in Singapore.
My evening cruise on the Singapore River can be seen
at the end of the complete Singapore video below.
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Hello folks, Today was my last day in Singapore. It started with breakfast at the hotel as usual. Then I journeyed across the street to Gardens by the Bay. Below you get a nice view of the gardens from the top of my hotel.  Below is a picture of my hotel from the gardens.  The humidity here really messes up my cameras. My SLR was completely fogged up for quite a while this morning. Every photo looked like it was taken in a pea soup fog. The dome you see in the picture below is the flower dome. A large portion of the flower dome was a Christmas village.  These domes are nicely air conditioned. It was about 60 degrees inside. My camera was able to dry out in the lower humidity inside.  There were lots of pretty flowers from all over the world. I won't bore you with pictures of them all.  The next dome was the Cloud Forest. This one was the most spectacular.  You take an elevator to the top of the dome and then walk down on a series of catwalks. A lot of exotic plants to see in this dome.  I spent a couple hours in here walking all around.  Those were the only two domes. It was back outside and the hot and humid weather. I visited the Supertree Grove.  I walked along the Skyway that runs between the Supertrees.  At night they have a light show here. All these Supertrees light up with thousands of LED lights. I saw it the first night I was here. There were more areas to explore but my feet couldn't take any more walking, I had to leave. Those were the highlights of the park. I took the subway to a nearby mall and had lunch and then went back to the hotel. Yesterday I was bitching that they turned the water off on Merlion. Today he is completely covered in scaffolding, you can't even see him. Just after the sun set I took another Singapore River cruise. Everything was beautiful at twilight.  Tomorrow I am flying to Kuala Lumpur. In order to get a free frequent flyer seat I have to change planes in Bangkok. So it is going to take me all day to get to a place that is only a couple hundred miles away. It sounded reasonable when I booked it but now it just sounds ridiculous. My airport transfer leaves the hotel at 9:15am and I don't land in Kuala Lumpur until 7:50pm. That's all for today, Tim |
This was my second visit to Singapore. I was also here in 2009.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2016:
I spent most of Thursday traveling to Kuala Lumpur.
First I flew to Bangkok, Thailand on a Thai 747.
Click on the arrow above for my adventures in KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA.
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