Singapore Day 5: Country Wide Shopping

June 22, 2012

Our last day in Singapore… 😦

After sleeping in and having breakfast, we checked out and left our luggage at the hotel.

We had been told that Singapore is known for its shopping, but we hadn’t checked it out yet, so away we go!

We started at Bugis Street

Moved to Orchard Road

Then City Square Mall and a final stop at Mustafa Centre

You would need days to fully look through the shopping areas of Singapore – so many stores. Our tired feet cried and won out. After Mustafa, we walked back to our hotel to grab our bags and head off to the airport. It was about 8pm when we finally checked in and after a shop around their duty free stores, we were ready to chill out to board our flight.

Luckily, no delay with our Scoot flight this time! We were off at 10:30pm and back in Gold Coast before we knew it.

What a great trip… until next time!

Singapore Day 4: Dinner and Marina Bay

June 21, 2012

Turns out my aunt, Tam, is still working in Singapore!

She treated us to a lovely Japanese Buffet dinner at Kuishinbo in Great World City and it was great to catch up! Thank you so much again!

We then went down to Marina Bay waterfront in time for the 9:30pm Wonder Full – Southeast Asia’s largest light and water show. We decided to watch the show from afar so the show did not look as spectacular as we had anticipated. Or perhaps the shows are better on special occasions? Didn’t matter – good views and got nice pictures!

Debated going up that great hotel (Marina Bay Sands) but decided against it. But we walked around and saw lots of other pretty sights!

Louis Vuitton store on the water…

The Helix Bridge

ArtScience Museum (shaped like a lotus) on the left, seen earlier from afar

Michael taking a picture of Marina Bay Sands Hotel

Beautiful view!

Singapore Day 4: Chinese and Japanese Gardens

June 21, 2012

From the MRT station, we started off towards the Chinese Garden…

First visit, the 7 Storey Pagoda

The beautiful Bonsai Garden

Our Zodiac statues in the Garden of Abundance

Over the White Rainbow (13-Arch) Bridge to the Japanese Garden

Ran into my favourite flower! 😀

FULL ALBUM HERE!

Headed back into the city and met Bing and Lihuan at Hong Lim Food Complex in Chinatown for yummy lunch! Tried a number of dishes including

Bak Chor Mee (Mince Meat Noodles)

and Ice Kachang (colourful on left) for dessert!

Some shots of Chinatown

Neat idea – we need this

Back to Little India for some drinks (happy hour!) at our hotel before meeting my aunt, Tam, for dinner

Tekka Centre – where we had hawker Indian food a few times!

Singapore Day 3: Universal Studios

June 20, 2012

After breakfast at the hotel, we took the train to Harbourfront Station and then the Boardwalk ($1) over to Sentosa Island.

There are many tourist attractions on this island but we were focused on completing just one – Universal Studios – and my first time too!

By late afternoon, I started running a fever 😦 Fortunately, the short line ups allowed us to go on all the rides at least once and we felt happy to leave early.

What is amazing about having a fever? You can be outside in +40C and not sweat… at all!

As you can imagine, early night for me 😦 And breaking fevers is no fun when your bed is left soaking wet! At least Michael was able to enjoy happy hour at the hotel and Bing even came by later with ‘Dau Huay’ from Rochor Beancurd. Very similar to the Vietnamese hot tofu dessert with ginger syrup – except this one is eaten cold and doesn’t have ginger – yum yum!

Singapore Day 2: Singapore Zoo & Night Safari

June 19, 2012

After visiting the Botanic Gardens, we headed over to Ang Mo Kio for some lunch and to grab a bus (#138) to the Singapore Zoo!

We paid $42 SGD to visit both the Singapore Zoo (closes at 6pm) and the Night Safari (opens at 7pm) later that night.

And now… some of the wonderful animals we encountered!

Asian otters

Tapir! So cute!

Babirusa (not a warthog!)

My favourite – the majestic White Bengal tigers

Ehhhhh 😉

Catching his food

Celebes Crested Macaque

Brown Capuchin

An artist painting rhinos 🙂

Zaboomafoo!

Ring tailed lemur

Meerkats!

Jaguar

Komodo dragon

Orangutan, haha

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ALBUM OF SINGAPORE ZOO!

After a short break for dinner, we headed over to the Night Safari. Very impressed that the Night Safari and the Singapore Zoo were separate entities – both with their own trails and animals. We decided to start with the walking trails, then ended the night with a 40min guided tram ride (included with ticket). What a great time! But by the end of the night and spending the entire day on our feet,  we couldn’t wait to just get back to the hotel and sleep!

Fishing cat

Barking deer

Civets! You know… the ones that eat and poo out super expensive coffee?

FULL NIGHT SAFARI ALBUM HERE!

Singapore Day 2: Botanical Gardens

June 19, 2012

Moon Hotel was great! Located in Little India with wonderful buffet breakfasts every morning, free mini bar that’s restocked daily, free wifi and free happy hour (5-7pm) with up to 5 drinks from a great selection. Nice modern room with everything provided. The only thing we lacked in our room was a window! We had curtains but no windows which made our room always feel like 6pm – the mood of being in the ‘moon’ hotel? Staff were friendly and courteous – would definitely come back again!

Tuesday morning started after breakfast with a short walk to Mustafa Centre to exchange money. Thanks to Bing and Lihuan for the recommendation because we received a great exchange rate. We then headed over to Farrer Park MRT (Mass Rapid Transit – train) station to get our EZ-Link cards (similar to Brisbane’s Go cards) and headed over to the Singapore Botanic Gardens!

The garden was easy to find with the great MRT system, such a beautiful place!

The Reflexology Footpath – felt great on bare feet!

A woman practicing Tai Chi in the morning

A squirrel and his spoils!

Entry to the garden is free, but $5 SGD allows you to visit The National Orchid Garden inside – worth it!

Only a very few of the very beautiful orchids in the garden

A ginger flower!

Sun-basking turtles

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ‘SINGAPORE BOTANIC GARDENS’ ALBUM

Singapore Day 1: June 18

Arrived to the Gold Coast Airport at 7am to check-in for our flight at 9:00am.

After reaching our boarding gate, we waited… and waited. Then it was announced that were was a half hour delay, then another half hour delay, then a 2 hour delay, and then we were indefinitely delayed until further notice.

1pm came and went and we were still sitting around the tiny terminal. The only restaurant around was making a ton of money and I was surprised to see how patient the masses were.

Kids were still happily getting along

Others just chilling out and taking it as it comes

Eventually, Michael’s iPhone was dying so we hung out behind the Jetstar desk to charge up

Aww, the sad face!

I also don’t understand the lopsided gate numbers – it doesn’t look good!

Finally 2:30pm … we were boarding! 6 hours late!

We were randomly upgraded from Economy (blue) to Super Seat (yellow) with more room!

The flight wasn’t too bad, but they wouldn’t give you free water. We had to pay S$4 for a 330mL bottle of water!

Someone was not happy about it!

Check this woman out… a whole row to herself!

We finally arrived to Singapore around 9:30pm local time (we were initially supposed to be there at 3:30pm!) Bing and his girlfriend LiHuan picked us up from the airport and took us to East Coast Lagoon Food Village to eat local hawker food!

Bing and Lihuan!

Tried lots of dishes including: grilled stingray, carrot cake, chicken wings, char siu noodles and satay meat kebabs! Yum, thanks guys!

By the time we checked into Moon Hotel, it was already 12am. Called it a night and went to bed ready for a full day of activities tomorrow!