1/9–Singapore Redux

Back in Singapore on turnover day.  We don’t have anything here we are dying to see, as we’ve covered much of what we wanted to do on our previous visits.  Today we have decided to just stay close to the ship and visit the Gardens by the Bay, a huge new complex of botanical gardens planted across 101 hectares of reclaimed land in the Marina Bay area.  There is a ton to see in the gardens, including 2 bio-sphere domes and a Skyway walk that winds its ways through the super tree structure 22 meters off the ground.  We figure this will keep us occupied during the morning until all aboard at 2:30.

We sort of leisurely get through the morning, not rushing, making it to passport collection a few minutes before 9am, then off into the pier complex where we immediately get caught up in the immigration line.  Oh geez – we totally forgot about this.  Singapore immigration is such a pain.  It takes over 20 minutes just to get to an immigration officer, then I’m through in a jiffy, but Ed gets stuck because his fingerprints don’t read.  It’s bizarre, I’m the one with the circulation issues, but he’s the one who’s prints don’t read. 

We are finally out of immigration and off to the MRT for a quick ride over to the Gardens.  We could walk, but it is allegedly a 40 minute haul to the main Garden area, and walking to the MRT is long enough.  Plus, we’ll be walking through the Gardens – so who needs the extra walking?  (If we aren’t hoofing it the whole way, then you know its got to be a death march!)  So, 5.80 Singapore dollars later, we have return MRT tickets and are on our way.

The MRT is great, nice, new, clean (well of course clean, it’s Singapore where you are fined if you chew gum!) and most of all fast.  We are at the Marina Bay station in no time.  We traverse the long underground walkway, which spits us out onto the outside rim of the Garden walkway.  After consulting with the shuttle ticket folks, we decide to walk to the skywalk instead of using the shuttle.  As it turns out, that’s a good decision, because we miss the skyway turn and end up walking alongside the Marina Sands building, which is totally cool and great for photos!  There are also great long views of the Singapore Eye, the Super trees and some funky outdoor art.

We cross over into the actual park, and get more long views of the hotel that looks like it has a ship on the top – this time with a cool dragon fly sculpture in the foreground…

…as well as a close up look at the super trees – which are vertical gardens filled with unique and different plants growing up the superstructure.

As we are sitting marveling at the vertical gardens, the Auto Rider comes by, a completely automated shuttle that you can ride for 5 SD.  Vey futuristic.

Continuing our stroll past exotic and ornate plants, we end up at the biospheres – not the skyway.  Bummer.  But, since we’re here, we figure, what the heck, we’ll just take the price hit (it’s expensive – 28 SD each) and go through both the Cloud Forest and the Flower Dome.