Singapore

We left Australia for Asia early on Wednesday morning on a Singapore Air flight to Singapore.  The kids both moved Singapore Air to the top of their rankings lists (to be posted next week) because not only were the meals (two of them) pretty good, we also received ice cream bars.  Yes, our loyalty can be won fairly easily.  You’d think some of the U.S.-based carriers would learn some of these tricks…for the want of a popsicle…

I ran a marathon in Singapore several years ago and had enjoyed my stay there.  I had also told the kids about some of the amenities in the airport, such as a 4-story slide and the beautiful gardens, and they had been looking forward to seeing it.  In fact, I even won a book from The Washington Post’s travel section by my rave of the Singapore airport in a chat this past spring.  At any rate, after we cleared customs, we bee-lined for the slide rather than the exit.  The first part was a bit confusing:  rides are free if you spend $10 at the airport stores, and it took us a bit to figure that out, plus find something to spend $10 on, and then learn how to turn the sales receipt into slide tickets.  Turns out that you exchange the receipts for the tickets at the information desk, something that is not written anywhere that we could find.  But we managed all that and the slide was great fun.

It was pouring rain, so despite the fact that Singapore also has a fantastic public transportation system with both trains and busses coming to the airport, we jumped into a taxi and made our way to the hotel.  It’s summer again.  After a month in the Australian winter, I had almost forgotten what hot and humid feel like! We spent the first afternoon wandering around the neighborhood near our hotel, and enjoyed a supper of fresh fruit juice and made it to bed at a reasonable hour.  And good thing, too, because everyone was awake and ready for the day by 5:00am Singapore time!

We spent Thursday at a few of the main attractions of Singapore, including the Gardens by the Bay with their giant metal trees and cool-weather greenhouses.  We went into the “Cloud Forest”, which took us up a “mountain” and behind a waterfall to see the different types of plants that grow in varied climates.

We spent a brief amount of time at the “ArtScience” museum, and enjoyed the electronics exhibit there.  They had some fun things like a slide with lights on it that changed when touched or slid over – the bubbles exploded, the music changed.  And the pit full of huge balls that lit up and changed color, and the coloring stations where once you made your picture, you could scan it in and it joined the huge flashing, moving mural on the wall.

In the afternoon we made our way out to the Science Centre, another place where we were able to use the reciprocity of our museum membership back home for free admission.  We enjoyed our time there, and realized after we left that there was still an outdoor section we hadn’t seen at all!  Our favorite section there was one of optical illusions:  one memorable one was a funny-shaped LEGO creation that was on a rotating pedestal with a light shining on it, and as it turned, it made different shadows on the wall, all completely different, from a pirate ship to a knight on horseback with a cape flowing out behind him.  My favorite picture of the day is the one of gigantic Miriam and tiny Hans, and that is a complete illusion, they are both posing next to each other.  The docent told me to take a photo, and I didn’t quite believe him that it would actually work!  Among other great exhibits, we also want to give a thumbs up to their hall of mirrors.  Apparently halls of mirrors are “in” this year, and we’ve done 4 pretty good ones in the past month, all at different price-points and with different special effects.  The one at Singapore’s Science Centre, Professor Crackitt's Light Fantastic Mirror Maze, is definitely the best one.

I can’t write about Singapore without mentioned the “Kaya Toast”, something that somehow I did not eat last time I was here and for which I need to thank The Washington Post’s travel section for introducing me to.  Yummy!  I won’t disclose the number of servings we ate over the two days we spent there, but we are considering opening up our own Toast Stand at home.  Now to find the perfect recipe – if anyone has a good one, please forward it to me!

We relaxed on Thursday and wandered more around the city, with stops at a beach on Sentosa, a park listed in multiple websites as the best playground in Singapore (and a good one, too, but it doesn’t rank on our GOAT list), and another park and playground which included a fantastic sprinkler park.  After all that, we went up to the tops of those gorgeous metal trees for a view of the city.  It really is a beautiful one.

And now on to Japan!