Our first full day in Singapore also happened to be my birthday! Like all of the other countries and cities we've visited so far on this trip (Bangkok & Chiang Mai, Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia), Singapore had steady temperatures in the upper 80s with stifling humidity. Fortunately, there are many indoor activities that we planned throughout the day.
We had breakfast at our hotel, and then started the day by walking across the pedestrian bridge to Sentosa Island. This island has many different touristy things to do on it (including Universal Studios Singapore), and it very much reminded me of Pleasure Island from Pinocchio. By the time we got there, we were already sweaty blobs, and it was still early in the morning.
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| Sentosa Island - Singapore |
Our first destination for the day was Madame Tussaud's wax museum. I am a big fan of this place. I've been to the ones in Las Vegas, Washington DC, and London. I have to say, that I don't think I need to go to one ever again. They are a definite novelty, and they're really really fun if you've never been to one. Now that I've been to 4...I think I'm good. Haha.
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| Entrance to Mme. Tussaud's - Singapore |
Part of our tickets to Mme. Tussaud's included a 40 minute "show" called Singapore LIVE. I actually really enjoyed this even more than Mme. Tussaud's itself. (It's crazy to think that it has been 10 years since I went to my very first Mme. Tussaud's in Las Vegas. What else happened on that trip in Las Vegas? Well, it's a pretty amazing story! You can read all about it HERE. Spoiler Alert: It's how I got engaged!)
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| Madam Tussaud's - Singapore |
After the wax museum, we hopped on the Sentosa Express to get back to Marina Bay. At this point, we walked around the Marina Promenade and found the Marina Bay Sands hotel where we had a reservation for high tea to celebrate my birthday.
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| Downtown Singapore |
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| Marina Bay Sands Hotel - Singapore |
As we walked around the Marina Promenade (wondering if thunderstorms were going to hit us), J and I both made the comment that we felt like someone had taken our kidneys hostage and were squeezing them for torture. Little did we know that this was only the beginning of what people notoriously call the "travel bug". The crippling intestinal pain and stifling humidity put a bit of a damper on our experience of Singapore, but I won't offend my readers with the details.
Time soon came for our tea reservation, so we headed up to Sky on 57 at the Marina Bay Sands. The tea was not nearly as impressive as the one in Dubai (though it also wasn't nearly as expensive).
They started us off with the chef special. It was a mushroom dumpling with a truffle oil cappuccino. The dumpling was delicious, but the cappuccino tasted like you were drinking liquid mushrooms. I personally didn't care for it, though J found it amazing.
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| High Tea Chef Specialty at Sky on 57 - Singapore |
Then the waitress brought out the traditional tea fare which they displayed on a tower shaped like the Singapore ferris wheel. Very cute. And delicious! I am definitely a fan of high tea!
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| High Tea treats at Sky on 57 - Singapore |
The only thing that really disappointed me about high tea at the Marina Bay Sands was the fact that they were doing some renovations while we were there, and our seats had absolutely no view of the city or the bay. We were kinda tucked away inside which completely defeated the purpose of being on the 57th floor of this opulent hotel.
After tea, we walked over to the Gardens by the Bay. Here they had two things that we absolutely loved...because they were both inside and chilled. If you've been reading my whole series on Southeast Asia, I think you've figured out by now that being outside in super hot and humid temps just isn't for us, and after two full weeks of the worst heat and humidity I've ever experienced in my life, I was dying for any respite from the outdoors.
First we explored the indoor Flower Dome. This place is really neat and absolutely beautiful. I only wish my memories of the experience wasn't combined agonizing kidney pain.
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| Flower Dome - Singapore |
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| Flower Dome - Singapore |
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| Flower Dome - Singapore |
Right next to the Flower Dome was the Cloud Forest. Smaller, but still inside, we also enjoyed this place very much...though we didn't see many clouds. We even climbed up the many levels of stairs to take the cloud walk, which unfortunately had no clouds. At one point, they turned on the misters which thickened the air a bit, but anything cloud-like dissipated as soon as the misters turned off.
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| Cloudless Cloud Walk - Singapore |
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| Cloud Forest - Singapore |
We hung around the Gardens by the Bay until sunset and light show at 7:45. It finally cooled down enough to tolerate being outside, so we joined the crowds and watched a bit of the light show before beating the crowds back to to the metro and on toward our hotel.
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| Marina Bay light show - Singapore |
When we got back to our room, we saw this little cake sitting out (under a plastic dome) from the hotel staff. So nice!
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| Happy Birthday to me! |
I remember going to bed thinking that I really hope we're both feeling better tomorrow. By the end of the day the worst of the cramping subsided but the traveler's bug wasn't done with us yet. This is a valuable lesson friends. Be prepared for anything! Foreign countries don't always sell the same types of medicine that we do. Fortunately, the bug hit us on our last two days, so we were ok with what I brought to get us home, but we would have been in an awful state if it struck us any earlier.
Only one more day left before this adventure comes to an end! At this point between the travel bug and the heat, I was really starting to suffer from travel fatigue. Two weeks is definitely my limit!
I hope you'll join me for my last blog post about our second day in Singapore. Until then my good friends...
Thanks for reading!
- Foxy the Traveler
