Still in Singapore - just confused. March 1

This morning I poked around and did some laundry and by noon I was ready for another adventure so I decided to head across town to the Chinese and Japanese gardens.

I had only gone 2 blocks when I came to a place which claimed to make the best Biryani in town, Bismillah Biryani. They were kind enough to tame it down for me and I quite enjoyed it.


Then I walked past this vacant lot. Even in Little India they maintain all the unused space. Notice there is lawn instead of garbage and weeds.


A store which carries the traditional Indian clothing.


Lots of nice produce at the markets and herbs I've never seen before.


All the streets are narrow, colorful and full of shops.


Finally, I arrived at the Metro and off to the gardens. It was a much bigger park than I expected. I had to walk a couple of hours to cover all the sights and there is another trail closer to the perimeter just for walking.

This is the bridge to the Japanese part.




Thousands of open lilies in the lily pond.




There is a turtle pond in the Chinese side. The turtles usually jump into the pond when they hear you coming.


Here and there you can see the city poking up beyond the trees.




A quiet area in a bamboo grove. The whole park has lots of seating where you can while away hours.




These birds are hanging around everywhere like our sparrows.



This pagoda had nothing inside except a cement staircase to go out to view any level.



Here is a view of the park from the top.


Another view from the other side.


Up close and personal with a pigeon.


Looking down the staircase is a nice spiral.


So is looking up.


Confucius is just one of many honourable statues.

From here I headed back to the Metro to go home. I made an extra Metro stop to get a tasty supper and then rolled on home.

So tomorrow is the day I actually go to Yogyakarta, Java but since I am a day behind with posting I got mixed up.

Downtown Singapore Feb 28

My mission today was to book some forward travel arrangements and I headed out for the Metro to go downtown. Another street view I passed in Little India.

It seems obvious that the travel agent can't book anything for cheap and also that they won't/or can't book from country to country. I guess that is because the countries down here are spread out over a lot of islands and they have local airlines. He shuffled me off to Air Asia to book the first leg. They are known for their cheap flights. I got a flight to Yogyakarta tomorrow and one back to Kuala Lumpur near the end of the month. What happens in between is anybodies guess, it might be plane, train, bus or boat, but I will have to book as I go along depending on what's available.

Since I was downtown I started to have a look around. They have so much space built into the city and it is so green.

This looks like a residential area downtown called South Beach.

Pockets of high rises are scattered between older areas leaving lots of space.

This is St. Andrew's Cathedral.

Looking toward the front.

A former capitol building still used for government.

A modern building behind looks like a spaceship landing.

I took the river cruise. These buildings are the first Quay on the river and they used to be artisans shops. Now they are well maintained and are still stores if not workshops where people can wander, and stop for food and drinks as well. It is a nice contrast with the new city behind.

Victoria theater now but I don't know what it was in its day.

I like this view.

The Asian Civilisations Museum had tons of great stuff in it but it required a lot of reading to make anything out of it. I breezed through and saw it all though.

This is what I like about Singapore. You wouldn't know it but this is a small alleyway behind a hotel with a sewer running through it. In Singapore they plant flowers and any other country tosses garbage out there.

The pictures got a bit mixed up today. This is the boat for the river cruise.

Another shot of the old artisan shops.

Old warehouse along the river is now something else.

This is the famous quay where the young crowd go for nightlife.

A city view from the river.

These three towers are a hotel with a casino and restaurant shaped like a ship on the top.

This is the Esplanade, a performing arts center. The designers put two glass domes on top and covered them with metal shades. They were hoping the city would become known for these as well as Sydney is known for the Opera house. The locals made jokes about them. I don't think they are the hit they expected.

Well, I enjoyed this day too including all the large downtown malls. Can't shop on my budget but it doesn't hurt to look.

Glad to have those plane tickets finally and I booked one more night here, hate to leave actually but maybe that is just because I have been in less developed countries for quite a while.

I am having trouble getting my computer online here too, so I am still behind a day on posts.

Tomorrow I will be traveling but just a one hour flight. I am supposed to have wi-fi there as well.

Java, here I come.

Accidentally went to the beach. Fun day! Feb 27

I hopped on the Metro this morning intending to go to the harbour and see if I could book a ferry trip part way to my next destination but no they just go to a little island close by which didn't help. I think there is another harbour I could check though. Anyway, I looked around while I was there and was planning to take the Metro to some other interesting place.

When I turned around to leave I saw this cable car coming out of the top of the World Trade Center and I though "Why don't I go up there and ride that to see where it goes?" Some people should be laughing right now because they know how much I don't like those.

I bought a round trip since it was only $2.00 more just in case. Then I made a very bad decision. They cable went both ways out of the trade building so I chose the city side before the water side because I thought I might want to end up on the water side.

I was alone in the car so I could talk to myself out loud as I thought about being splattered all over the highway below.

There was a park there you could walk in on this side but I decided to get back on and ride the other way before I lost nerve.



There was only one pole between the building and the water side so the cable was fairly saggy I thought.

Some views from up there.

Looking down on a cruise ship. It might be the only one I ever see the inside of.

Many ships waiting for a berth.

You can't see what's in the area from the end of the cable but when I asked they gave me a handful of brochures and I spent the rest of the day finding out.

The whole area is called Sentosa and it turned out to be amazing. First stop at Siloso Beach.

Apparently the sand was brought in but they have a very nice beach and you could spend the day right here. There are lots of restaurants and facilities. Here are some volleyball nets.

Beach guard stand.

Floating bridge to a little island which is where the zip-liners land.

Here you can see the zip-lines and the landing nets.

Here comes somebody now.

Other attractions on this beach are a simulated parachute jump, a climbing wall, a flying trapeze and a luge ride that you take a chair lift up to. Apparently there is a wave pool somewhere too.

Just a view.

And another....

The beaches are connected and I walked over to the next one called Palawan Beach. It looked much the same but is more geared for smaller children.

You can see a little island in the center with twin lookout towers on it. This piece of land is the southernmost point in Continental Asia.

This suspension bridge takes you across when the tide is in.

Just for the record, I am standing at the back of that island.

A view from the little island. This beach has The Song of the Sea water show, and animal and bird encounter park and a water feature for babies to play in. There were free buses to take you up and down the beaches.

I already thought the place was amazing and I was nowhere near done.

There was a third beach which I didn't go to. By now I knew there was a free sky train which I could use to go back to connect with the Metro I had come down on. Yes! No return trip on the cable.

There were three stops on the sky train going back, each not far from the last.

The first was the Merlion Plaza. Merlion is the symbol of Singapore.

There were waterfalls, pools and nice gardens there.

The next stop was at the Imbiah lookout. The area is quite elevated and there are escalators and stairs to get you higher.

Now that I have the map I can see that this is where I came in on the cable car and it is also where the Luge ride leaves from to go to the beach.

It is defiantly one impressive complex. They whisk you where ever you want to go for free. There is all kinds of access to the park and lots of underground parking.

This is the tiger tower. I gave it a miss as I had already been up in the air too much today.

On this tower the circular part comes down to ground level to let the people out.

Here I am in the Easter Egg Patch.

By now I am very tired of walking but decide to take a look at the last stop since I am there. Would you believe that Universal Studios is here also. It didn't seem like they had sound stages but they had shows and rides that showed off some of the film industry's technology.

Rides like this with the red track traditional roller coaster (right side up) going at the same time as the blue track with those people hanging in harnesses from the underside of the track. You can bet I wasn't on that one.

It was quite like Disneyland but with movie themes. I did a few of the rides and shows and walked around for a couple of hours and headed for the hostel. It was pretty expensive to get in to the Universal theme park but once in everything was paid as many times as you wanted. Even so, if there hadn't been a huge discount for seniors I wouldn't have gone.

This candy shop was full of people. What compelling advertising.

What an amazing day, especially considering I had no real plan. This would be a great place to come with kids too.

There are a couple of casinos and several resort hotels connected with the park too. Something for everyone.

This street is near my hostle. The crowd is outside a bar where they have a soccer match between India and England on TV. The crowd goes right across the street, getting the game by osmosis I suppose. When cars come down the street they slowly move apart and then fill in again. Soccer fans!

I am posting a day late because I was too tired last night.