24 RTW Day 04

By travelerdon on May 17, 2024

Singapore, 3/09/24 Saturday

Today we wake and have the complimentary breakfast in the hotel. The best item on the menu besides the Bao is the ‘Roti Prada’ with ‘Yellow Dhal’ sauce. Fabulous! So, with full tummies, we pack up our cameras and head out under blue skies without the predicted rain of yesterday!

So we don’t even bring our umbrellas today. I do apply sunscreen which I forgot yesterday and I have some sunburn even under cloudy and rainy skies! And I remember my hat, which my dermatologist will appreciate! We walk the 5 blocks to the HO HO Bus and board when it arrives in 10 minutes or so. I brought the big camera today because I don’t have the threat of rain (even though the camera is water tight, being a pro camera). Handling multiple cameras in inclement weather has its own challenges!

Today, the sights are vibrant and I even reshoot the same images I shot yesterday with totally different lighting! Can’t wait to get to the editing phase but getting my thoughts down here are more important than the photo editing part! We ride the Red Line for 16 of 19 stops and get off at the Marina Bay Hotel, the famous three towered hotel with the “Boat” on top. As a tourist, there are some places you can’t go, but you CAN go up to the top for a fee (someone say you can go to the top? Well you all know me! LOL).

First we get views around and near the hotel and from inside the hotel. The architecture is amazing! Then we pay the fee and ride the express elevator up and step out on the “boat” end of the top level and the views of the city are amazing! This place is all that it is rated to be! And while at the top, we find a drink vendor selling, wait for it… Singapore Slings! Invented here! Albeit invented at a place called the “Raffles Hotel”, nevertheless in Singapore! So, of course we imbibe!

There is a bar and lounge at the top but it is cordoned off from our area. We inquire what it would take to sit there for a while and enjoy the view and it turns out all we had to do at the bottom was to ask to ride to the top for a drink! Sheesh, such typical tourists we are! We paid $32 Singapore dollars each for this view ($24 American dollars each) and could have sat there under shade and enjoyed the same view for free! I’m surprised that we didn’t find this out in advance, being the frugal travelers that we are!

We walk back to the bus stop and ride the bus to the central hub and kabitz with other passengers on the bus. The hub happens to be at a local mall. There seems to be a local mall every half mile in Singapore! We walk into the mall and find a subterranean level with many restaurants and we browse the different foods available. One thing we are quickly finding is that if a restaurant serves Indian or other ethnic foods, they don’t seem to serve beer or wine. A real bummer because we really like a cold glass of beer or glass of wine with a meal. And being in the Singapore heat and humidity (which can be stifling), that refreshment becomes important! I also will down 2-3 glasses of ice water during a meal also, liking to stay hydrated!

We end up at a pizzeria (I mean, who doesn’t end up eating pizza wherever they go?) and have a mushroom, chorizo and tomato pizza with the accompanying drinks of choice. And we share a salad. Not exactly the best tasting (but not bad) food we have had, but our tummies are satisfied and we feel hydrated (from the water, not beer and wine, LOL)

We find a grocery/pharmacy in the mall and pick up some sundries that we didn’t pack right and now have several pounds of items that we prefer not to carry for too long. We look at our clocks and determine that we have about two and a half hours until we need to be in a specific place for our night tour. An important time gap.

We ride the HO HO Bus back to our bus stop, 5 blocks away from our hotel. We are getting quite adept at knowing where our hotel is as related to the HO HO Bus stops. 15 plus minutes walk either direction, Ugh! We’re definitely getting our steps in! 13,000 steps yesterday and today is promising to be more! Hope we’re losing weight! We get our purchases into our room and have only 15-20 minutes to lay back and relax! Because tonight will turn out to be the most exciting night so far! And the Year of the Dragon keeps showing up!

We head back to the HO HO Bus (Hop On, Hop Off Bus for those that have missed earlier blog posts) and arrive right as a bus arrives! Fantastic timing! We board and secure top row seats with a view and ride it for most of an hour which gives us more time to relax our feet and legs that, in turn is a good thing! We arrive at the bus hub and join the queue to have a night tour of the “Garden By The Sea” and the “Marina Bay Sands Hotel” and a promised “Light Show”! I am a bit disconcerted by the length of the queue as I wonder how we can get top row seats for the tour. And we are early to join the queue.

The bus starts loading and my heart sinks as I watch the top seats fill up and we are nowhere close to the front of the queue! Suddenly, they shut off the loading line. Wow! Oh wait, this means there will be more than one bus! And we are now only behind a dozen people! The top decks hold well over one hundred people! We have a shot at this after all! Sure enough, they bring in a second bus. And we load and we get row 3! In the top! Open air seats! The night is good. The bus drives on and sunset starts to set in.

The lights in the city buildings start to come on. Fabulous for photos. I start setting the camera for night photos and coach Elee on how to do the same. The light fades and the building lights come up. One of my favorite times of day to photograph! I hope my shots tell the story as well as my excitement tells it! We weave in and out of city streets and our cameras praise us! And promise us of great rewards! Let’s hope they are telling us the truth!

Our tour guide, Edna, is very excited to show us the sights and she is worthy of her job title! She takes us to the “Barrage”, a location where you can see some of the artistic “Trees” and views of the Marina Bay Hotel. On weekends (this is Saturday!), hundreds of locals and tourists bring their families and children for picnics and to fly kites! We watch literally hundreds of colorful kites as they fly in the skies as we photograph the sites! An absolutely magical sight!

We board the bus again and are taken to an ancient fishing village location, “Lau Passat”, Singapore’s first market. Now it is a restaurant area that has literally dozens of food stalls and bars. We taste Satay skewers and buy some cool refreshing Sauvignon Blanc wine. So refreshing in the sweltering heat and humidity! We also found a store selling bottles of wine that we take back to our hotel. This was a difficult and useful find!

We board the bus again and go to the “Gardens By The Sea”, where the famous Artistic Trees of Singapore reside. Edna takes us to a quiet area, away from the crowds for a fantastic Light Show overlooking the Marina Bay Hotel and dozens of the Artistic Trees as the Light Show ensues! I will put up photos here and attempt to put up at least a short video! Such a treat and well worth every penny we spent! When in Singapore, buy the HO HO Bus tickets AND the Night Tour! You will not be disappointed!

We are brought back to the bus hub and we hail a taxi back to our hotel as the HO HO Busses do not run at night. The day has been a fantastic success! Goodnight all and see you tomorrow!