Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 4

Day 4 in Singapore was our last day before we flew off to Sydney. We had to be at the airport to fly out at 7:30pm, so almost had a full day of sightseeing to fit in!
 
We decided that the place to go was down to the sea front - hopefully to catch a glimpse of the skyline and to walk around the parks. We caught a taxi to the world famous Raffles hotel where we were greeted by a funny looking Indian guy in old colonial British army dress. Very cool. 
   
 

 

We then headed down to the waterfront to the new Esplanade and performing arts centre. We were just about to go for a walk when we were approached by a local who proceeded to tell us about the delights of going for a river cruise! We just couldn't refuse. We quickly bought our tickets, and then next thing we knew we were heading across the harbour towards the MERLION!

 

The Merlion is Singapore's emblem - and is very significant to them... I never did learn why! Anyway, we continued our trip under the old bridges and up the river past some historic buildings, such as their governmental houses. It was amazing to see such old buildings contrasted against the modern high rise office blocks.

 

 

Halfway through the river trip, we disembark and walked around the old part of Singapore - it was good to get a feeling of what the place used to be like before the giant sky scrapers grew out of the ground. After the short walk, we hopped back on the boat and headed towards the starting point of our cruise.

 

The Singapore skyline - you can see the white merlion as a  blob in the centre of the picture.
 
We caught a taxi back to near where we were staying - ate a quick lunch of noodles - and then walked to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. These gardens were really amazing and were full of a huge variety of plant life. There were different sections all over the park representing different types of vegetation - dessert, tropical rainforest etc... and even a "Swan Lake".
  
 

Our favourite part (excuse me if I sound like a girl) was actually the orchid garden which was absolutely jam packed with all sorts of different kinds of orchids! There were orchids that had been specifcally grown and named after world leaders (ie Margaret Thatcher etc) - the place was just full of them, of every variety in every colour! 

 

We also saw a giant flying bubble bee / beetle type thing that was half the size of my palm and made quite a buzz as it flew past. Although I'd lived in the Philippines for 10 years, I had never seen anything like it before - but despite my best attempts - I failed to capture it on camera.

After walking around the gardens, and through the old tropical rain forest, we headed back to our room, packed our bags and caught our final Singaporean taxi to the airport. As usual, Ang had arranged it so that we were at the airport well ahead of schedule (i think it was nearly 4 hours this instance) but we managed to amuse ourselves by visiting both terminals of the airport - and watching a Spiderman 2 drama complete with cheezy American blond actresses.

 

All in all - we had a fantastic time in Singapore, with some good bargain  shopping, and some even better cuisine. The only let down was the heat and humidity - I don't know how people can live in such heat!! On to the winter of Sydney....