Our Singapore Visit

It was our first trip; our honeymoon trip. This is the first time both of us are traveling to a foreign country and so we were excited and planned this trip for about two weeks. We started our trip on 26th June night and with lot of expectations we boarded the flight. Though it was a 4 hour journey from Chennai to Singapore, the travel was a bit tiring. We reached the airport early in the morning and traveled to Lavender where we had already booked a hotel for our stay. We got our tourist passes and a guide before boarding the metro rail which was the cleanliest train I’ve ever seen. The roads were very neat and the traffic was very orderly that it seemed to us that the cars were robots and they had no drivers inside.

We reached the V-hotel which was really beautiful and we refreshed and were ready to hit the road. The first place to visit was the Singapore flyer. It was so tall and it was one of the largest giant wheels in the world. We got the tickets and waited in the queue to get inside. There were many shrubs and bushes beneath the flyer and around the place there were cafes, restaurants and gift shops. As the wheel rotated we were slowly lifted up and from the top most point, the city looked incredibly beautiful. We could see so many tall building and massive structures and roads, boats moving around on the water and lush green plants on the sides. After enjoying the beauty of the skyline we walked all the way to the Merlion statue.

This being an important place to visit, we could see many tourists there. We took a few snaps there and thought we could have a snack. The only thing I found difficult in Singapore was the food. And me being an eggatarian, it was very difficult to find a vegetarian food that tastes good. Our next plan was to visit the Singapore zoo which is ranked the best zoo in the world. We found the bus route and traveled half way towards the zoo. We waited at the bus stop just to find that the buses to the zoo were operational only on weekends and public holidays. We found the route to zoo using google maps and we decided to walk. We walked for a while and found there were no pedestrians around. The road was very wide and the cars and bikes were almost flying at very high speeds. We continued to walk and after a while we discovered that it was a highway and not a proper way for pedestrians. We were very scared to proceed because if we were found by the cops we would be penalized. Doing a huge crime in India wouldn’t scare us more than walking on a wrong path in Singapore. We walked all the way back and reached the bus stop where we started, that made us peaceful.

On the way back to the hotel, we went to a place called Clark Quay. it is a riverside place which was beautifully lighted and surrounded by many restaurants. There were many people hanging around the place and enjoying the evening. We searched all around the place and found a vegetarian restaurant which was nearly empty. We had a good time there, and started to the Gardens by the Bay. It was pretty late for us and so we had a free ground tour of it but we missed to see the highlights of the park. Anyways, we had no other way and so we returned to our hotel. All the way we were talking about the clean roads and wished India becomes like this, though it was a distant dream.

The next day, we got ready and left the hotel. We walked inside a food street nearby and to our greatest joy found an Indian food stall run by a Tamilian. We were very happy seeing them and we became regular visitors thereafter. After having a good food and a good talk at that place, we went to the Marina Bay Sands, the most expensive hotel with the infinity pool on the terrace of the huge building. It looked marvelous to look from a distance. As we approached it all looked very rich and dazzling. As we got into the lift, we were taken to the 55th floor. We could feel the pressure difference as the lift elevates. From the terrace of the building, the whole city appeared admirable. The day was sunny and so we were not able to spend time on the terrace. From there we went to the Art Science Museum. Many artistic jewelry and precious stones used by kings and queens of the olden days were exhibited there which revealed the talent of the people of those times.

As it was too hot, I got a bad headache, and we returned to the hotel for a nap. Then we started from there to the China town. China town is a place where we see many Chinese people and their style of building and temples everywhere. There were a few magnificent shopping malls. From there we went to a sanctuary of birds, The Jurong Bird park. I haven’t seen so many birds at a single place in my life. Many different species of birds were present and the harmless ones were present in their natural habitat. It was a different experience to walk among many plants and varieties of birds. The penguin and the owl regions were my most favorite ones. We returned from there to the hotel and we were excited about the next day as the plan was to go to the Sentosa Island., the island of fun.

There next morning we got ready and left the hotel earlier than usual as we may not find time to visit most of Sentosa. There are three ways to reach the Island. By metro, by boat and by cable car. We chose to go to there by cable car as many of our friends suggested it. We went to the place to get our tickets for the cable car. We paid the money and waited for the tickets to be printed but unfortunately the tickets got stuck in the printer and the system got hanged. We had to wait for it nearly two hours at the sample place till the technicians came and took our tickets out. We thought we were very late and had to skip some of the places to visit. We got into the cable car which slowly slides down the hill to the Sentosa Island. As our friends told, it was a very beautiful sight to see the water with ships below and the forest on one side. As we approached towards the Island, we could see the whole area which seemed to be inviting us to have fun.

We first visited the aquarium there. The way to the inside of the aquarium was having a glass roof and with the fishes swimming overhead. It was as if we are walking under the sea. We saw many fishes with different shapes, sizes and colors. Big broad finned fishes, colorful fishes among the coral reefs making you difficult to figure out where the fish was. There were giant sized lobsters and crabs, there were also beautiful jellyfishes and octopuses. As we were already late we hurried to the next place of visit, the iFly. This is not a place just to visit but to experience. I always wanted to experience skydiving. This iFly gives us such experience and they call it indoor skydiving. Winds of high velocity will be blown from the bottom of a chamber and as we enter inside the chamber we could fly with the help of a guide. Before we actually go inside, the guide teaches us what to do and what not to do. After the lessons we were given a suit to be worn for getting into the iFly chamber. We were very excited as this was the most awaited event even before we came to Singapore. Each one of us were given two chances to fly. It was not as easy as it seems to be, we need to control our body position to stand in the air. It was a nice experiences and we both loved it.

Our next visit was to the famous Universal Studios. I expected it to have fun activities for kids and grown ups wouldn’t enjoy much there. But it was completely wrong. It had so many rides and we got a chance of watching two shows like ‘WaterWorld’ which were really remarkable. There was many rides based on movies like Madagascar, Jurassic Park, Mummy, Transformers, etc. Each one was extremely enjoyable and thrilling. We enjoyed every minute there, took a few snaps and munched some snacks and left the place. Our final visit of the day was to the mountain top till which the cable car operated. It was dark when we reached there and we could see the whole city in the night dazzling with colorful lights. Luckily, we could see a huge cruise ship on the sea directly beneath our cable car. We loved the sight with that we returned to our hotel after having our dinner at a place called Little India. This place looked like little Tamilnadu rather than Little India. We could see so many Tamil speaking people and restaurants which were Indian Style food was available. We ate dosa and it tasted delicious to me.

The next day, being our last day in Singapore, we packed all our things and checked out from the hotel. We kept our baggage at the cloak of the hotel and headed on far the adventures of the day. We went to our usual food stall, had our breakfast, bid bye to our new friends. Then we started our journey towards the Singapore zoo for the second time now and this time, we succeeded reaching there.

We could find a few animals in their natural habitat. There were many animals which wouldn’t be present in many of the other zoos. The one of which was the Polar Bear. It stood inside the water showing its face on the iceberg. There were Giraffes, an Orangutan and various species of monkeys. There were separate division for turtles, frogs, and snakes. There were trams to take people around the zoo. As we lacked time, we mostly traveled by the tram and stopped only for animals we were interested. In spite of this, it took nearly half a day to cover the zoo. We saw a few birds, rhinoceros and finally a magnificent white tiger. We had not eaten our lunch and we were hungry. We found difficult to find a vegetarian restaurant and so we decided to go to to the Mariamman Temple at China Town believing that there will be some vegetarian restaurants around the temple. We were right, we found one and we were the last customers and so we were served with what was left over but it tasted very good as we were hungry. Then we visited the temple and left to our hotel. We then took our baggage from the cloak and started to the Airport at Changi.

We planned to visit the Butterfly garden and the Sunflower garden at the Changi Airport but as we were lacking time, we had our dinner and went only to the sunflower garden and had a quick look leaving the Butterfly garden maybe for the next time. Then we boarded the flight with heart full of memories.