Singapore Day 1

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Woke up pretty early, as the body is still used to being three hours behind, and had a look around the hotel for something to eat.
We were staying at the Hotel Value Thompson, which is the newest Budget hotel in the Singapore district. The Rooms are quite small, and the Shower comes out of a rose mounted on the wall next to the toilet (tiny bathroom), but for what we paid, they are comfortable, clean, air conditioned, and have very good beds.

What else could you ask for. ...... maybe breakfast!

Dad wanted to have a look downtown, so we caught a bus from the hotel, down Orchard road. We hopped off in the middle section of orchard road, and after about five minutes of walking came across a sign that said food mall downstairs. This was below the Concorde hotel, and the selection was wide, and the food good and cheap. We then went down and went to look at the famous Raffles building. That was amazing, and well worth the look. Funnily enough, as we were walking into Raffles, there was a hell of a racket, and as I looked around, I saw a Lamborghini Gulliano, and a Ferrari having a race between the traffic lights. A few minutes later I saw an Audi R8 coupe, which was interesting, as this is the only place in the whole of Singapore that I saw sports cars.


We went from Raffles to Bugis street (pronounced boogie street by the locals), and we went from opulent to extremely cheap. Watches and other trinkets in this market are generally pretty junky, and the prices reflect this. They have the standard asian street market things on sale.

After Bugis, we jumped on the MRT, and went for a ride to Marina Bay. This is the take off point to visit Sentosa Island, which is a resort and attraction park island on the southern tip of Singapore.
Sentosa Island is a small island, about 3km long and 500 Metres wide. It covers the entrance to the port precinct of old Singapore, and from the late 1800’s was considered the rock of Gibralta of Singapore. It carried three fortifications, to prevent unwanted sea invasions.

We went over to Sentosa by cable car, and unfortunately it was raining, do the view was slightly limited. The Cable car costs about SG$12 return, which is quite reasonable.

The cablecar takes you to Ambiah lookout, which is central to the island. Once you are there, you can then purchase tickets for the many different attractions on the island, and if I were you, I would probably check them all out on the internet well before I went. We decided to forgo all of the rides and attractions, and take the historical option with a tour of Fort Siloso, which is on the Western point of the island. One of the bonus things at Sentosa Island, is that the attractions are all spread out around the island, but there is a FREE bus service to take you wherever you want to go. It is a state run bus service, and services are frequent.
Fort Siloso is the only remaining military site on the island, and entrance is only SG$8. If you go there you will need between 1.5 to 2 hours to do the whole site, including walking through the tunnels. The fort tour gives a thorough insight into the Japanese invasion of Singapore during WW2, and the following 3 years of rule by the Japanese.

After Fort Siloso, we caught the cable car back to the mainland, and then the MRT across to Marina Bay station. Marina Bay is a station that if you went to it 10 years ago, you would have been standing in 30 feet of water. The land has been reclaimed across the front of the entrance to the Singapore river and the most amazing array of buildings built on the reclaimed land. The most impressive must be the triple towers of the Marina Bay sands resort. This resort has a casino built on top spanning the three towers, in the shape of a 200 Metre long bent Ship. It is quite incredible to see, as the towers are very high, but the ship straddled across the top has to be seen to be believed. We didn’t go to the top, but apparently, Singaporeans have to pay SG$100 to go to the top, whereas foreigners pay SG$20.

We walked around the Marina Bay, and marvelled at the other uniquie buildings that were there, and then caught a cruise boat from Merlion Park (famous Mermaid/Lion statue) for a tour of the river. The tour was good and a 30 minute cruise only costs SG$15 per person.

After the cruise, we found our way to the MRT, and caught a train to Ang Moo MRT station, where we caught the 138 bus to the Singapore Night Zoo.

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Photos

Raffles Entrance
You can just imagine Radyard kipling being transported here on an Elephant

Raffles Foyer
The Beautiful Marble Foyer

Raffles Lobby
Too good for us. We were not allowed to enter

Comments

[david]

hi, just a note to state that Singaporean pay$100 to enter the casino, and $20 like everyone else to view on the top of the hotel. Cheers!