Where the East meets the West

---

Universal Studios Singapore was incredible, what it lacked from its American cousin in size it made up for with quality and variety. Unlike Universal Studios California (USC) both a theme park and working studio, Universal Studios Singapore (USS) was purely a theme park. USS featured a great many worlds, the most popular of these being Ancient Egypt and Jurassic Park, other worlds included Battlestar Galactica, Far far away (Shrek) and Madagascar.
Unlike the USC park, the USS featured a number of attractions for each world. Jurassic Park for instance featured 3 different rides.

Our first stop was the Mummy roller coaster in Ancient Egypt; I had been looking forward to this ride ever since I heard it was featured in USS. Since we were at Universal as they opened we managed to make it across the park fairly quickly with very little waiting time for the rides. We strapped ourselves into the roller coaster. Neither Michelle or I do traditional roller coasters but as I told Michelle, the Mummy ride isn't a full on coaster, it doesn't go upside down and since its all in the dark you don't have the added fear of preempting what turn comes next. Our car took off and we began our adventure through ancient Egypt. Much like the rides in Disneylands 'its a small world' were very story based the Mummy ride at Universal started the same. That all changed once we were discovered by Imotep, who wanted our souls for all eternity, in a whirlwind of anger he thrust us out of control, plunging us into the depths of darkness and indeed the damned. It was all quite a rush, I spent the ride holding on for dear life, screaming in both shock and joy, joy of reliving the thrill I first experienced doing this ride back in 2005 at Universal Studios Hollywood. I was loving it, I turned to Michelle expecting to see the same thrilled expression on her face however this wasn't further from the truth. It turns out it didn't matter whether the roller coaster went upside down or not - roller coasters were a no no. Holding onto the railing even tighter than I was, Michelle had her eyes clamped shut and head burred. What do you do? It is not as if you can raise your hand and they stop the ride. I turned my attention to her and cuddled her, reassuring her it would be alright and that it was almost over. Just as I turned and did this the camera flash went off and surely enough the ride ended. Michelle was white as a ghost, taking small steps we made our way out to the fresh air. On the way we passed the photo booth, sure enough, Michelle's head was tucked in, and I has turned to comfort her. I dismissed the idea of doing the ride again for a better photo as quickly as it came to me, I was deeply concerned that Michelle's USS experience was over before it had even begun.

Fortunately, the fresh air helped and soon enough we were walking around again, Though there were no more rides that day for Michelle.

Not being much of a ride person myself this didn't worry me, though there was one other must do adventure - the Jurassic Park ride. I didn't know much about this ride since it was different to he one in the US, the only similarly being that it was still a water based ride. Unlike its US counterpart this ride PROMISED you will either get wet or soaked. With those very words I bought a poncho and jumped in line. Michelle waited for me at the end of the ride; a big watery drop, camera poised to capture the moment. The raft vehicles were circular, seating twelve, broken into four quadrants. Between the quadrants was a gap, no doubt to help with stability but also letting water in. We floated down stream, gently spinning around allowing all of us to take in the same views. The park came to life with the presence of gentle leaf eaters and their babies. Sure enough as did with the Mummy ride this soon came to an end. The water got choppier and as we approached outpost B, our destination, we discovered various capsized rafts, mangled Jeeps and wrecked fencing; the raptors had escaped. Our raft picked up pace in the rough waters, raptors springing out at us; we were being hunted. We soon approached another building, as we neared the entrance the trees in the distance behind us shook followed by the unmistakable spine tingling roar of a Tyrannosaur. We entered the compound, working our way up to the top. It was pretty obvious what was to follow. My only concern, one shared with the two teenage girls in my compartment was which way would we be facing when we came down the other side, since the raft was continuing to rotate. Fortunately as the doors opened right as we were facing ahead and with narrowly missing the clutches of T-Rex who was smashing his way through the ceiling we splashed down the exit ramp into calmer waters. The girls and myself got wet, the Asian family sitting across from us not wearing ponchos got soaked!

---