CAIT AROUND THE WORLD

May 17, 2023 — Buckle in, everyone, the next couple days are a little crazy! If you missed me flying to Singapore, check that post out here.

My time in Singapore, though wonderful, was rather short. I planned it as a just-shy-of-48-hours-stopover between Indonesia and Greece, the next stop on my journey. There are really two reasons I did that: (1) I couldn’t get a direct flight from Indonesia to Greece and (2) Jack Sparrow spent so much time in Singapore, I have to see it for myself. Things may have changed since the eighteenth century, but it’s still pretty darn cool! In fact, I was really sad to leave later today and I know that I want to come back to Singapore someday.

But first, I need to tell you all about my day.

This was definitely a busier day than I’d had in a while. I was only spending one night in the hostel, so I packed up my stuff in the morning and headed downstairs to check out. I stored my bag and then had breakfast, which is offered for free at the hostel. I had an iced latte and some kind of toast sandwich with sugar and a pad of butter. Spiked my blood sugars, but it was delicious!

I walked to the metro and got a train to the Marina Bay Sands shopping centre, where I checked the Apple Store to determine what band colour I wanted for my new watch. When I was on the phone with my mom the night before, we came to the conclusion that it would be about the same price to buy a new Apple Watch as it would be to fix my old one. As my family would be visiting me in about four weeks, we decided that it would make the most sense for my mom to order it and bring it with them. We’d explored the option of me buying one in Singapore but since I wanted AppleCare this time, we might run into warranty issues because of place of purchase and the watches are actually more expensive there, too. I made my band decision and texted Mom my choice.

After that, I headed to Gardens by the Bay, which was quite close. If you’ve ever heard of Singapore’s Supertrees, or have seen pictures, this is where they are!

For a while, I just walked around the park. It’s a large complex with lots more to see other than the trees. There’s plenty of wildlife and nature around — I even saw a water lizard!

I walked by the Supertrees and ended up going to the ticket desk so that I could explore some of the other exhibits (making this purchase had the added benefit of getting me out of the heat — it was so hot and humid!). I purchased entry into the Flower Dome, Supertree Observatory, and the Cloud Forest. The first, because they had a tulip exhibition on and I wanted to see all the tulips. The second, because I wanted to see the Supertrees from on high, and the third because it sounded really cool.

I went to the Supertree Observatory first on the recommendation from the lady at the ticket counter. She said to go there first because it wasn’t air conditioned and to go to the other two places next because they were air conditioned. Excellent recommendation! The views from the Observatory are excellent and it’s really cool to see the trees up close. I purchased an iced tea while I was up here because I saw so many other people with them and they looked absolutely wonderful on such a hot day.

I went to the Flower Dome next and if you go to Gardens by the Bay, then I highly recommend adding this as part of your itinerary. Walking around in the cool greenhouse was absolutely sublime and the sheer number and variety of plants that they have is fascinating. Even if you’re not super into botany (which I can tell you, I’m not), it’s a beautiful place to walk around. I really loved taking the time to take pictures and it’s a gorgeous place to do it. The tulip exhibition was beautiful.

After the Flower Dome, I went to Cloud Forest. It was more humid in here, but still cool enough. I was expecting to see clouds, but there actually aren’t any — just so you know. There is, however, a waterfall. They also had the Avatar exhibition on while I was there and that was pretty neat. The “Cloud Forest” concept of the whole exhibit is showing the foliage that thrives “above the clouds,” in those difficult-to-reach places of Earth.

I was quite pooped by the end of all that and made my way over to the Raffles Hotel for a Singapore Sling and a bit of a slow-down. If I had to pick, this was probably my absolute favourite part of the day. I walked around the hotel grounds for a little while, trying to figure out where I needed to go, and finally saw the signs for the Long Bar. This is the original bar where the Singapore Sling was invented in 1915 by Ngoako Tong Boon, and they still mix the cocktail according to the original recipe. Did you know that it was invented because, at the time, it wasn’t considered appropriate for women to drink alcohol in public? The drink was invented to look like non-alcoholic juice, allowing women a way to consume alcohol in public within societal standards! This is definitely a splurge while in Singapore, but also such a bucket list moment. This is the most expensive cocktail I’ve ever had, costing $47.00. But now I can say that I had my first Singapore Sling in Singapore, at the Raffles Hotel Long Bar. How awesome is that?

I went over to the shopping centre nearby, mostly looking for a bathroom, and ended up going through a couple stationery stores while I was there. One thing I really do miss while travelling: paper. (Not that I haven’t had a notebook, but you might remember that it was destroyed in Airlie Beach while I was sailing the Whitsundays. Since then, I was trying to avoid it and just use my electronics that I brought instead.)

I found Starbucks (finally) while I was in the mall and had a coffee while I worked on the blog. I hit a roadblock while I was there, though, since Day 90 glitched and deleted on me. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

After a few hours, I decided to head back over to Marina Bay Sands for sunset. I’d looked earlier in the day, hoping to go up to the bar at the top of the hotel for sunset, but all the slots were completely booked and it was rather expensive. If you can go, I think it would be awesome, but you can also enjoy the sunset from the roof of the Marina Bay Sands Shopping Centre for free and it’s also quite pretty. I headed over there to do just that after grabbing some fries from McDonalds to-go.

After the sun set, the time finally rolled around that I could walk over to the Gardens by the Bay nighttime show. I actually almost didn’t go. I was tired and thinking about heading to the airport early but I’m so glad that I didn’t. The Gardens by the Bay show takes places in the Supertree complex, where they have programmed the trees to light up, choreographed in time to a selection of music. Tonight’s was in tune with a mishmash of opera and it was the best thing I’ve ever seen. Right up there with Disney’s fireworks.

After the show, I melted in with the crowds to head back to the hostel, get my bags, and go to the airport.

The subway trains to the airport only run until about 11:00pm, so I knew that I had to head over by then. My phone was running out of battery, though, and I’d seen all that I wanted to so I headed over around 9:00pm, planning to get something to eat when I got there.

And now, not to leave you on a cliffhanger, I’m going to leave this post here, because the airport odyssey that I went on needs to be its own thing.

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