Holiday: Singapore: Gardens by the Bay

We all had a good, deep sleep last night and didn't wake up until after 8am which almost unheard of.

This morning we did a bit of a shopping, I had found a chocolate mould place I wanted to visit, it happened to be just round the corner from Raffles Hotel, so we decided to do the two together.  Raffles was looking as lovely as ever.  We looked up how much it was these days for a Singapore Sling there, S$38, not worth it!  So we took a photo at the front and left it at that.

We then went to Sun Lik Trading which was my baking shop.  It was small, but had a bit of everything...I managed to pick up some Christmas chocolate moulds that I don't have for very little so was happy.  

Next stop was the Sony shop - Matt was after a new camera and had found a good deal.  Lunch was a pretzel at a Swiss bakery.  Then back to the hotel for a rest and swim.  The plan today is to do Gardens by the Bay - but we want to do it at night when you get all the illuminations.

So, at 4pm we headed out, got the bus down to Marina Bay Sands.  It was gone 5pm, we were all a little hungry so we thought we would go in the obligatory shopping centre first to grab a snack and keep hunger at bay until we had tea.  Oh my word, the shopping centre at the Bay is enormous, ENORMOUS.  We were completely overwhelmed by it.  All the shops were high end brands, so of course we didn't know many of them and we weren't dressed correctly to enter any of the shops anyway!  It even had a canal going down it on which you could rent gondalas (idea stolen from Las Vegas I think!) 

The food court, of course was right down the other end of the mall - it took about 10 minutes to get there.  

We were slightly concerned that the food might be high end too - but it was fine - it was a huge court full of an array of very reasonably priced food.  We found a snack place and got a variety of 'puffs' (deep fried pastry things some with fillings).  They were all very nice and very cheap.  It was enough to fuel us to walk all the way through the shopping centre again and back to the Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by the Bay.  

We had bought tickets in advance just in case we got there and were told it was full.  I don't think we need have worried.  We weren't really sure what we had bought tickets for either - the information on the website wasn't the best.  We didn't know if you needed a ticket to enter the area and what a 'ticket' would give you entrance to.  Anyway, we found the way to the gardens - you had to walk through the Marina Bay Sands Hotel to get there (the hotel with the 3 towers with a surfboard on top of it) - it was very big and airy (and air conditioned which is always nice).

We got to the gardens and they were free to enter which was nice.  We had tickets to the flower bowl so we headed to one of the glasshouses.  This place is a bit like the Eden Project - it has two glass domes (one is the flower bowl, the other a cloud forest).  We were wondering how it works.  Obviously the Eden Project is a dome because it is trying to get as much heat as possible, here surely they would need less heat?  We were hoping that maybe they were air conditioned...we went in...they WERE air conditioned - yay.  There was an array of plants from South America, Europe, Australia etc.  The main display though was of orchids - the national flower of Singapore and they had put on a great display.  Even Tom thought they were great and took some photos!

We then headed to the Super Tree Grove and the observatory tower - ie to the tallest of the super trees.  These were inspired by Australian Eucalyptus trees and actually have a function: solar panels on top to generate power and they also release excess heat from the area - clever.  

We timed it for sunset - unfortunately there wasn't much of a sunset but it was nice enough.  We then headed down, had an ice cream each (lemon mint sorbet for me - was delicious!) and then waited for the light display.  Tonight's one was all about the moon - so some Chinese songs, some English songs all with sparkling lights.  It was lovely, romantic, even with 1000's of others all around watching it.  A lovely ending to our holiday.  

We then headed back to the food court, had tea: cheesy Japanese curry for Tom (?!), Malaysian chicken for me and chicken wings for Matt.  All very very lovely.  Then straight back to the hotel for bed - we were all shattered - again!!!!!