We woke up to rain. We had planned to go to the Orchid gardens, so decided to wait it out a bit to see if the weather would change. We went down for breakfast, which was tasty as usual, then headed back to the room. Still raining. Decided to pack a bit, and wait to see if it would stop. It eventually did, so we headed out. We stopped by the concierge desk on the way to see if any part of the gardens was indoors. Nope, just the gift shop. The good news was that they had free tickets through the hotel Orchid gardens. Anything free in this country is greatly appreciated, because it’s New York expensive. When you go from spending under $10 for a lunch, then go back to western food and prices and it’s 10 times that much, saving any dollars feels like a minor victory. I think I mentioned it, but in case I didn’t, we used the Klook app a few times to save on admission tickets. It was very easy to use and I highly recommend it.
I originally wanted to take a cab to the gardens, since we had limited time and had to be back to the hotel to check out, but it looked close enough so we walked it. It took 15-20 minutes, and we ran into this on the way:
The botanical park itself is lovely. I’ve never seen such a variety of trees. I could have spent an entire day there if a) we had time, and b) I had a portable fan. The sculptures were interesting and in the style of the ones we’ve seen in various other places in the city. I’m assuming it’s the same artist.
Somehow we managed to got lost trying to find the Orchid Gardens, even though the Botanic Gardens are pretty well marked. Me, “Haven’t we passed this rock before?”. It would have been funnier if it hadn’t started getting hot. Shew! We finally made it. These gardens are the largest orchid gardens in the world and a Unesco Heritage Site. I’m not making a collage of these pics because it was my Mom’s birthday a few days ago and she loves flowers and should see them full size. Here they are, Mom:
We got some cold drinks for the walk back to the hotel. We were so very sweaty, we took a quick shower and finished packing. FS was nice to give us a little late checkout and we took advantage of it. We grabbed a cab and made our way to the Marina Bay Sands hotel aka (by us) The Spaceship hotel. Our sole purpose of staying at this hotel was to use the pool.
This hotel has three towers and is freakin’ huuuuge. It’s like a Vegas hotel, basically, but a really really big one. MGM, maybe. Or even bigger. A very nice front desk clerk felt bad about us waiting in line to check in and said she would give us a nice room. We were lucky enough to get checked in a few hours early. The room was indeed very nice, and I loved the views. King Harbor View for the win.
We were hungry at this point because we had already walked so much (over 12K steps). We walked over to the mall (seems like there’s always a mall within walking distance around here…) and went to db Bistro, which one of the staff at the FS recommended after he heard we were moving to MBS. Yes, they have db restaurants in the US. It was delicious, though, and it’s nice to have good western food every once in a while. My cosmo had an iceball with an orchid in it, so it kept with the theme for the day.
After our delicious (and expensive) lunch, we headed back to the hotel to change for the pool. Wow. There are three different sections, all sort of connected. The last section is the adults only. Here are two videos – you can choose which one you’re more interested in, or watch both:
Short video showing the views from the AO pool.
Longer video with dumb commentary from the AO pool.
We stayed at the pool for quite a long time once we snagged good seats, and even ate dinner there. The pools are quite crowded, and people do not believe in personal space or apologies when encroaching on your personal space here. There was a man literally with his arm on my chair, *while I was in it*, and a woman who was in the chair next to me that smacked me with her wet coverup. Too many people in too tight of an area with the loungers pretty much on top of each other, again sort of like Vegas. I love the views and the pool, and the temperature of the water is very nice, but when we go back we are finding less popular seats. Hopefully. I need my personal space. And some manners. OK rant over re: the pool. It was mostly good, honestly. Just don’t think it’s going to be totally relaxing…
Our seats were right on the edge of the pool, which I think was why people thought of them as their own space. One sort of funny thing that happened was a woman in the pool came up to me with her phone and said, “Picture?”. Keep in mind I’m just sitting on my lounger minding my own business. I was startled and asked, “What?”. She said, “One picture please”. She handed me her phone and went to the edge of the pool and posed. I can’t remember if I’ve said yet, but in Indonesia we were asked for pictures a few times. Not for us to take their pics, but they wanted pics with us. Like we were celebrities. It’s sort of funny because I wasn’t sure if the woman meant she wanted a pic with us (I hoped not – no bathing suit pics, please!), or me to take her pic. Luckily it was the latter!
We got back to the room and Sal couldn’t find his stomach medicine. We searched through everything, and couldn’t find it. I suggested he call the FS, and luckily they had it, so Sal arranged to pick it up the next day. Crisis averted. Glad this happened in Singapore as opposed to our next country where we will be moving from city to city (four cities total).
Our last full day in Singapore is tomorrow.
Neeners Travels 