January 26, 2019 - Singapore - Saturday, Day 20

January 26, 2019 - Singapore - Saturday, Day 20

This is a bittersweet day. It marks the end of our first voyage on this great journey. By way of explanation, we are booked on 2 Collectors Voyages. Each of these consists of two 20 day cruises. So as far as Holland America is concerned we are on 4 voyages. But it also returns us to beautiful Singapore. We will be saying goodby to some new friends we made. Soon we will be making new friends as embarkation for voyage 2 begins. Best of all we will be getting to enjoy Singapore.

After a peaceful breakfast in the dining room, we gathered our passports, landing documents and day bag to venture into Singapore. On our way off the ship we met Diane and Allen returning. They explained that the line to pass through immigration was extremely long so they would remain onboard for a while and leave later. We carried on. Indeed the line was very long, but surprisingly we were through it in just 20 minutes. It was 10:05.

After immigration and customs we found ourselves in a large shopping mall. This is a very convenient location. We were able to find maps and the MRT (subway) station. It was just downstairs. There we purchased 2 day passes that are good for the subway, buses and light rail. The pass costs $16 with an additional $10 refundable deposit for the card. We would be able to use public transit to go anywhere in the city until departure tomorrow. After our last ride we can return the cards for our refund at the same ticket office under the mall.

We had planned our visit last night. We rode to Chinatown first. There we visited two 2 temples. The largest was the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Praying was taking place with 5 monks leading the chanting. This was almost trance-like and very soothing. One monk tapped a drum, another played symbols and a third  tapped a chime.  While this was going on visitors are allowed to circulate around the main worship area to observe the service and to visit the many “chapels” around the perimeter. The statuary and rich ornamentation were exquisite.

From this Temple we made our way to the Chinatown tourist information center. We were looking for a map when a kind lady offered to help us. Before we were finished she sold us discounted tickets for the attractions at Gardens by The Bay, our next planned stop, and told us that the food court upstairs was every bit as good as the one the ship’s port guide had told us about. It was lunchtime so we went upstairs.

This was our first exposure to a Hawkers Court. It was an enormous area with numerous aisles of small food shops and tables everywhere. This was where you got safe street food. The procedure is to pick a stall that prepares the kind of dish you want, order your food and take the beeper they give you to any table you can find.

We were looking for a dish called Penang Laksa. Lily and Denny, whom we met at breakfast one day, used to live in Malaysia. They told us we must try this dish because it is spicy and I like Sambal. After asking at a stall where we might find this, we were directed to a place that had another kind of Laksa on the menu. A man sitting in front of it asked what we were looking for. He turned out to be the owner. He explained that this was not Penang Laksa, but he would take us to a Penang stand. He led us a long way past many stands with several turns to the Penang place. It turned out that they did not prepare Laksa. He lefts to return to his place. We were now on our own.

As we followed him to the Penang stand I had noticed a Thai stand. We went there and I placed an order for Thai curry chicken and rice for $4.50 Singapore. Less than $3 US. Lily had told us that Hawker food was cheap and better than restaurant food. I took the beeper to the table Alice had found. It was not pristine, but it was cleaner than most and not too far from the Thai stand. After a short time the beeper buzzed and I went for our food. The portion was huge. No problem sharing it. And boy it was good! Our thanks to the Lily end Denny and the lady at the tourist office.

After Walking through more of Chinatown on our way to the MRT, we marveled at how large this place was and how many vendors do business here. It was wall to wall people from all around the world.

The MRT took us to Bayside. This is where the beautiful hotel featured in the movie Crazy Rich Asians is located. It is also an access point for Gardens By the Bay. First we did the Super Tree Walk. These steel trees are more than 6 stories high, covered with growing plants and connected by a a walkway suspended from them 650 feet above the ground. This provides terrific view of the gardens, the city and the stunning Marina Bay Sands hotel.

Now we walked to The Cloud Forest. This is a large dome housing a 7 story rain forest. We used our tickets purchased in Chinatown for entry. It was overwhelming. The rain forest rises in the enter of the dome with a waterfall cascading from on high to the base level. The spray is refreshing. A walkway leads past many species of plants, and eventually to elevators that whisk you to the top. Here a suspended walk leads around the greenery. We spent almost 2 hours here. There is so much to see and do that a book could be written about this.

We had planned to visit The Flower Dome. This is a second dome with an admission fee. The tickets we had purchased are good for 6 months. Because we had other things to do we opted to defer visiting now until our return to Singapore at the end of voyage 2 in 20 days. This gave us time to grab something to eat before attending Garden Rhapsody at 7:45. This is a spectacular lighting of the Supertrees accompanied by music. This month’s performance is Opera in the Gardens. It was fantastic. The sound system is phenomenal. The lighting is breathtaking, and the synchronization of the lights and music is spectacular. All this is and it is free.

We left Gardens By the Bay, and headed to Marina Bay. Our walk took us through the hotel lobby and across abridge to the promenade outside the Shoppes, a mall. At 9:00 a fountain and light show would take place. We had seen some of this from a boat ride on a previous visit. We were anxious to see the whole show. We had worked our way up to the railing for front row viewing. After standing for 45 minutes the show began. The speakers were directly in front of us. They were loud with some distortion. The fountain display started. It was very nice, but the light display on the fountain mist left much to be desired. Because we were not straight in front of the main fountain we could not see any detail in the images. This was a real disappointment. Some time ago we attended a similar presentation at fountains in Lima. Those images were super even from off center.

As we walked toward the MRT for our return to Maasdam we agreed that having seen Rhapsody in the Gardens first led to the disappointment at Marina Bay.

The subway ride home was quick. We were in our cabin at 10:30. A trip up to the Lido to see what they offered produced ice cream and lemonade to end our busy and satisfying day. 

Tomorrow e will see who has come aboard to join our second voyage.

Sleep came fast.