How Singapore has changed since we were here 15 years ago and certainly since my childhood days of the late 1960's. I hardly recognise a thing. Any of the old colonial buildings are dwarfed by all the high rise blocks of shiny glass and metal. There are a few echos of familiarity though. It's clean, tidy, very hot and humid. It's full of people and traffic. The locals are always polite and friendly, respectful and always offer to help if you look lost. There is a rich cultural mix of Chinese, Malay and Indian which is reflected in the temples and the food.
The famous shopping street of Orchard road must have more shops per square km than anywhere else in the world. They go down under ground almost as much as they go up.
Trying to cross Orchard road is proving quite a challenge for us. We are directed to and underpass which turns into a multilevelled underground shopping mall that goes on for miles. We have had to tackle this crossing about 4 times now, it gets no more familiar with each attempt and takes at least 20 minutes as we keep coming up at the wrong place and have to go down again.
Yesterday we went on the metro(much easier) down to Marina Bay,a new and massive shopping mall, hotel and casino on an inner harbour. Our destination was through this complex and on to The Gardens By The Bay. Only opened 3 months ago these gardens must rate as one of the modern wonders of the world. For once words are failing me on how best to describe them. (Try googling them its worth it). There are acres and acres of newly planted gardens that will take a few years to bed in. Dominating one side are huge tree sculptures that on closer inspection are garden walls, the trunks being packed with millions of plants and flowers. We ascend one of the trees in a lift and wander from tree to tree on suspended walk ways.
Elsewhere in the gardens are two huge bio domes (think Eden project) one is the Flower Dome and the other a Cloud Mountain complete with massive waterfall. The main difference to the Eden Project is that these glass domes are cooling the climate rather than heating it up. We go from a 32• sticky humidity into a Mediterranean spring day in the flower dome. The cloud mountain dome contains a massive tower or flora all special to a particular altitude of rain forest. The orchids are the stars and our camera batteries both fail eventually in our frenzy to try and capture this most magical of experiences. This was one of those days that held no expectations other than a pleasant wander and ended up being one of the highlights of our trip.
The Night Safari at Singapore zoo later was pretty special too.