The Lion City

We traveled overland from Johor Bahru to Singapore, evidently a route used by commuters rather than tourists. There was no ATM or way to exchange money, which left us without cash to pay for the bus to the MRT. A kindly local took pity on us and paid the bus fare for the short journey. We arrived at our hotel in the lively area of Kallang (restaurants, bars, massage parlours and hotels with rooms to rent by the hour!) to find we had been upgraded to a family room. We dropped our things off and headed to the Gardens by the Bay, a beautiful garden complete with Flower Domes, lakes, a children's garden with fountains and Super Tree Grove, to name just a few of its attractions. We made our way to the fountains where Flora was delighted by running through them to cool off in the hot afternoon. We then moved to the Super Tree Grove, an array of artificial trees up to 50m high covered with real foliage and with large canopies which light up at dusk. There is also a sky-way linking some of the trees, but this was closed due to a nearby thunder storm. We

then walked to the harbourside to watch the water, light and music show before strolling across the helix bridge to Gluttons Bay, a hawker market for dinner and a couple of beers.
The next morning we went straight to the Art Science Museum, housed in an architectural gem on the harbourside. The interactive digital art installations featured cutting-edge science and technology largely for kids. Flora had a wonderful time creating her own hopscotch, colouring in

pictures of vehicles and sea creatures to scan onto the enormous digital wall display, exploding digital fruit as she went down a slide, crossing a crystal universe and much more. It was hard to drag her away! We then wandered through the city to a recommended hawker market in Chinatown for some tasty ramen, before making our way to the Night Safari.
The Night Safari was a wonderful opportunity to see animals in close proximity in an active state as night creeps in. We were fortunate that it was pretty quiet and therefore we were lucky enough to see a fishing cat, leopard, bats, otters, lions etc, as if we were actually in their habitat. The sound of the lions roaring close by as we walked alone down a jungle path was a little alarming, as the way the park is created means you don't really see the boundaries between animals and observers. We left as the park closed and went straight home to bed as the next day brought another early start as we were determined to get to Universal Studios theme park for when it opened.
We popped Flora asleep in her pram the following morning and headed straight to Sentosa Island and to our amazement, managed to get to the park for opening time. As a result of this, there was almost no queues for any rides, and for the first half of the day, we spent almost no time waiting. There were some very cool rides and some scary ones that even Flora enjoyed (the transformers 3D ride was amazing, easily the best 3D ride we have ever been on, and although quite scary, Flora loved it). Her other favourite, a polar opposite, was the Sesame Street ride. We also went to see the Halloween Sesame Street show which was lots of fun. Universal Studios was well done with great rides and we were really happy we decided to go. Exhausted, we grabbed some food at another market and headed home to rest.
Following a more relaxed start to the morning, we headed back to the Gardens by the bay so Flora could enjoy the fountain park again, and then went to Boat Quay to find a spot to watch England vs Australia in the Rugby World Cup. We ended up in a craft beer joint, met some friendly folks, and enjoyed watching England smashing the Aussies. After several beers we decided it was time for food and headed back to Gluttons Bay again before home, thus ending a thoroughly enjoyable jaunt to Singapore. Singapore has changed so much since Cat's last visit and it really surpassed expectations. We loved it.