Singapore, an island city-state off southern Malaysia, is a global financial center with a tropical climate and multicultural population. Its colonial core centers on the Padang, a cricket field since the 1830s and now flanked by grand buildings such as City Hall, with its 18 Corinthian columns. In Singapore's circa-1820 Chinatown stands the red-and-gold Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, said to house one of Buddha's teeth.

Craig and I started the day with breakfast at the hotel restaurant. It is called Modesto and should have raised lots of red flags. As most of us Californians know, Modesto in CA is an armpit. The restaurant was pretty much the same. OH WELL. The shuttle to the transportation terminal was 30 minutes early, and once there we checked in. Our bus was supposed to leave at 11:30 but some how we got on the earlier bus.

The weather forecast for today was rain and humid. It started to drizzle on our way to the Botanical Gardens which was the only site that looked interesting. Most of the stops were hotels with shopping malls. Reminded me of a Fountains of Wayne song: Valley of Malls. In case anyone cares, here is the link to the song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJqxxA2hmjs. Its a good song.

We did pass a huge building which you will in the pictures, with a huge ship on the top. It is called Marina Bay Sands development. It is three times the length of an Olympic pool and 650ft up in the air. It is the largest outdoor pool in the world at that height. It features in the impressive, boat-shaped 'SkyPark' perched atop the three towers that make up the world's most expensive hotel, the cost to build was £4billion. It is impressive. But guess they had to rebuild the top when lightning hit it. Totally bummer.

We finally arrived at the botanical gardens. It is 1/3 the size of Central Park. We walked through the winding paths and saw many lovely plants and statues. In the middle of the lake there is a huge stage where the symphony has concerts. Over looking the lake and the stage is a statue of Chopin. You can see the statue in the pictures below. It started to rain and got even more humid so Craig and I decided to head back to the hotel. One of the stops was at the Paragon Shopping center which is about 3 blocks up the hill from our hotel. I had to buy a fold up umbrella and rain poncho. Then we got some lunch and walked back to the hotel in the POURING RAIN!! Yep, the umbrella did it's job.

Singapore is a very green, lush and tropical city, but really not much going on as far as sight seeing. There is a China Town area which didn't interest us since we have been to a handful of China Towns in different cities on our travels. And there was an India area (forgot what it was called), which we drove through yesterday on our way to the hotel. It didn't look very interesting either. Most of the areas are residential areas. There is an art museum, but today was a national holiday and it was closed. So guess we pretty much saw what we needed to see.

If the downpour continues we will have dinner in the Vietnamese restaurant because I will probably melt if we walk back down to the Valley of Malls to eat. Tonight we will pack up our bags and get some well deserved sleep. We will board the ship tomorrow. Boarding begins at 11am and leaves port at 4pm. So it will be a long day. It will be good to be on the ship. I can unpack my bag and leave them unpacked for 2 weeks.

Ok kids Enjoy the pictures.