Singapore Day 18

25 to 50 meters high!

Cold and wet

Tanis and I are on our own today, as Pericles has a Model United Nations to attend, and Sheila has a meeting with domestic workers about their rights in Singapore. We decided to go to Gardens by the Bay near the cruise ship terminal. The most notable aspect of this garden has got to be the giant “supertrees” which can be seen from everywhere, but it also has two huge enclosures, one containing a cloud forest and the other flowers.

Walking into the cloud forest is a shock, not only because it is cold, but also because you enter facing a 35m waterfall. This is a very well done display in a dome that is all glass. The glass is suspended from ribs that go around the building. The display includes plant life from tropical highlands up to 2,000-meters above sea level.

Baobab tree

Click here for the 360 view of the Cloud Forest by Roy Chuang. (I hope that this hyperlink transfers to blogspot.)

After climbing to the top of the mountain and coming down again, Tanis and I went to the Flower Dome. This was somewhat anti-climatic after the Cloud Forest. The most interesting display was the baobab trees from Australia, Africa and Madagascar. Huge trees too, must have taken some effort to transport them to Singapore and then plant them and have them grow.

Flower Dome-largest columnless area in world

Another view of supertrees

By this time we were pretty beat so we went to the food court near the supertrees, with a choice of Chinese, pizza, spicy Malay, hamburgers, sandwiches and such, we chose Texas Chicken, which looked like a US chain. We had regular chicken (not spicy...which has five kinds of chilli on it) cole slaw, strange biscuits which had sugar on the outside, and a drink.

Refreshed somewhat, we walked to the entrance and took an audio shuttle around the park to see what we had missed...and did we miss a lot. There are gardens around the central supertrees spaces, about ten altogether, not to mention the various lakes and ponds. It would take at least two more days to do the garden justice. Reluctantly we left as we were both hot and tired. Taxi home and a quiet evening.

Iconic Singapore hotel Marina Bay Sands

Outside the domes, a carved lion

Tanis on skywalk,  not me!!