Singapore, Day 2
Having made no plans with anyone today, we were free to do whatever we wanted. Our ship was docked at the Harbourfront Terminal which was not only a loading terminal for cruise ships, but a huge shopping mall as well. We had heard that there was a Starbucks there where you could get free internet service and that it was very fast. The internet on the ship is so slow, unreliable and EXPENSIVE that we decided we would go through the enormous hassle of going there before starting our day in Singapore. I say the enormous hassle because the procedure for getting off the ship was this: From our gangway it was about 2/10 of a mile to an escalator which went down to a desk where the Singaporean government agents looked at our passports. Then we proceeded on to security where we had to have our bags checked. Then we were free to go into the mall. After doing the computer work we had to go through security and passport check again. Then after we dropped the computers off back at the ship we had to go through the same process yet again. And to top it all off, the internet wasn’t as good as they said; I wrote a long group email and it wouldn’t send it. So it was 12:30 by the time we had done all that.
We wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens which were supposed to be very good, so we took the subway to the stop that we thought would take us right there. We started walking in the direction we thought was the way to go and walked for about 3 miles before we decided we weren’t in the right place. We had missed a very important turn along the way, but we did get to see some of the suburban neighborhoods of Singapore. We hopped on a bus and went to the gardens but by the time we got there it was so late that we just had time to walk through to get an overview before we had to leave. The gardens were beautiful and I wished we had more time to spend there but we had another place to go before we had to get back to the ship.
We took the subway back to the Harbourfront Terminal Mall where we could get on a cable car over to Sentosa Island, the home of the Merlion, which is the symbol of Singapore. It’s like a mermaid but with the head of a lion instead of a woman. The statue of the merlion on the island is immense. We had to wait over ½ hour to get on the cable car so when we got to the island we had very little time to spend there either. We had a glass of wine and then rode the cable car back. The cable car went directly over the harbor and the ship and I’ve included a picture of our pool that Ed took from the cable car above.
And that was our time in Singapore. The second day we spent a lot of time being lost and waiting in lines but we had fun just being together and being once again in a safe, clean city atmosphere. We have 3 days at sea before we reach our next destination, Chennai, India.
Having made no plans with anyone today, we were free to do whatever we wanted. Our ship was docked at the Harbourfront Terminal which was not only a loading terminal for cruise ships, but a huge shopping mall as well. We had heard that there was a Starbucks there where you could get free internet service and that it was very fast. The internet on the ship is so slow, unreliable and EXPENSIVE that we decided we would go through the enormous hassle of going there before starting our day in Singapore. I say the enormous hassle because the procedure for getting off the ship was this: From our gangway it was about 2/10 of a mile to an escalator which went down to a desk where the Singaporean government agents looked at our passports. Then we proceeded on to security where we had to have our bags checked. Then we were free to go into the mall. After doing the computer work we had to go through security and passport check again. Then after we dropped the computers off back at the ship we had to go through the same process yet again. And to top it all off, the internet wasn’t as good as they said; I wrote a long group email and it wouldn’t send it. So it was 12:30 by the time we had done all that.
We wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens which were supposed to be very good, so we took the subway to the stop that we thought would take us right there. We started walking in the direction we thought was the way to go and walked for about 3 miles before we decided we weren’t in the right place. We had missed a very important turn along the way, but we did get to see some of the suburban neighborhoods of Singapore. We hopped on a bus and went to the gardens but by the time we got there it was so late that we just had time to walk through to get an overview before we had to leave. The gardens were beautiful and I wished we had more time to spend there but we had another place to go before we had to get back to the ship.
We took the subway back to the Harbourfront Terminal Mall where we could get on a cable car over to Sentosa Island, the home of the Merlion, which is the symbol of Singapore. It’s like a mermaid but with the head of a lion instead of a woman. The statue of the merlion on the island is immense. We had to wait over ½ hour to get on the cable car so when we got to the island we had very little time to spend there either. We had a glass of wine and then rode the cable car back. The cable car went directly over the harbor and the ship and I’ve included a picture of our pool that Ed took from the cable car above.
And that was our time in Singapore. The second day we spent a lot of time being lost and waiting in lines but we had fun just being together and being once again in a safe, clean city atmosphere. We have 3 days at sea before we reach our next destination, Chennai, India.
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