Singapore Summary

My world travels had taken me to Singapore before, 53 years ago in 1963, when the 11th World Jamboree contingent sailed from New Zealand heading to Greece. Looking down on the harbour from other side of the bar, and seeing all those ships reminded me of how our contingent had sailed into Singapore Harbour on the Fairsea.

We had taken launches in for a day trip in Singapore City.

This was Singapore before Lee Kuan Yew cleaned up the place

From up at the Marina Bay Sands, I thought I could see what looked like the old Governor's residence as I thought I remembered it.

In this photo is that Geoff Wilson in the Sea Scout uniform or Wayne. I have one of Geoff's photos from the streets of Singapore. Is this him looking to where I was was with my shot?

While in Singapore, we were hosted by local Scouts and I guess their local knowledge helped us take the opportunity to shop duty free as New Zealand had tariffs on electronic goods. I got myself an electronic flash and some of the Scout Leaders got themselves new 8mm movie cameras.

Marina Bay Sands

The bridge over to the Marina Bay Sands took you to a mid level walkway where you could look down on the patrons of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel but, how do you get from the middle tower to the far tower with the roof top bar? After walking back and forth across the walkway looking for clues, we listened to other confused people being given directions 'to go down the steps' on the other side from which we entered, 'walk along the path to the base of the far tower and take the lift to the top'. There was quite of queue of people waiting to take the lift but, after short while, there we were at the top, looking for the entrance to the Bar.

At the top there was an entrance to the viewing platform (which cost to enter) parallel to that was the entrance to the Bar, with no entrance fee but you paid for your drinks obviously. Not so obvious, was that your drinks could be cheaper than the cost of entry to the viewing platform.

Photo taken by our waiter, who came from Uzbekistan (or was it Kazakhstan) and he asked if we knew where that was. I said yes, desperately trying to clarify my geographic memory. I later looked on map and was close but I had it closer to the Ukraine than the map showed. He was a pleasant young man with good English, saying he had a two year contract before he would move on with his world travels.

Through the gardens to Marina Bay Sands

After stopping by the Children's Garden and Water Play area we headed back to the central Information Centre

Looking at the queue to join the OCBC Skyway we opted out of that, wondering would we have the time. Later Lara said that was something we should've sampled. So off we set toward the Marina Bay Sands but somehow we ended up down 'Garden Paths' that were a side trip from our destination ...

We also opted out of the Big Wheel as we knew Jeantine was planning for us to go on the 'London Eye'.
As Barb was feeling the heat and we didn't seem to be on the right path to get across the water to Marina Sands (seen in the background of some of the photos). Barb opted to rest with umbrella up and I went off to seek directions.

Advice from a fellow visitor (Dutch woman enjoying her walk around) was to head through the featured Heritage Gardens, Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Colonial. I think we walked through the Chinese and Indian with signs of others taking a break from the heat ...

And last we got to the bridge we could see, that went over the road and river to Marina Bay Sands. But there was more confusion of which direction to take.

Satay by the Bay and a water fun area

After admiring the three stainless sculptures of the Kingfisher we made our way round to the Satay by the Bay and it appeared to be a central rotunda of kitchens with the various food outlets / businesses having their own seating areas. Trying to decide which is the best Satay outlet we were approached by a woman who promised us she would find us the best. All very proactive but, when we sat down we felt we might've been rushed in our decision, with no other customers seeming to sit close by our area. Place mats were quickly in front of us but it seemed to take awhile for the food to make it's way out to us.

We worked our way through the skewers of meat and prawns and the coconut portions all with good satay sauce. Then a hummingbird caught our eye, flitting up by the awning, so out came the Panasonic with zoom lens. However trying to follow the bird that flitted about, in and out of sight and never settling too long - was a challenge

More information here for Satay by the Bay
Lunch break taken time to move toward the Marina and came across this unique water play area

The main water play area was all these jets of water along with various bucket arrangements that took a moment to fill before tipping out their contents - which created a challenge for the kids to wait patiently or try and work out the sequence and timing.

Plus a special area for the smaller kids

Marina Gardens

It was still raining when we figured we had had enough of wandering through the shops of Bugis Village and thought that standing just back from the bus stop on Victoria Street, we could hail a taxi but, Victoria Street was so busy. By the time we saw a taxi pulling to drop someone off, we weren't successful in getting to that taxi in time to convince the driver to take us as a new fare. We wandered along the block to Middle Road I think it was, to stand just of Victoria Street and hope for a taxi. Barb turned out to be more assertive than I to catch the eye of taxi driver and finally we were on our way to the Marina Gardens (as recommended by Lara)

The taxi driver advised we could walk through the gardens toward another Lara recommendation - the Satay by the Bay. So that is what we planned, a leisurely wander through the gardens to have Satay for lunch, then we could head back the main gardens. It was school holidays but there were groups of children on organised visits by the look of it ...

Luckily for us, and the other visitors, the rain had eased and there were a fair number wandering the paths exploring ...

The sign says Swimming buffalo, gray granite, sculpter Eng Siak Loy and manufactured in China

A disconcerting photo for some (apparently) however an innocent pose on one of the water buffalo sculptures - out on dry land.

Looking down from a rock I stood on to get a better angle on one of the three sculptures of the Kingfisher. There are two of the bird sculptures in this shot.

Bugis Street Markets

I wanted to see Boogie Street again - where I had purchased Barb's engagement ring when I was over with the RNZAF to bring back the Canberra Squadron (I thought it was 14 Sqn but Wikipedia seems to suggest it was 75 Sqn?) Anyway at the time the C130 aircrew were only interested in chilling out in the bar of the accommodation - I guess they had been there, done that with Boogie Street. So I headed off on my own and duly made a purchase. Seems Boogie Street was short hand for Bugis Street, so Barb and I headed there in the rain to see if anything look familiar to me but, no time had moved on and the markets were more 'up market' shall we say and a little cleaner, and more under shelter than I recalled...

It probably was just as well that there was shelter as the forecast was for rain in the morning easing by the afternoon

So off we went on a little explore, not really sure whether we were doing a loop of the whole area or just getting lost in stores and goods that caught our eye. There seemed to be alley ways all over the place.

Umbrellas were to the fore

If umbrellas and awnings don't keep all the rain at bay, maybe cardboard can be used.

An innovative use of a cluster of umbrella between one awning and the guttering.

Time we quit and find a reasonably dry place to hail a taxi