Singapore; Day 4

There are some iconic sights in this city that we wanted to check off of our bucket list, so today we started with a short subway ride to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Opened in 2010 at a cost of $6.9 billion, it immediately became a defining visual on the skyline. It is shaped like a surfboard atop three towers. It is the world’s largest cantilevered public platform at a towering 57 stories above the ground.

We spent about an hour on the roof deck checking out the views and feeling the building sway a bit.

We could see pretty much all of Singapore from the roof and in the photo of CreeperPuppy, you can see a hazy outline of Indonesia behind all those ships. We also got a top down view of the Supertrees at the Gardens by the Bay which was on our list for later in the day.

After a quick lunch, we took ourselves to the ArtScience Museum.

Shaped like a giant lotus flower, this museum tries to blend art, science, technology and culture. Our first exhibit was called the Future World. It was mostly in the dark and had colorful, interactive art moving around all the walls.

At one point, each of us drew a picture of a fish, scanned it and then watched that fish swim all over the walls. CreeperKitty is holding his blue yellow and white swordfish drawing and you can see it swimming in the upper right of the photo.

In another room the kids got to navigate a neon ropes course which was a big hit.

There was another opportunity to scan a drawing, this time an airplane or butterfly, and then use a handheld to actually fly it around the wall. The kids thought that was really cool. And by kids we include Brian who flew his butterfly for close to 10 minutes.

There was a crystal room with lighting effects, a science fiction exhibit with an immersive ‘rig’ and some cool art.

We enjoyed the museum very much and were even a little cold from the A/C by the time we headed back out into the hot and humid afternoon.

We spent some time wandering the Gardens by the Bay area, including the find of a cool playground. We got a little damp during a short rainstorm and then we were pretty much done for the day. We walked to the subway, passing the Supertree grove on the way. They were really impressive at 75 to 150 feet tall.

We had planned to go back and see them lit up after dark but we all ran out of energy. Luckily we got a photo with different green screen backgrounds from the Marina Bay Sands observation deck that show some night time views. Feel free to put these on your Christmas card this year. Enjoy!