Singapore: Garden by the Bay

Before we came to Singapore we decided that if nothing else, we wanted to see The Gardens by the Bay.  We bought tickets before we came on Klook. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the Red Dot Museum (where you are required to pick up your tickets) is so far from the metro station and the Gardens.  On a map, the museum looks just a few small blocks away, but in reality, they were the size of a Las Vegas block at about half a mile a block.

We enjoyed the first part of our walk to the museum as we were able to pass by the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  That hotel is so crazy!  It's the most iconic and expensive hotel in Singapore, literally thousands of dollars a night, and was the main stage of the movie Crazy Rich Asians.  It has the largest rooftop infinity pool, an ice rink and high end shopping, which sure appeal to the middle class military family with 4 kids.  The place is off the hook cool though, and I really enjoyed seeing all the high end cars around this hotel. For reference, a Toyota Prius in Singapore is nearly $150,000 USD - so when you see a BMW or Mercedes, these are $300,000 cars. What?

We continued our walk and we had a perfect view of Singapore's skyline.  It was such a clear day, so we did enjoy the first part of the walk.  After two blocks, and probably more than a mile, the kids started to melt, which teaming with the fact it was over 90 degrees and humidity about that high, it was a recipe for an impeding meltdown.  We realized that the further we went, it was all the more we had to walk back to the Gardens.  So, Corianne and Heather decided to go on ahead and leave all the kids with me and Dustin in the shade, on a sidewalk, in the middle of Singapore for bribe time with candy and snacks to mitigate the melting of the children.  Cori and Heather hurried to get the tickets while the kids sat on the sidewalk with the dads. So if you plan on riding the subway over like we did, realize the ticket booth is miles away from the subway, and take a GRAB (Singapore version of Uber).

Tickets were finally acquired and we made the long walk back to the Gardens. We had to cross a bridge that gave us more amazing views of Singapore. Since it was such a beautiful walk, the kids started running and laughing again.

We enjoyed the stroll through the different gardens as we made our way to the Cloud Forest. We went through the Indian Garden, the Chinese Garden and the Malay Garden.

When we arrived at the Cloud Forest, we realized all the kids were so hungry.  There weren't many options for food that was reasonable, so we stopped at a cafe that had hotdogs and fruit.  With tummies full and happy kids once again, we went inside the cloud forest.

The cloud forest is one of the indoor attractions here at the park. It has this large 50 foot indoor waterfall that is just teaming with active plant life. When we entered we were met by the Rusts family, so we had the chance to hang out with our favorite peeps when we toured. The waterfall originated 5 stories above, and the best part was that it had a huge skywalk around it so you can get the whole view. As Singapore was super hot, this was also one of those inside attractions that was so awesome because it was super cool inside. Plus this is the time in Little Monsters life where his faces in pictures is so fun! Cheese it up son!

Not only were the flowers beautiful, but for the first time ever we got to see weird and rare plants but not like we were used too: these ones were made out of legos! 

The flowers were so beautiful, and due to the consistent climate control and hydration the flowers were amazingly exotic and beautiful, with colors that we had never seen before to include my cactus headdress that I didn't know I was wearing but skillfully positioned perfectly on my head by Heather. Nice one love! Every King needs a crown!

After allowing the heat of the afternoon to pass, we stayed for the last event of the night, the Skydome Light Show. I give Asia some props for being so good when it comes to LED light shows, but Singapore at night was stunning. The overview, as seen here, was breathtaking, and these large light covered trees danced to the music with stunning lights that made me visit Christmas all over. 

Due to running out of time this night, we came back the next day to see the Flower Dome! For those considering traveling here a bit of advice on this: when you buy entrance to these domes, you are buying entrance for the day only regardless on whether or not you actually went. We weren't told this, so even though we didn't have time to go to this dome that we paid for, I argued my way into them honoring the fact I paid for it, but didn't have the chance to execute the visit. It literally was 5 person pass off until finally a manager conceded very high irritation, but I didn't care. Give me that flower dome sister! SO IF YOU GO HERE, only pay for what you think you will be doing that day only!

It was super neat to see all the incredible root creations such as mushrooms, dragons and beautiful asian architecture. Borrowing a lot of design from Chinese influences, they really captured the "awe effect" with the spectacularly maintained grounds. Little Monster, Buddy Buddy, loved the dragons!

The Flower Dome smelled so delicious.  All the flowers and plant life made the air smell so fresh.  We loved the Japanese architecture, the deep red against the greenery was gorgeous.

We loved walking through them and seeing all the different flowers.

The girls just loved all the exotic and huge flowers everywhere; definitely not what we are used too here in Korea during this time of the year. 

As you could see from the night pictures, we were finally able during the daylight to do the OCBC Skywalk. The night before at the light show, the Skywalk was too packed, and when the light show was done they close it, so we lost out. But we totally redeemed ourselves and were able to go today. You start up an elevator at one tree and walk from tree to tree enjoying the birds eye view of the park, which was spectacular to behold.

It was from here that you can appreciate the cornucopia look of each of the domes we have highlight before. The best part, next to the view, was that being this up allowed a cool breeze to cool you off, which was sorely needed in such a warm and humid temperature!

-Kevin