What a fantastic time we had in Singapore! It is a beautiful place and quite orderly and clean, which is the opposite of Bangkok, or most places in Thailand for that matter. In fact, they refer to it as a fine city, which has two meanings. One is obvious, and the other is "fine" as in you get fined for infractions such as chewing gum, spitting on the sidewalk, or not flushing the toilet.
We stayed in two different hotels while in Singapore; York Hotel was in the heart of the city, and Festive Hotel was on Sentosa island where Universal theme park is located. After Singapore, we went to Malaysia (1 1/2 hour drive) where we stayed at Legoland. This was by no means a relaxing vacation, but it was a blast and went so smoothly. We had so much fun traveling with the Wallisch family and later adding the Lowery family to our crew.
Day 1: Chinatown and Night Tour by bus and bumboat (love that word!)
Kids loved shopping in Chinatown.
Though we did not actually pay to ride the Singapore Flyer, we were able to view it many times both night and day. This is the world's tallest ferris wheel and is similar to the Eye in London in that you are enclosed in a glass capsule so you can observe the city.
The night sightseeing tour was a great way to see this beautiful city at night atop a double
decker bus and afloat in a bumboat.
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| Famous skyscraper with boat-shaped Skypark resting on top of 3 towers in Marina Bay Sands area |
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| Bumboat Ride |
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| Clark Quay (Iquana's Cafe is where we ate dinner the next day) |
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The famous Merlion and "mascot" of Singapore
The tour included a light show complete with beautiful music at Gardens by the Bay.
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Day 2: Singapore Zoo and Clark Quay
The zoo was a definite highlight, and all the children were quite engaged in the experience of seeing a variety of animals. I'm not sure which was the highlight -- seeing a male tortoise attempting to mount a female tortoise (fortunately the kids thought they were "fighting" - and yes we did see his "sword") or baboons playing king of the mountain (they too were "in heat" which was indicated by their disgustingly red and bulbous bums).
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| We actually got to see a real polar bear swimming in the water during feeding time. |
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| Creepy Bat |
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| This guy was looking down on the baboons and their crazy antics. |
Day 3: Gardens by the Bay and East Coast Seafood (home of some overpriced crabs)
They have a nice kids trail where they can do different activities and a water play area where they were able to cool off.
So, everyone said we just had to have the chilli crabs, but they never really told us that we'd need to take out a loan to afford them. Just Jason and I sat down, without asking the market price, and ordered a chilli crab and black pepper crab. I preferred the black pepper, while Jason liked the chili one better. Fortunately Jason doesn't get worked up over money and barely flinched when he saw the $160 bill (mind you that's Singaporean dollars, so it's really only $118 USD. Holy Sri Lankan crab! They were about 2 lbs each, but not quite worth their money in weight. Unfortunately I did not get a photo before we ate them, and once we started, our hands were too messy to reach for the camera.
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What's left of our 2 pricey crabs
We traversed the city by cab and MRT (their subway system), and the kids enjoyed "not holding on" while on the MRT.
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Day 4: Sentosa Island and Universal
At Sentosa, we stayed at Festive Hotel, which is great in that it accommodates our family of 5 (well almost). We had a loft bed and pull out sofa. We met another family at Sentosa, and the 11 of us hit Universal running. It's a rather small park and was not at all crowded. The longest we waited was 20 minutes and the kids were able to ride many things multiple times. Austin discovered that he LOVES roller coasters!
I think my favorite ride was the 4D Transformer one. Not that I have an affinity for Transformers, but the effects are so cool. The kids all enjoyed this one!
This ride, on other hand, spins around and around and around, and almost made lose my breakfast. I'm too old to ride things that spin!
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| Austin on a roller coaster he rode maybe 8 times |
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| Refueling |
On the Madagascar Boat Ride
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| Sitting in the Soak Zone for the stunt show |
The kids enjoyed rock climbing at the park. Camryn made it all the way to the top.
We ended the day with dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.
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| Presenting Carston on drums and Camryn on keyboard |
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| I loved the ceiling in our room! |
Day 6 and 7: Legoland Amusement and Water Park
We then took the 1 1/2 hour trip to Legoland in Malaysia for two days. This was definitely the kids' favorite hotel and so well-themed. We stayed in the Adventure room (there are also Kingdom and Pirate themed rooms). The room had a separate nook for kids with their own TV and a bunk bed with a trundle (perfect for a family of 5).
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| Kids stayed entertained during check in. |
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| Check out the background made of all Lego figures! |
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| Can you tell which fruit is real and which is made of legos? |
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| If only this were not made of Legos! |
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| Plotting out his course. Perhaps he's asking, "What's the biggest roller coaster you have?" |
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| This is no ordinary hotel lobby. |
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| Everything is Awesome at Legoland! |
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| The elevators were so cool, complete with a disco ball and music, such as songs like We are Family and YMCA! |
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| The boys love Ninjago! |
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| The Star Wars Museum of Legos was fascinating! |
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| The kids loved getting their driver's license! |
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| Austin loves monkeys and found one in our room! |
Though it is usually against my better judgement to pay for a picture captured on one of the rides, I could not resist buying this one! Austin loved raising his arms on the roller coasters.
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| The a Lego replica of the Petronis Towers in KL |
And I had to capture this replica of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, since we visited the real deal last fall.
