We arrived in Singapore from Melaka at about 10pm. Our bus was very fancy, for the grand total of £3 each. We each had individual TVs, a guide who would assist us with all things immigration and the largest seats I’ve ever seen. Everything went very smoothly until we made it to the border. The queues of buses getting into immigration were endless and the queues in immigration were nearly as long. However, we made it into Singapore safe and sound, if not a little later than we’d expected.

Our first experience of Singapore was a confirmation about how expensive it was, a 10 minute taxi ride cost us around £12. Oh my! We checked into our hotel, received a free upgrade (megamoon woo!) and settled in for a busy day the next day.

Uber was our best friend in Singapore, as it often is in the larger cities, and our first ride took us to the famous Botanic Gardens. I have to say, much to Simon’s disappointment, we have visited a lot of botanical gardens on our travels. Some have been brilliant and some not so much. Does anyone remember the blog about Hervey Bay? That was a terrible botanical garden. This one, was unbelievable and such a pleasure to walk around. At 82 hectares, the park is massive and it’s clear to see why it has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. We walked around for about 2 hours, which included an additional, paid, visit into the National Orchid Garden. The whole place was just beautiful, despite us dripping from the humidity. Some of the orchids have been bred specifically with celebrities and important World leaders in mind, I’ll put some examples below.

After the Botanic Gardens, we walked to Hard Rock cafe. Being our last Hard Rock, we splurged and had a drink there.

Our next stop was onto Orchard Road to see what Singapore had to offer in terms of malls. Firstly, we visited Scape where we ate at a restaurant (Aston specialities) that had been recommended online. Singapore doesn’t have massively cheap eating, but here we managed to have steak and a burger for the price of a typical Wetherspoons meal. A bonus was that it was super tasty.

We walked back along Orchard Road, taking in all of the fancy shops. I saw 3 Tiffany’s and Co within about 1km! How can they all stay in business? Singapore is very clean and organised and this road showcased that perfectly. Some people told us they felt like Singapore didn’t have much character, but I think the cleanliness and orderliness of Singapore was part of its interesting character. Our next stop was to ion Orchard, one of the more famous malls. On the lower floors you can find your typical H&M style stores and as you go higher, the more expensive stores start to show their face. Harry Winstons, Dior, Dolce and Gabbana and Louis Vuitton to name a few. We headed up as we were going to access ion sky, which is a free 360 degree view at 56 floors of Singapore. The views were stunning and really gave you an idea of how far Singapore spreads out.

Our next stop was for a rest back at the hotel. We had already walked huge distances, but we still had a lot more to explore. Our hotel was fortunately next to Raffles Hotel. Raffles first opened its doors in 1887 and beautifully shows off the architecture of the East, but also showcases the colonial architecture. Liveried Sikh doormen welcome guests into Raffles and the one on the day we visited was happy to have a selfie with us, whilst probably thinking, ‘Bloody tourists!’ Raffles is home to the famous Singapore Sling cocktail, previously called a Gin Sling. The recipe in Raffles is considerably different to most Singapore Slings you find elsewhere around the World. It was really tasty, the atmosphere in the Billiards Room (the Long Bar is closed for a while due to renovations) was amazing and you get endless free peanuts that you can just throw on the floor, but the cocktail was NOT worth the price we paid for it. $31 Singapore! Wow!!! Off the top of my head, I would say that’s around £26. Eek! Fortunately, my parents had given us a little bit of Singapore money before we left (yes, we had carried it for 8 months) as a Birthday present, so we used that towards our Raffles experience.

We jumped on the Singapore MRT and headed towards Marina Bay. We walked around the shoppes at Marina Bay and saw the famous canal that runs through the middle. For a moment, it felt like we were in Venice… haha. It so didn’t, but it was pretty interesting to watch for a while. We ate some food in the Hawkers centre and then it was time to go and see one of the things I had been looking forward to since arriving in Singapore, The Garden Rhapsody Light Show in Gardens by the Bay.

The music that the light show plays to changes often and whilst we were there it was to classical waltz music. We picked a seat so we were surrounded by the beautiful supergrove trees and waited. The light show plays at 7.30pm and 8.30pm every night and at the 7.30pm showing it was very busy. The show was magical. I shed a tear pretty early on, but classical music often has that affect on me anyway. Whilst watching I couldn’t help but feel a sense of closure about our trip. It was a sad feeling, but also meant that we would be seeing our family and friends soon. Yes, the light show is touristy, but it stands up as one of my favourite experiences on our trip. I honestly can’t tell you why, it’s just a load of large fake trees, covered in lights, dancing to the music, but i loved it!

Feeling pretty warm and fuzzy inside from an excellent first day in Singapore, we walked back to the MRT to go back to the hotel. The next day, was Universal Studios Day!!

After a nightmare sorting the tickets out online, we made it to Universal using our trusty friend Uber. About the ticket situation, I would just go with the Universal official website and accept you may pay a couple of quid more. We tried an agency, that had been recommended, but they decided to do some random checks on our order (they do this for every certain percentage) and by the morning we still hadn’t received our tickets. Fortunately we got a refund and managed to get some tickets through Universal itself. We collected our tickets and were 4th in line at the gate. We had decided to not get any fast passes and just get there early running around like crazy people for the first hour or two hitting the main attractions.

I’m not going to bore you all with the details of Universal Studios. It isn’t Florida, it’s only a small proportion of the size, but it was great fun! We didn’t need fast passes and hit the main 5 rides within the first hour and a half multiple times. We loved the Transformers 4D ride, the Mummy (which is the same as Florida), had a lot of fun on Jurassic Park and got thrown around on the Battlestar Galactica dual rollercoaster. Some other highlights included the water stunt show and the lights camera action show! We ran around like crazy people and had a lot of photos taken with characters, because we’re children really! I would definitely recommend it, especially if you’re up for some of the kiddy rides. We had a bit of fun on the Madagascar one and loved Shrek 4D! Be prepared to be done by about 3.30pm if you’ve gotten in when the gates open. It’s not that big!

Our last evening in Singapore was spent down by the Esplanade, the Merlion Park, Marine Bay and we ended up at the light show again (who knows when I’ll get to see it again). We started at the Hawkers Centre called Makansutra Gluttons Bay. This food was AMAZING!! We shared duck rice, a mix of different meat satays and some spicy chicken noodles. The food was really reasonably priced and the views of the bay were just to die for.

After this we walked around the waterfront promenade and visited the Merlion Park. While we were walking over there I had this realisation that the Merlion was half fish, half lion, hence the name. I don’t know why my brain hadn’t processed this beforehand, but Simon found it funny. The Merlion is Singapore’s national icon, with the fish tail representing Singapore’s origins as a fishing town and the lion representing Singapore’s original name Singapura, lion city. We took some silly photos and took in the views.

From here we walked back along the promenade and listen to some sound checks for a show that was happening in the theatre on the bay over the weekend. At this point, I realised we weren’t that far away from Gardens by the Bay and we decided to walk around and watch the 8.30pm light show again. On our walk, we walked through a sports centre right on the water and across the Helix bridge. Both spots gave us some pretty impressive views of the Singapore skyline. We went to bed that night so grateful for such an great 2nd day in Singapore and feeling a little odd that we were flying home the next day.

We slept in and stayed in our room right up to check out to try and readjust to UK time a little. Our flight wasn’t until 10pm and the hotel were letting us keep our bags there so we could explore. We had decided to spend our last day visiting the other attractions in Gardens by the Bay, the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest. On our way to Marina Bay, a MRT worker came and spoke to us about our plans. She told us about a little store where we could buy our tickets and get some money off. This is how friendly people are in Singapore, they’re always trying really hard to make you feel welcome. We bought our tickets from there and made our way over.

We started in the Flower dome, which appealed to me because a) it’s like the Eden project and b) it had a Dutch tulip display at that time. If you know me, you know I love tulips and I also loved my time in Holland cycling through the tulip fields, so this was perfect. Here are some photos from our time there.

Next, we popped over to the Cloud Forest, which has the largest inside waterfall in the World. Simon and I were the only people to get up close and personal with the waterfall. Other people can be right wimps sometimes. Our visit timed perfectly with a cloud misting, which is where they pump in water vapour to mimic the clouds that form around mountains. It was great to see and we loved walking around.

The rest of the day was a strange mix of waiting and exploring. We walked around some more and just ‘took in’ the atmosphere of Singapore. I was so sad to be leaving, but felt like we’d had the perfect amount of time for a first visit. We went back and collected our bags before heading to the airport with our trusty friend, Uber. Our driver was exactly what we needed. He spoke to us the entire time, told us more about the city and wanted to hear all about our adventure. His kindness and interest made that last 45 minute drive not as unbearable as it could have been. Stepping out of the car, we felt our last blast of warm air and before we could stop ourselves walked into the airport. The next outdoor air we felt was 4 degrees… Joyful! How is it possible to have felt more nervous going home than we ever felt leaving to travel?

Last Megamoon photo.

With that, our Megamoon was officially over. We made it home safe and sound to the love and warm welcome of all our friends and family. In many ways, it felt like we’d never been away. Australia seems like it was a lifetime ago. New Zealand still holds a large part of both our hearts. South-East Asia, in general, was far kinder to us than we ever expected. I can’t even begin to summarise what we’ve seen and done, but we intend to make a video of our highlights, a photo album from each country and I want to write a blog of our highlights.

Home!!

Is this the end of my blog site? No! Of course not! It’s all about Simon and Becky’s travels and do you know what? There’s a lot more of that still to come!