Singapore (Day 3)

This is our last day in Singapore and we need to make the most of it,  After walking around the reservoir with the big buildings yesterday, today we are going to walk around the Singapore Botanical Gardens and check out nature. But first, we need to eat and there just happens to be one of the most famous of the hawker markets,  Newton Food Center, on the way to the Gardens.

We took the bus that stops right in front of our apartment after 11 AM and arrived at Newton Food Center around 11:45.  I guess we needed the extra sleep after last nights fiasco in the AirBnB.  But, it wound up being a good thing since many of the stalls at Newtown do not open until around noon anyway.  

I did some research and took note of the stalls to eat at since these places can be a bit intimidating since there are so many stalls and it is hard to figure out where to eat.  I picked out for myself a place that sells Fish Porridge and for Tim I found a Satay place that was actually in Crazy Rich Asians.

Both of us really enjoyed the meal.  Plus, we had a fresh squeezed juice to go with it, Tim: Mango Juice, Me: Sugarcane with Sour Plum Juice.

After breakfast, or was it lunch, we went back to the bus station and continued west to the Singapore Botanic Garden, that we arrived right at 1 PM.

The Singapore Botanicl Gardens is 121 Acres of a 164-year-old tropical garden and is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  I knew that we wanted to see as much of the park as we could, and I found a website that mapped out a path to do just that in 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).

This is pretty much the route we took walking from north to south, although we skipped the part that jutted out to the left saving us a bit of time and miles.

The entire park was pretty amazing covered with water features and tropical plants that mode for amazing scenery.

This part of the park is called Evolution Garden.  It takes you though 4.5 billion years starting from when the earth was just rocks with no plants, through mosses, ferns and cycads before reaching the higher plants that are most common today.  The area was very well done and parts of it felt like you were walking though Jurassic Park.

After Evolution Garden we popped out to Symphony Lake...gorgeous.

What is a stroll through a park without a monkey encounter?

This is called Symphony Lake because it has a stage on it where orchestras play regularly.  There wasn't a concert today, but this area is amazing with or without music.  Check out those lily pads...have you ever seen lily pads that big before?!?

Two hours into our walk we arrived at the National Orchid Garden.  This is the only part of the garden that actually costs money to enter ($15 USD each).  We contemplated going in, but in the end we decided to not and continue on with the walk.  It was already 3 PM and we had a brewery to get to.

Just past the Orchid Garden was some of the only flowers we saw throughout the park. It seems this isn't the time of year to see flowers bloomed.

This area is called Swan Lake.  There was actually a pair of swans living on the lake, but for some reason I didn't chose any of the photos I took with the swans.  So, just image a pair of swans in the water in the photos below.  🦢​ 🦢 🦢 🦢

We then entered the rain forest part of the Garden. Check out this enormous leaf and we also came across a monitor lizard.  This was actually one of three monitor lizards we saw throughout the day walking around the Garden.

As we walked we somehow wound up on a boardwalk that because elevated and crossed over a lake.

I followed these butterflies for like 5 minutes until I finally got a shot of the two of them sucking down nectar.

Here is a nice view off the raised boardwalk down to the lake.

By this point we were tired, hot, hungry, and thirsty with about 30 minutes left of the walk.  I made a reservation at the brewery, so we were on a bit of a time crunch, but we still stayed on the trail and continued seeing as much of the Garden as we could.  

I thought it was way cool that they had a bonsai portion of the garden.  These little fellows are so cool.

This is Sundial Garden.. It had a unimpressive sundial in the center, but being a cloudy day it wasn't putting out any readings, but the water feature with lily pads made up for it.

Speaking of lily pads...I told you they were huge!

Finally, after 4.5 hours of walking around, we made it to the end of the Sinapore Botanic Garden.  Next stop, Red Dot brewery where I made a reservation in 20 minutes from now.  We walked along the road adjacent to the Garden and in 15 minutes we made it . Check out the entry to this brewery.  It is about 0.5 miles from the Botanic Garden, and it is keeping the theme going.

We each ordered a pint and since we were pretty hungry we ordered a pizza as well.  This wasn't any old pizza, it was a Okonomiyaki Seafood Pizza with Prawns, Squid, Bonito Flakes, Onion, Shredded Nori, and Okonomiyaki Sauce.  I don't know what Okonomiyaki is, but we both loved this crazy pizza.

Check out this brewery.  They did an awesome job making it just right.

souvenirsWe were both exhausted and done, but we haven't really seen Chinatown yet and it is our last night in Singapore. So, we boarded the bus and got off in the center of Chinatown with the idea of doing a 1 hour or so walking tour.

We exited the bus and walked to this pedestrian only street called Pagoda Street.  It was filled with venders selling mostly suveneirs with restaurants behind them.  We came across Telok Ayer Square, a local hangout with a bunch of people line dancing to local music and old men playing checkers.  It definitely had a very local feel to it.  Crossing the street we saw a pink Ferrari...those Crazy Rich Asians.

Behind the square was this awesome looking building. It was the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.  Unfortunately, it was closed, because it would have been super cool to see Buddha's tooth...darn it.  Although the temple looks old, it was just built in 2007 at a cost of $5,500,000 USD.  

The walking tour we were following said that if we climbed some stairs we could get a great view of the temple.  At first we couldn't' figure out where the steps were, and then we saw an apartment building with outside steps...aha.  We walked up about 9 stories and got this great shot of Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.

The tour continued, but we just couldn't.  I woke up with a bit of a neck ache and suddenly it was feeling really bad, so I was done and Tim agreed that he was done as well.  Although we were "done," there was still one more thing we needed to do...drink a Tiger beer in the county it is brewed, so we walked across the street to Maxwell Food Center, were we ate 2 days ago, and bought a couple of Tiger Beer.  While we were at it, we also bought an Oyster Egg Omelet to go with the beer.  The omelet was incredible and the beer went down way too easy.

It was now almost 8 AM and we were DONE.  We walked to the bus station and took the bus home.  We arrived at the apartment just after 9 AM, took showers, and went to bed. 

Tomorrow we have a 10:45 AM flight to Bali. The alarm is set for 6 AM, so we need to get to bed early.  Until tomorrow...