When we were traveling in China one of our group was kind enough to offer us a place to stay, should we find ourselves in Singapore. Singapore had not initially been on our itinerary, however with such an offer how could we turn it down, after all one of the reasons it was not on our original itinerary was due to the cost and having free accommodation cuts that dramatically. We also had another friend who was in Singapore for business so all these factors and all the favourable reports we had heard of the place lead us there.
On our first full day we decided to visit Sentosa Island as I found the prospect of a man-made island intriguing and there is a Universal Studios there so it was definitely on the must visit list for us. There were different options to get to the island: bus, monorail, walking or cable-car. We decided to go for the full tourist experience by taking the cable-car. Our tickets included the cable-car itself as well as entry to Universal Studios and the aquarium which we decided to visit the following day.
When we boarded the cable car we had the obligatory photo that seems to be appearing at more and more tourist spots. We had lovely views of the bay as we crossed and soon saw the island itself. Sentosa island certainly looks like a resort from the air with pools and rollercoasters on display. When we got off the cable car we immediately felt as though we had entered a theme park after exiting a ride. We were spat out into a shop, where we could purchase our photos or a number of other mementos of the island. We exited the shop as quickly as we could but then were at a slight loss as to how to actually get to Universal Studios, you might have expected it to be sign posted, but apparently not.
After a bit of asking around we eventually found our way to a second cable car (our tickets were valid for the day so they covered this too) and set off again. This ride was much shorter and didn’t offer quite such spectacular views however it did give us our first view of the Merlion, which we later found out was a replica of a much smaller but more famous statue in the harbour.
We came out of this second cable car feeling even more in the middle of a theme park, you could climb up the inside of the lion to get to its mouth, there were selfie points and everything felt slightly larger than life. This time there were sign posts to Universal Studios which took us past some impressive fountains, over the top of a casino and past some giant sweetie trees.
We had arrived on a Friday so the queues were pleasingly small. As we entered we found out that there was a theme at the park of “Minions Breakout” and although we hadn’t seen Despicable M3 at the time (I just saw it on a plane today) we are both minion fans so enjoyed the decorations.
I am not sure how interesting it would be to describe our time at the park itself. My husband and I both very much enjoy theme parks and went on many of the rides that day, my favourite was the Cylon side of the Battle Star Galactica ride. We had a fun day.
While we did have lunch and a few snacks in the park, we decided we would probably get better food for cheaper elsewhere. I am not sure it ended up any less expensive but it was very tasty; not far outside Universal Studios is a Hard Rock Cafe. We like rock music and to be honest by this point in the trip we were starting to crave a bit of western food so we went for it. As usual for a Hard Rock Cafe it was busy and we had to wait half an hour for a table, so we decided to take another wander around.
We located the Aquarium we would be visiting the next day, saw the waterfront where there looked like some kind of fountain show would be starting after our meal and a strange kind of illusions museum.
After a really enjoyable burger we headed back towards the cable-car, the Merlion was lit up and the effect was stunning. It looked as though the colours that it had been light up were actually painted onto the surface.
As we headed back across the bay we reflected on the lovely day we had had on a very man-made, but fun island.
Quite Ready For Another Adventure 