Flower Dome & Cloud Forest, Singapore

Later in the afternoon we returned to Gardens by the Bay to visit two conservatory attractions, the Flower Dome (the largest greenhouse in the world) and the Cloud Forest. Compared to other parts of the gardens, we did have to pay for these attractions but thought it was worth a look. The Flower Dome unsurprisingly contained all sorts of flowers from all over the world, although it seemed other tourists were far more interested in reading and photographing particular species of plants than we were. We stayed and looked around for an hour or so before moving onto Cloud Forest which contained one of the largest indoor artificial waterfalls. Cloud Forest centred around a large structure showing different vegetation levels growing at various altitudes down to sea level. The structure included another skywalk and every few hours a cloud show would fill the entire space with mist.

As you can imagine, Singapore is not cheap. Restaurant food looks to have no limit so we've opted to eat at Hawker centres. This is an indoor food hall filled with street vendors selling much cheaper local food. There are loads of these Hawker centres around Singapore but we ate at Amoy Hawker centre. This was far more in line with what we’ve been used to and could enjoy good, local food for a fraction of restaurant price albeit still much more than the rest of southeast Asia.

Afterwards, we walked back to the Gardens, walking on part of what would soon become the Singapore F1 track, to watch the night time light show under the Supertree Grove. Tonight’s theme was retro music. We weren’t quite sure what to expect having seen a few light shows on various monuments during our travels, but this show was very good!

Really enjoying Singapore so far. Our first impressions are that it is a pretty place, extremely modern as you'd expect but also very clean. We have not seen litter anywhere - Singapore really does put UK to shame in this regard. Today's been a busy day and and we've walked over 35,000 steps. A good nights sleep is due tonight!Read more