South-East Asia 2016

What a long day! First stop on the agenda was the Future World and Big Bang Data exhibits at the Art Science Museum (the orchid-shaped building in front of Marina Bay Sands). We had tickets for entry at 11:30, but we left our hotel anyway at around 10 and decided to walk over. It was a nice walk though very hot and sweaty even at this early hour, since it was entirely on the waterfront promenades which are of course paved and completely exposed.

Arrived at the museum around 10:45 and tackled the Big Data exhibit first, which was quite interesting. There were installations mostly about how big data is captured and generated, and just the staggering amounts of the modern era and how it can be used or mis-used. There was an interesting display about the undersea cables as well which form the back-bones of the internet - mapping them out, showing you who was responsible for them etc. Lots of cool infographics from history too - apparently Florence Nightingale was once of the first people to do visual representations of her data! She used it to demonstrate more soldiers in Crimean war were dying from post-combat infections and diseases than from combat. All up it was a very interesting side exhibit and we were very glad we went.

We tackled the main FutureWorld exhibit starting at about 11:45 - it was split into four parts of nature, town, water and space. Each part had a couple of interactive installations within the theme of how the world and the future will collide in that area. So for example in the nature section, there was a huge 180 degree video screen where you lay on beanbags in front of it. The screen displayed a Mambo-style animation of islands in a sea; gradually the sea level rises to the top of the screen and the islands are no more. Making a point about climate change and rising sea levels obviously - a big concern I guess in a small island nation though they have the money to plan their way out of it.

The middle two parts were mostly interactive and kid-focused, but one interesting thing in both areas was an interactive video wall. You grabbed a sheet of pre-printed paper with a particular vehicle (I chose a fighter jet and Shandos a UFO), coloured it in with crayons and then scanned it. Once your vehicle had gone through the scanner, it would show up in 3D on the video wall as part of a giant city-scape with everyone else's vehicles driving around. I was glad I didn't draw a cock & balls or something on mine!

But the highlight was the last part - space. It was a large room filled with chains of LED lights hanging from the ceiling in a grid pattern, and a narrow walkway through the centre. Imagine those beaded door-curtains people used to use in the 80s, now add LEDs and fill an entire room, and you're most of the way there. This room provided what felt like a three-dimensional model of the universe, with stars and galaxies dotted around. The colours pulsated and whirled, the music swelled and faded, and there were a couple of special effects like a waterfall strobe and a clap (where the lights would go sequentially from the floor and ceiling in time, meeting in the middle as the music clapped). It was sensational, and both of us stood there for probably 15 minutes in awe. This alone was worth the $25 admission ticket, and highly recommended for anyone going to Singapore.

By now it was 2pm and high time for lunch. We wandered into the nearby shopping mall underneath the Sands, and found a small hawker-style food court buried right in one corner. It was very reasonably priced, so we weren't surprised it was hidden away! The stores in here look ridiculously expensive - mostly high end fashion brands like Louis Vuitton targeted at cashed up Chinese tourists. On that note, there are quite a lot of Chinese tourists here which isn't surprising as there's a large expat community (indeed the reason Singapore seceded from Malaysia was because the latter wanted to discriminate against Chinese migrants in favour of Malays). The "huge bus tour" thing doesn't seem to be as common here for them, but still plenty of people following a flag or whatever and talking loudly. I was reminded of our driver in Bali, Putu, who said that Chinese tourists always sounded to him like ducks going quack quack quack.

Freshly lunched up from a noodle soup, we headed across the lobby of the hotel (very fancy!!) and into the Gardens By The Bay, a huge botanic gardens type area just behind the hotel that's freely open to the public. We wandered slowly around here for the next few hours checking out the displays; Chinese gardens, colonial gardens, Indian gardens and so on. Very interesting. Opted against going into the large flower pavilion and the rainforest pavilion - the latter looked interesting but you can only buy a combined ticket and it was $25! So we skipped.

The centre section of the Garden is taken up by "super trees" - man-made constructs in the shape of a tree. These have greenery on the outside, but perform vital functions for the park like heating water, collecting solar energy via rooftop panels, mulching and so on. There was a huge series of tedious diagrams which we politely examined for a moment and moved on. You could have a drink at the top of the tallest super tree for the bargain price of $18, but rather than go here we figured we'd just go all out and visit the cocktail bars atop the Marina Bay Sands hotel instead. It was 5pm by this point - that's definitely drinks time!

Wandered over, found our way up to the top and despite being quite under-dressed, they gave us a prime balcony position overlooking the city and the sunset right when the bar opened at 6pm. Pints of local beer were an eye-watering $20, but we decided we'd get comfortable for a couple of hours to watch the sunset so that's what we did! Took a bunch of photos which hopefully look OK. I had a second pint while Shandos followed her sparkling rose with a mojito, and then we ordered a pair of $12 pork & prawn sliders too which were absolutely delicious.

We stayed up here for a couple of hours, watching the sun set and the lights in the city start to come on. Left at about 7:45 as we wanted to go on the SkyWalk - an elevated walkway between some of the supertrees - and the last ticket sales were at 8pm. Hustled back there just in time for the ticket office to refuse us service as although it was 7:58, there were already too many people waiting to ascend and they wouldn't get through any more people by closing time. Alas!

Wandered a little more around the park taking photos in the dark, before grabbing a good position for the ~GARDEN SPECTACULAR~ show where the trees light up in time with music and stuff. It was a bit tacky and kitsch, especially since the song mainly seemed to be about how great Singapore is, but still a fun experience.

Very tired and footsore (by now it's 9pm), we walked back to the metro station nearby and caught the train four stops back to Clarke Quay. Shared a curried mutton martabak from a popular Indian takeaway a few doors from our hotel - very cheap and very tasty! Jumping in the shower to wash off all the day's accumulated grime and sweat is one of life's greatest feelings. It's now 11pm and I'm finished writing my diary. Time to collapse into bed!

And I think I'm going to skip wearing thongs tomorrow - my iPhone pedometer reckons I walked about 25,000 steps today (about 17km)!Read more