Planted and in the Air

Sorry for the delays - jet lag, busy, and my last post got 'lost' - so here it is again, but not the literary masterpiece of the lost one.

We are flying out today bu that doesn't happen until 11:55 PM so we have a bit of time here still. Today's weather looked good so we checked out (leaving our bags for later pickup) and grabbed another Grab to 'Gardens on the Bay.

We got tickets to two attractions, the Cloud Forest and the Flower Dome.

We went to the Cloud Forest Dome first. This large glass dome - think greenhouse on steroids - represents a cloud forest's climate (higher altitude and cooler). This contained many trees and plants from around the globe (including a small NZ area with Maori sculpture). They also had an extensive collection of orchids, a big thing in Singapore. The world's largest indoor waterfall made a big splash. There were many smaller displays and presentations, which took us 2-3 hours to get around. Amazing.

We got a drink at Starbucks (needs must) and trundled over to the Flower Dome. Guess what—this contains cacti, shrubs, large trees, and flowers. Everything is laid out beautifully. To top this off, they had an event showing the plants and locations of Claude Monet. It turns out that our Claude was quite a gardener. He also did a bit of Impressionist painting on the side. They extended this theme with a large display of information about other Impressionist painters, and this was in a large room still inside the dome.

Mindblown, we returned to the Hotel via a nearby mall, where we grabbed a bite to eat. Got another Grab (Kona EV this time) wedged our baggage and ourselves in and got to Changi by about 6:30.

After checking in, the first thing we came across was a ukulele group doing a few numbers. We watched a couple, and then the group leader asked Christine for her name. They then played/sang a modified version of Paul Anka's Diana. How cool is that.Read more