Spectacular Singapore…should be the city motto! It is one gorgeous, advanced city. All of the escalators use an energy saving mode, meaning they don’t move until you are ready to step onto them. The subways are controlled by computers. It is landscaped, genteel, and gentle. It is safe. Amazingly, it was cooler than our last visit. We remember sweat just rolling down our faces three years ago, but this week there have been some breezes, and it was hot the way Las Vegas can be hot, but not too excessively.
It was a busy several days! The first photo is the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, which has become the unofficial logo of the city on weather and news reports. It looks like a surfboard casually resting on three towers. On the very top is a bar and an infinity pool that is three football fields long, looking very much like you are about to swim off the edge and over the side. After that is window washers from inside the Flower Dome. The outdoor gardens are free, but entrance to the domes is by admission. They are fabulous, and at night there is a free laser light show where everything is lit up.
Following those photos are just two of the Botanic Gardens, as there were too many photos to share. There is a bromeliad garden, many waterfalls, an orchid garden, and a palm garden. Almost all free, of course, as this is Singapore! There was a charge of a few dollars to enter the Orchid Garden.
Then we headed to Orchard Road, Singapore’s version of Rodeo Drive or Fifth Avenue. As you can see, the entire street is a No Smoking Zone! We caught a photo of a smoking area…every single person there was smoking, and it was across a driveway from retail buildings where they were quite isolated from anyone else. On Orchard Road, we found every designer retailer you can name. There was a mall on every block. There were cafes and restaurants, taxis, buses….very busy and, as you can see, very landscaped! There are trees, flowers, and shrubs everywhere, fulfilling Singapore’s desire to be a garden with a city in it. We found those cute yellow emojis on the street, and as usual, two windows with fun models. Great city!
