Singapore Trip 2011
It seems I’m slacking in blogging. I find I barely have time with a full time job, all the chauffering (kids to school and to activities), home work and revision with a school going kid and lately another item has added to the to-do list, i.e. completing a course for career development by year end.
Anyway, this post is not about how busy I am, but the trip we made to Singapore during the school holidays.
Before the trip, I asked Daddy to get us a GPS, as I could foresee navigating with a map in Singapore, there’ll be lots of stress in the car. The El-Cheapo He went to Daiso and bought a compass instead; he thought a compass would at least tell us which direction we’re going without a GPS. o.O” Thank goodness I shared this joke with my neighbour, and she loaned us her GPS for the trip!
♥4th June, Saturday♥
To keep up with Daddy’s (dilly dallying) track record, we left the house after 11am (we’d never left the house earlier than 11am on any driving holiday trips we made), and got stuck on the North–South Expressway.
It seems everybody was heading towards Melaka for the weekend. It took us more than 4hrs to get passed Melaka. By the time we reached our hotel in Singapore, it was 6pm.
We stayed in V Hotel Lavender, a newly opened hotel located in Lavender housing area. We got very good rate for a room with 1 queen and 1 single beds. Although the room is a little small, it is comfortable, and best of all, its location is super. The Lavender MRT station is on the basement of the building, and around the hotel, there are lots of small eateries, and also a few small HDB food courts.
Not wasting any time, after checking in, we headed straight to Orchard Road to shop, as well as to have dinner (at the Ion Food Court). With the exchange rate of S$1 to RM2.50, every thing seemed extremely expensive even during the Great Singapore Sales.
♥5th June, Sunday♥
The original plan was to go to Singapore Zoo, but it was pouring in the morning, and we have to change our plans, it was to Singapore Science Centre instead. Tickets were : $9 for adult, $6 for children (3~16yrs)
I prefer Petrosains, as there are more things for kids to ‘try’ out there. Still, we spent a 4hrs there, *yawn* watched 2 shows, The Tesla Coil Show and World of Insect Show.
In the evening, after a rest/nap in the room, we took a taxi to Marina Sands Bay, to watch iD by Cirque Eloize at the Grand Theatre. It’s a colourful Hip-Hop Circus act from Montreal, with lots of music and dancing. Girls of course loved it.
What more, we met our neighbour and her girls, who are the girls’ age and their best friends, visiting Singapore and watching the same circus!
They played together during intermission, and also after the show, went to explore Marina Sands Bay and had supper together.
♥6th June, Monday♥
Girls said they had already been to the Singapore Zoo on our last trip, so they wanted to go somewhere else instead. Sentosa Island was the somewhere else we chose.
We took the MRT to Harbour Front, and took the cable car ride (Tickets were : $26 for adult, $15 for children round trip), there was a promo going on where Malaysian tourists only need to pay half price, but because we didn’t bring along our passports, we had to pay the hefty full price. 🙁
We took the cable car to Mount Faber first, spent some time there.
Then took the cable car to Sentosa Island.
If you are going to Sentosa Island, plan your trip well so you can save some money buying combi tickets or play passes. We only went on 3 activites, and spent quite a fair bit because we didn’t know about this.
We watched the 4D Magix (girls screamed and shouted, and they said they didn’t like it at all because the ‘visual effect’ was too real) and went on the Extreme Log Ride (a ‘roller coaster’ rides with high-definition wide-screen projection, which the girls loved but I didn’t like it at all). (Combi Tickets were : $29.90 for adult, $17.90 for children)
We had dinner at Sentosa so that we could catch the Song of the Sea show (Tickets were $10 per person), a show which uses fountains, lasers, projection to tell a story. Now seriously, I don’t think Song of the Sea is worth the money, as you can get a similar show in Marina Bay Sands for free (read on).
After the show, we walked back to the cable car station, as there were long queues for the free monorial and bus ride.
We didn’t go to Universal Studio this round as there are lots of rides Zaria cannot go on due to her height. We’ll do that the next visit.
♥7th June, Tuesday♥
Girls pleaded with Daddy to stay in the hotel with them, as they wanted to spend time in the pool. So, the first half of the day, Daddy spent time with the girls at the hotel pool, and I went shopping on my own.
In the evening, we went to Marina Bay Sands (MBS). We took the MRT to Promenade Station, and then took a 10min walk via the Double Helix Bridge to MBS. It is a very scenic and pleasant walk, there were some local joggers jogging, but mainly foreigners enjoying the view as well as to take photos.
Daddy spent so much time there snapping photos, the girls got pretty impatient and in the end, I had to bring them into MBS first while he continued shooting away.
We have dinner there at the food court (we had almost all our dinners in the food court this trip, so sad), did some shopping, and then headed to watch the show at the Promenade. It’s a similar fountain and laser show like the Song of The Sea, except this is free, and we find more entertaining (no cheesy dialogues).
We then walked back to the Promenade MRT station the same way. The night view from the double helix bridge (and from the Promenade at Marina Bay Sands) was spectacular.
♥8th June, Wednesday♥
The last day of our trip, we only did shopping around Orchard area, and then it was home.
Zaria asked if she could stay in Singapore forever on our way back. And when we asked the girls which event/activity they liked best, they both claimed the morning they spent in the pool was the best. o.O”
Their holiday, we probably should just book a hotel nearby with a pool for them.