Singapore - Day 8 Monday

Today is a holiday because it's the last day of Ramaden; I believe its called Hari Raya. Holiday = day off for Roger so a bonus day for us to tour together = YEA!!! Interestingly, on his day off, he worked all morning long in preparation for the next 4 days. That was time he needed, so it was actually good. We left the hotel not too long after noon and caught the bus to the Vivo City Mall. I think we're beginning to figure out the bus system better each time. We took the escalators up to the 3rd floor where we purchased tickets and got on the monorail to Sentosa Island. This island used to be empty and was actually a place where they sent prisoners. Now it's an island resort and very very crowded!

First we went to the Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom where we saw about a zillion beautiful butterflies. Our favorite were those with blue wings so of course they were the ones that never actually landed on any of the foliage for photos. We walked around and looked at displays of thousands of bugs, most of which were very creatively designed and many of which were also very scary looking. I wouldn't want to meet them in real life. We met a young woman guide who is from India and enoyed learning more about the insects from her. She then followed us throughout the rest of the museum and gave us additional info all along the way. The people here are so wonderful! Dad held a pretty creepy bug or actually, it held onto his hand. I thought about it, but couldn't convince myself to even try. Among other insects, we saw live beetles, cockroaches, giant millipedes.

Next we went to "Images of Singapore", a wax museum telling the history and customs of Singapore. It started with a video narrated by people representing the 4 main cultures - Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Eurasian. We followed the history through life-size panoramas with audio added and learned who came when and what they did to make Singapore the busy and productive land it is today.

When we exited the exhibit we walked down a long hill to the beach and then along it for quite a distance. We stopped to get some fruit drinks and to sit for a little while sinced we'd been on our feet so long. Along our walk we passed a pavillion where hundreds of people were learning line dancing. Some people were in the ocean, inspite of the water being quite polluted from all the ships, some not far away. Eventually we reached the end of the beachfront and walked up to the Merlion. I have no idea how big this, the real one is, but very very tall.

We ended our time in Sentosa at the Songs of the Sea performance. It started to rain while we were waiting, but almost stopped by the time the show began so everyone put away their umbrellas. (Most people have an umbrella with them at all times; it works well for the frequent rain and for the almost constant sun.) The show consisted of live dancers, music, and an amazing laser light show. A pre-recording tells the story of an island boy who conjurs up a sleeping princess and then tries to awaken her through his music. Along the way he awakens other beings, but it all works out in the end. We enjoyed it immensely!

We took the first monorail back to Vivo City where we found a recommended restaurant, the Marche. When we arrived we were each given a card about the sized of a driver's license which we used to pick up the food we wanted. We walked around to all the booths to see that we could choose pasta w/ a variety of sauces, many types of seafood, different breads, Kampong chicken, ristos, rice, vegetables, etc. Roger chose pasta with chicken and vegetables stirfried in marinara sauce and I chose a risto which turned out to be a lot like hasbrowns. We shared and were stuffed from the huge portions in no time. We returned by bus around 10 p.m.

Another wonderful day in Singapore!