Singapore, Republic of Singapore (day 28 - Feb. 3, 2023)
Singapore Botanic Gardens
A walk through the gardens
The morning was spent wandering the paths of Singapore Botanic Garden. Near the center of the park is the National Orchid Garden. If you ever make it out to Singapore, I definitely recommend spending time at the Orchid Garden. There is so much variety in the plant life here! It is nice to take a step closer and observe the tiny details of the world around us sometimes. Too often we are simply rushing past to take the time and notice the vast amount of intricate detail God has put in this world.
There is no entrance fee to get into the main park, but it costs 15 Singapore Dollars (worth 11.33 USD) to visit the Orchid Garden. Easily worth the $15 to see the hundreds of different types of orchids.
There is lots of wildlife in the park too. Birds, lizards, insects, turtles, fish, otters, and many others I am sure. About 10 minutes into the garden there is a pond where there happened to be a pair of otters. They were fighting for a bit over a large fish, eventually the one ended up doing most of the feasting.
By the time I had finished going through the orchid garden, I was getting pretty hungry. There is a restaurant near the center of the park as well. I hadn’t really had anything too adventurous during my time in Singapore yet. Mostly I was trying to get in as many site visits as I could in the few days in Singapore. Still catching up on sleep, I stuck with more familiar foods to take an extra decision out of the day. Grilled octopus caught my eye on the menu, so I decided to give it a try. Tasted pretty similar to what I remember crab was like.
After lunch I took a taxi to the Sentosa Boardwalk. The boardwalk leads to the island of Sentosa, which I was told is a great place to visit. I never really made it too far onto the island before the daylight started to fade and the rains were hitting again. Decided to head back to the hotel to work on the blog and do a bit of planning for the next day’s travels to Bali.
It was the last full day in Singapore today. I learned that I should plan a few more days in each location so I can cover more areas that I had hoped to visit. Singapore was well worth the visit. I probably could have spent around 1-1/2 weeks in Singapore, but it has been a fun experience. I don’t necessarily recommend the hotel I stayed at (Lyf Funan Singapore). While the location was great, I would prefer one that served breakfast (takes planning for another meal out of the picture). The place seemed a little too, what I would say is hippie/woke/geared to people younger than myself maybe. I suppose it did the job, but I would look into other options next time around.
The people of Singapore were amazing. Very friendly, most speaking English, and as I mentioned in a previous post, a few people greet you as you walk by (more than I had experienced in other places so far at least). Helpful apps to use in Singapore were Grab, for taxi service, and Airalo to purchase an esim for my phone.
