6 Week Gap Year

Cable car to Sentosa Island Singapore and Pink Humpback Dolphins at Dolphin Lagoon Sentosa

Thursday 31st May 2007
Managed to prise ourselves from our bed at 9am and had breakfast at 99 Central next door. Ludy had fried rice and shark meat and I, fried rice and chicken in oyster sauce. SG$7. We made our way via MRT (and Robinson’s Department Store which is like an upmarket Debenhams) to Sentosa island where I was led to believe by an acquaintance that you could see it all in half a day. Take MRT to Harbour Front and walk through Vivo Centre to the cable car which takes you across to Sentosa island. The cable car ride is not for the faint-hearted as it crosses between SG and Sentosa at up to around 100m above the sea. You can pay to take a glass bottomed cable car too! There is a mono-rail system from SG which also takes you around the island but we were told that it is not working currently. I could not find out whether it was going to reopen or not. The cable car journey can be bought as part of a number of tour packages ranging from SG$47 to SG$64 depending on what touristy sights you wish to visit. Take a choice from Silosa Fort, Carlsberg viewing tower, Butterfly and insect experience, 4D magic experience, Underwater World, Dolphin Lagoon and many others. Each can also be bought separately or paid for at their respective entrances. I would recommend that you buy as many tickets as possible as part of the tour package because you avoid the queues for tickets at each attraction and can go straight in . While we were there the queues were very long and I would believe that they are like this most of the time. Food is available at many places but the widest choice is at the main entrance from the cable car including Subway, Ben and Jerrys and Pizza Place. The island is served by 3 bus routes, red, blue and yellow. Each circles a different part of the island with only one or two common stops so take care to choose the correct bus. Our tour guide Gideon, suggested we visit the Underwater World first as it was indoors so we wouldn’t get wet due to the rain which had just started! The other attractions were all outside and he expected the rain to have gone by the time we reached them. Underwater World was pretty much like all other aquariums I have now visited except it is smaller and has 2 special features, one of which they claim is unique. Firstly the have a large sea aquarium with many types of fishy inhabitants, of which many, if not all, are in no way endangered. This is served by a walkway and for the lazier amongst us (I prefer the phrase ‘wiser and more experienced’) a travelator. Secondly they have a hand held info system which identifies the fish species when it swims past a particular area of the aquarium in front of the visitor. They claim it to be the first of its kind in the world . From there we went to the Butterfly and Insect Kingdom but had to skip through it pretty quickly to be sure of making Dolphin Lagoon in time for the show. The butterflies did not show themselves due to the light rain and I think the insect area and long display inside would have been very interesting if we had had the time. We queued for the red bus to take us to Dolphin Lagoon. And we queued and queued. I got bored and went and bought 2 Subway sandwiches. Then we queued a little longer until eventually we reached the head of the queue and managed to board the bus for the nearly 15 minute drive. We arrived 5 minutes after the start of the dolphin show but got in and even though we were at the back still got a good view of the performance. 3 Pink humpbacked dolphins performed reasonably easy tricks and allowed paying customers to wade into the lagoon to stroke and have photos taken with them. We caught the next red bus and visited Siloso Fort which is next to the Underwater World Oceanarium on the far western end of the island. This is the last remaining military fortification on the island and has been maintained and restored as a monument to the fall, the prisoners and recapture of SG during WW2. It was extremely interesting but as it shut at 6pm we only had 50 mins to explore. The brochure recommended the visitor would take about 100 mins to walk around and digest all the displays and sights so I felt we were a bit cheated to be allowed in at 5pm. Back to the red bus and to the cable car and back to Singapore.
We showered and changed at the hotel and headed off to Smith Street, Chinatown for dinner. The stalls were all open and serving loads of different foods from Chinese buns to fried noodles, deep fried real prawn fritters (crackers) to wun ton soups and pretty much anything you have seen in your local Chinese take away plus food you have definitely not seen there! We had prawn and cockle stir fried noodles, wun tun soup, prawn fritters, prawn and seafood pancake rolls, and mixed vegetable fried rice washed down with fresh mango and orange juice and a Tiger beer for the grand sum of SG$25. Problem is our eyes are too big and we both have now eaten too much! We take a gentle walk around some of Chinatown including a look at the beautiful green and red Chinese temple style building in the square behind Smith Street. The problem with eating in the evening is that it envelops you with a terrible torpor which you have to fight if you want to do any more exploring. But when you add the humidity and the jet lag feeling it becomes almost impossible to want to do anything. So we head back towards the hotel, slowly, then cheat and take a bus. The MRT cards can be used on the buses also. I seem to remember reaching our room and just falling asleep on the bed.