Singapore Highlights

Duck Boat Tour
I did not know what to expect because I did not know how a vehicle could go both on land and in the water! A duck boat tour is nothing like it sounds, it had absolutely nothing to do with real ducks. It was a tour that we went on a vehicle that drove around Singapore that could also go into water! It was really fun going from land to water, the vehicle sped up and went down a ramp into the river, it sort of felt like a ride. We learned that the boats were from the Vietnam war to help transport supplies from boat to land.

Museum of Ice Cream
Finally the day I had been waiting for forever came! When we entered the first room we were instructed to grab a pencil and a an ice cream passport activity book with facts and quizzes about ice cream. Than we got a name tag sticker to write an “ice cream name” which could be an ice cream topping, flavour or different kind as your name. I came up with Banana Split, Rylee picked Cookie Dough, my mom chose Sparkly Sprinkle, and my dad picked Dulce. There were lots of facts about ice cream, interactive things and lots of ice cream where there was no limit on how much you had!

A few of my favorite rooms were the:

•  Sprinkle pool
•  Ice cream themed bean bag toss
•  All of the rooms with ice cream (of course)

I also enjoyed trying new types of ice cream like Potong which is a frozen treat similar to popsicles but without a popsicle stick cut from one big slab of the treat into rectangles. I also like trying new flavours such as soy sauce, it really did taste like soy sauce. My favorite flavor of ice cream I had there was cinnamon cookie dough, I have literally never had that much ice cream in my life!! One thing I learned is that most ice cream types main ingredient is air.

Gardens by the Bay
These are two cool looking buildings that have all sorts of flowers and plants. One is called the Flower Dome and the other is called Cloud Forest. First we went to the Flower Dome because the Cloud Forest is themed like Jurassic park and my dad said we were saving best for last. It was really pretty, I have never seen so many flowers in one place! There were many gorgeous wood carvings of animals every where and all the plants that were native to the same place were put together. When we were finished admiring all the unique plants we headed to Cloud Forest. Right at the entrance there was a huge water fall and moving dinosaur models, my dad’s eyes lit up and he was wearing his this is super cool expression. All the dinosaurs were really cool and we got to go on a walkway that was hanging from the roof so we were very high in the air.

Garden Rhapsody
Located outside Gardens by the Bay, this is where Singapore’s famous metal tree like structures are located. We walked around Singapore to pass time until night when the Garden Rhapsody light show started. Finally after a couple of hours we headed back to get seats, it got busy fast so it is a good thing we did. When the show started, it started pouring rain but luckily we had come prepared with umbrellas and rain jackets. The show was really amazing as the tree like structures were covered in light and the lights went along with songs. When the show was over we took a tram to a fountain show in front of a mall where we waited around for over 30 minutes. It was worth the wait, the fountains were in perfect time with the music and images were projected onto the fountains making it look really cool.

Bike Ride
My parents rented bikes for a couple hours to explore the city. While we were biking we spotted an otter breeding area where a sign told us that a family of otters live in the area and to keep an eye out for them. Otters are important to Singapore because they control the fish population and feast on invasive species such as tilapia. Otters are also a symbol of national pride because otters represent clean water ways. As we were biking one thing we noticed were that lots of the buildings near the river were freshly painted in beautiful pastel colors. I also noticed that Singapore is the cleanest city I have ever been to and that is including Calgary. I hardly saw any litter which is probably because there are huge fines for any littering, plus chewing gum is illegal because people always spit it out on the ground creating a big mess. Biking is Singapore is not easy because everybody walks on different sides of the path.

Singapore Zoo:
We saw tones of amazing animals but also learned that lots of animals are highly endangered, one species of monkeys only had 60 of them left in the wild. Did you know that there used to be 9 species of tigers but 3 are extinct and the rest are near extinction? The Caspian, Javan, and Bali tigers were hunted to extinction by humans for there fur. Some animals we saw where:

• Elephants
• Zebras
• Tigers
• Lions
• Otters
• Orangutangs
• Chimpanzees
• Seals
• Rhinos
• Howler monkey
• Lemurs
• Tree Kangaroos
• Penguins
• Fennec foxes
• giraffes
• Crocodiles
• Alligators
• Turtles
• Pygmy hippos
• Chameleon

Sentosa Island

Getting to the island
To get to Sentosa island we took a long gondola ride over the river. It was 72 meters high (240 feet) and I did not love being so high but it was cool to see everything from above. From that high I could see the whole island and was shocked to see how small it was.

Luging
When we arrived at Sentosa island we went to Skyline Luging which is the same company of luging that is in Calgary. There were four different tracks that you could take with different lengths and skill, with our pass we could do 3 tracks. We picked the longest, hardest and second longest tracks, they were all surprisingly short and we learned the track in Calgary is 3 times as long as any track in Singapore.

Wings of Time Fireworks
After luging we took another gondola to the beach part of the island and walked around the area to pass time. We also stopped for dinner at Shake Shack because we could not agree on anything else. When we were done eating we got our seats and waited, when the sun had fully set the show started. It was a long wait but worth it, there were fountains, fire shooting out of the ground, things being projected onto the water, and of course fireworks!

Adventure Cove Waterpark
This was also on Sentosa Island but we did not take the gondola, instead we took a Grab (Asia’s version of Uber). I had lots of fun, one of my highlights was the rainbow reef which was a saltwater pool that was made to look like the ocean with a variety of fish and coral. We got to snorkel and see all of the vibrant colored fish, it was super cool! Another thing that I enjoyed was the lazy river because you got to go through tunnels with fish overhead and see a bunch of stingrays through glass, although it did not have a strong current so we towed our parents while they were on tubes.