Marina Bay
My stopover in Singapore was quite brief, I arrived early in the morning and left the following night. I spent one afternoon being a tourist in the colonial heritage area that I like, the next day I wandered down to the newest part of Singapore. The Marina Bay area, I caught the MRT (the subway) from the conveniently close station to my hotel! Unfortunately I was relying on imperfect memory and ended up getting the train to the Marina Bay station which is further away from where I wanted to go. (Gardens by the Bay) The closer station is the Bayfront one, which is where I caught the train to return to my hotel!
Walking the shortish distance (the travel guides say 4 minute walk, I'd add a few extra minutes to that estimate!) meant that I ended up at the boardwalk at Marina Bay.
Marina Bay, looking across to the Merlion the symbol of Singapore. It originally sat at the mouth of the Singapore river but was moved to its present location as with the opening of a new bridge it couldn't be seen anymore. In 2002 it was moved to its new landscaped position and helpfully people can take photos all around it. Previously you couldn't due to its placement. There are river taxis which can take you across from Marina Bay Sands side.
The Art/Science Museum, the building that looks like a lotus flower. I love the creativity in architecture that Singapore has, not all modern buildings are awful to look at. The seating to the left of the picture might be from the South East Asian Games which were held in Singapore a few weeks beforehand. The 'ferris wheel' as I called it once when talking to a taxi driver as we went past it, is called the 'Singapore Flyer'. My helpful taxi driver corrected me!
The Marina Bay Sands hotel, each tower is 55 storeys high and the 'ship' at the top that joins them together is over a hectare.
This picture was taken on a previous visit to Singapore and it was the view from my window at the Peninsula Hotel, I was upgraded to a very nice room with a view! From this angle you can see the shape of the 'ship' on top of the towers.
From the boardwalk I entered the shopping mall called 'The Shoppes' at Marina Bay. It has a canal that flows through it complete with boats you can be taken for a ride in. It's all very lovely and the shops are the high end of the market, basically bring lots of money kind of shopping!
This water feature is called 'The Rain Oculus' as a small stream of water flows down to the centre of the circle. Interesting and I managed to time the photo to capture a couple being rowed around it!
I liked this little tea shop, all very quaint and British!
Once through the shopping mall I entered the hotel lobby area which was huge! Enormous numbers of people were wandering around either checking in or out. I needed to get to the other side of the hotel to enter Gardens by the Bay which was my original destination.
The elevated walkway was the way to exit to Gardens by the Bay, but the day I was there the walkway wasn't open due to some problem so I had to walk through the lobby and around the outside. That was fine with me as I got to experience the size and mass of people that were in that lobby!
The sheer height made one feel very, very small! Again amazing architecture!
It was a nice contrast from wandering old Singapore colonial era buildings to the most modern buildings from the current era.
My stopover in Singapore was quite brief, I arrived early in the morning and left the following night. I spent one afternoon being a tourist in the colonial heritage area that I like, the next day I wandered down to the newest part of Singapore. The Marina Bay area, I caught the MRT (the subway) from the conveniently close station to my hotel! Unfortunately I was relying on imperfect memory and ended up getting the train to the Marina Bay station which is further away from where I wanted to go. (Gardens by the Bay) The closer station is the Bayfront one, which is where I caught the train to return to my hotel!
Walking the shortish distance (the travel guides say 4 minute walk, I'd add a few extra minutes to that estimate!) meant that I ended up at the boardwalk at Marina Bay.
Marina Bay, looking across to the Merlion the symbol of Singapore. It originally sat at the mouth of the Singapore river but was moved to its present location as with the opening of a new bridge it couldn't be seen anymore. In 2002 it was moved to its new landscaped position and helpfully people can take photos all around it. Previously you couldn't due to its placement. There are river taxis which can take you across from Marina Bay Sands side.
The Art/Science Museum, the building that looks like a lotus flower. I love the creativity in architecture that Singapore has, not all modern buildings are awful to look at. The seating to the left of the picture might be from the South East Asian Games which were held in Singapore a few weeks beforehand. The 'ferris wheel' as I called it once when talking to a taxi driver as we went past it, is called the 'Singapore Flyer'. My helpful taxi driver corrected me!
The Marina Bay Sands hotel, each tower is 55 storeys high and the 'ship' at the top that joins them together is over a hectare.
This picture was taken on a previous visit to Singapore and it was the view from my window at the Peninsula Hotel, I was upgraded to a very nice room with a view! From this angle you can see the shape of the 'ship' on top of the towers.
From the boardwalk I entered the shopping mall called 'The Shoppes' at Marina Bay. It has a canal that flows through it complete with boats you can be taken for a ride in. It's all very lovely and the shops are the high end of the market, basically bring lots of money kind of shopping!
This water feature is called 'The Rain Oculus' as a small stream of water flows down to the centre of the circle. Interesting and I managed to time the photo to capture a couple being rowed around it!
I liked this little tea shop, all very quaint and British!
Once through the shopping mall I entered the hotel lobby area which was huge! Enormous numbers of people were wandering around either checking in or out. I needed to get to the other side of the hotel to enter Gardens by the Bay which was my original destination.
It was a nice contrast from wandering old Singapore colonial era buildings to the most modern buildings from the current era.
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