Universal Studios Singapore, and other bits and bobs

This morning was an early start, I met a friend at harbour front MRT station.  I took this photo onboard the train.  Just to reinforce the Singapore is a fine city joke. :) Better to smoke than bring flammable goods!  And durians?  I wonder why is there no fine for that!

At Vivo city (where the harbour front MRT station is located) I walked out and guess what I saw, the same elephant exhibition that were on display earlier this year in Copenhagen!

Vivo City weird architecture outside, large interior inside.

Universal Studios is located on Sentosa island.  Prior to today I did not even know of its existence in Singapore.  Anyway, Sentosa has undergone a massive change over the past few years.  And I mean massive, it has undergone massive renovations, parts of which are just unrecognisable.

We took the monorail to our stop and afterwards I had to get my ticket from an electronic printout of the receipt, I ordered the ticket online.  The queue was long, very long, to get in, to buy tickets, it was all loooong.

The spinning globe at the entrance

Here come the crowds!

We went on the madagascar king julien's beach party go round (carousel ride),  the revenge of the mummy (rollercoaster), battlestar galatica human (rollercoaster) and saw the waterworld show.  That was all I could tolerate for the day.  There were other rides to go on, including a transformers ride which was the new attraction but you had to queue 3 hours for that to go on something that lasts last than 5 minutes.  My patience was stretched with the battlestar galatica one, that took an hour and a half.  For some reason that made me wish I was in Norway or Australia.  Just too many people in one spot, and I was getting mad and impatient.

We like to move it move it

The Shrek Castle

The battlestar galatica rides consist of 2 tracks, red and blue.  I was on the red one.

And of course we have our favourite bumble bee on display.

The gray building is supposed to be the New York Public Library

Atlas

Rockefeller Centre

I liked the waterworld show, that was fun.  If you sat on the green seats you get sprayed by the actors.  On purpose.

I left at 6:30 to catch the monorail back to Vivo city then caught a cab back home.

Now it's time to post this!

Boxing day

This morning my family and I had yum cha at a restaurant in Chinatown.  We were late in the queue but fortunate enough to get a seat within 5 minutes because our table was for 4 even though we only asked for a table of 2.  And the reason was because we just wanted to get seats quickly because I had an appointment to go to within an hour of us getting there, but anyway...  no photos, but the food is good. :)

Taken along Temple Street, you can see lanterns are up in preparation for Chinese New Year.

I attempted to watch Sherlock Holmes after the food escape with a friend but I fell in and out of sleep during the movie. I'm still quite jet lagged.  So sleepy even right now... but I can't say no to food so we had some after that at Swensen's.  I picked a grilled chicken salad and a frozen chocolate malt.

Later I waited with the same friend, they caught the bus home and I took a photo at the bus stop.  By this point I was becoming a bit delirious.

The tallest building in the foreground used to be called Westin Stamford, now known as Swissotel The Stamford and next to Raffles Place.  I've been to the top of the building, that was in 1992.  Constructed in 1986, it used to be the tallest hotel in the world.

After my friend left I walked to Funan Centre, and just looked at the shops.  And there was some practise dancing going on, everyone dancing was middle aged.  It was entertaining.  Especially shortly after they were playing this song and just looking at them do the moves, it was really something. :)

Took a cab to Tampines Mall after that where I had dinner with my parents.

Tomorrow I'll be going to be spending the day at Universal Studios, that will be fun.

Christmas in Singapore

Today was humid, really humid, it was around 30 degrees C.  I'm even sweating indoors now, and outside it feels like I'm in a swimming pool, except I'm swimming in clothes.  Welcome to Christmas in Singapore! The weather has been rainy lately, it didn't rain this morning so that was good.  I had an early start at 7:30am, went to meet a friend and we had some tim sum in the food court at wisma atria.  Only a few stalls were open but no matter food is food and food is good.  After that we bought tickets to Mission Impossible and then had more food at Mos Burger.  I had a teriyaki chicken burger, ebi rice burger, corn soup, garlic and lemon frittered mussels and a green salad with thousand island dressing.

Okay you can't really see the food but I assure you, it's tasty.  After that we went to buy more food to eat while watching the movie (can you sense a theme here?).

Here's a photo of the Ion Orchard building from the Lido building.  The Lido top floor was renovated, many of the old stalls are now gone, there used to be a McDonald's, a Long John's Silver, a stall selling bubble tea, that's all disappeared.  Seems to be a common theme in Singapore nowadays, stalls just come and go.

That Christmas tree reminds me of the one I saw in Riga

After the movie, I was approached by some Americans to take photos of them with some Alvin and the chipmunk statues outside the cinema.  I asked them what they were doing in Singapore but they seemed reluctant to tell me, but they did recognise my "Don't tread on me" shirt and all of them were from different US states, and it was 2 girls and a guy.  I suspect they're from the military.  But who knows?  Anyway that was interesting for a while.

Had more food after that, and then dinner, followed by reading an inspiring story in a bookstore, and a few hours later, I attempted to get home from the Orchard MRT station but that was blocked so I had to walk all the way to the Somerset station in a sea of people.  Not fun.  But I got to take some photos.

People people everywhere!

More food adventures tomorrow.