Singapore - Hot, Humid and Full On

It's been hot and humid.  Temperature says 32 degrees and 80% humidity but feels like 38. When the Singaporeans aren't on the streets  - neither should you be.  (Thanks Barry and Shirley, this is the only thing that’s kept our sanity).  There are moments when all get too hot and then hangry and being in one room in a backpackers with no common room (what backpackers doesn’t have a common room?!) We have some less than optimal parenting / kid moments.

The culture shock has been massive for the kids.  Mostly around the amount of people moving about the city.  Coming from a rural lifestyle, the constant high volume of people everywhere was a bit intense for Zach for the first 2 days.  For Kaia, it’s the constant staring at her - she is very much the minority with blonde hair and blue eyes.  

Local transport here is amazing, and so is the air con with that transport.  We have packed in quite a few things with two kids in tow, averaging around 20,000 steps a day, we have made the most of our time here.

Adventure Cove was the perfect start, all tiredness was forgotten with a water park of hydroslides, wave pools and a “river” that you can float around the outside of the park.  Highlight I think for all of us was getting in and feeding the stingrays.  You make a fist with your thumb on the inside, and put the fish between your thumb and fist and the stingrays come up quite aggressively, open their mouths and they suction cup your hand to suck up the food.

We also managed to snorkel in the coral reef enclosure with some pretty amazing tropical fish, but I'd probably say that the kids found the riptide waterslide the best.  I thought it was a bit weird they weighed us before being put on this conveyor belt to the top.  But then, we’ve never been launched forward in the open air to then land in the dark of a hydroslide tunnel.

Day 2 was 35 degrees at 9am, so into the Bugis markets for hawker food, sugar cane juice and pork noodles with prawn dumplings for breakfast.  Spent most of the day doing some shopping through the Bugis street market and then headed off to the Night Safari at the Zoo and it didn’t disappoint.  Kaia completely freaked out and didn’t feed the rhino.  He was very gentle for a massive animal, but the keeper had him well trained. Kaia loved the white tigers, Zach can’t make up his mind (there was just too many animals to choose from although he spent the longest with the tasmanian devil), for me it was the flying fox and the bats which you went into the enclosure and lucky for us it was feeding time so really got to see up close, oh and the lion pride roaring for the keepers to feed them. Gareth - it was really hard to pick a favourite, but being that up close and personal with a Rhino is probably impossible to go past.

By day 3 we’d found some really good hawker stalls.  The difference in price between more tourist places like Chinatown which I found quite overrated was $20 - $30pp for dinner and the hawker stalls, $6-8pp.  It takes a bit of getting used to eating noodles and dumplings for breakfast, but once we found Kway Teow noodles, Kaia was happy.  

Today was Gardens by the Bay.  It was spectacular, I wouldn’t say I'm the biggest fan of flowers but this place was awesome. I think the pictures will tell a better story.  While the kids liked the trees and flowers - it was the sculptures of animals carved from wood and copper that they spent most of their time looking for.  Oh and the Malayan water monitor that just casually crossed our path.  The best thing about the Gardens is that they cater for every budget, whether you spend the money on the domes (highly recommend it) or enjoy the free gardens, which include the kids water park, watching the kingfisher catch its dinner and getting up close to the super trees.

We had a great recommendation from Doug to try Atlas bar in Bugis (just across the road from where we were staying), but 3 days of excessive heat, and the littlest monster needing some down time, we had to make the call to watch cartoons tonight, and miss out on that drink, and watch the light show from marina bay sands.  I’m truly amazed at how well Zach and Kaia have managed these last couple of days, and have assured them that Paris is much cooler, however probably more tourists.

Singapore is a pretty cool place.  We did pick the hottest month to visit so can’t complain, but the transport system is amazing, there are things to do to cater for every budget, the people are lovely and the city is so clean.