It was a good day, even though it didn’t go to plan, and I suspect had some of my favourite moments of the trip so far;
- Hiding from torrential rain in the Gardens with a mix of people who’d got caught by it.
- Watching the folks at an English-Themed pub decorating a Christmas tree. From the accents, one was from the UK, one probably Irish, one from somewhere in West Asia, and one probably pretty local, all trying to untangle the Christmas lights.
Laundry Day. Not wildly exciting, I grant you, but a needful thing. I’m planning to do another small load the day before I fly out, so that I’ve got as much clean stuff as possible.
A mural in Chinatown.
Spotted this on the way to the botanic gardens; There’s a Studio Ghibli exhibition at the museum of Art & Science, which looks like it takes the form of scenes from the various movies.
Botanic Gardens/Gardens By The Bay.
I’ll be honest, I mostly have no idea what I’m looking at, but I still enjoyed it.
I got a closer look at the supertrees a bit later on.
It was at about this point that the occasional raindrop that had been falling started to bring it’s friends, and I thought that I should head for somewhere a bit more sheltered. I was aiming for the visitor centre, but didn’t make it before the rain set in
Did see the supertrees though.
The rain got stronger, so I decided to wait it out under some cover; There was a circular platform/bench thing with a roof, and I joined the people already sheltering there & watching the rain. There was a rooster who wasn’t too concerned about the rain initially, but changed its mind when the heavens opened and it started hammering down, with occasional thunder.
I didn’t set a timer or check my watch, but we all probably stayed there for an hour or so? There were more people across the way in a pavilion, doing the same thing with more room but without seating. I’d figured that it’d peak & then die off again, but that’s not quite what happened; There were a couple of peak rain events with rolling thunder & some minor surface flooding as the gutters overflowed, and it died down in between, but never to the point where it wasn’t raining.
It was a nice relaxing time, to be honest. A time to sit there, watch the rain, and just enjoy the moment.
Eventually I figured that it had dropped back as much as I could expect for the moment & headed back towards the exit, on the grounds that it didn’t seem like it’d be stopping any time soon. Didn’t get particularly wet just walking through the rain.
The path led to a bridge which led into & through Marina Bay Sands hotel, so I got to see the inside of that thing.
Dropped down & into a mall, where they were gearing up for Christmas, and also doing gondola rides.
The big glass bowl thing collected rainwater & turned it into an indoor waterfall, so I’m pleased I got to see that in action.
I’d planned to get lunch at the riverside area I’d walked through yesterday, but got there after the peak time, when most of the places were still technically open, but were also resetting for dinner.
Went with a place that wasn’t doing that, and so had lunch at an English Pub called The Penny Black, and fully embraced the Remains of Empire Colonialism by getting bangers+mash & a pint while watching people decorating a Christmas tree.
Managed to find the post office I’d been looking for the other day when I stumbled into the same sprawling mall-aggregation as before, so postcards sent! Also got myself a pair of shower shoes/jandals, selected on the basis of being easy to pack & easy to identify.
There’s a whole thing here, and in SEA in general to my understanding, about footwear. The hotel has shoe lockers that open to your key card, & provides disposable slippers. They have different sandal things in the bathrooms, with the idea being that you’re switching to those for the actual shower+ toilet area, but the idea of communal bathroom footwear? That seems like a great way to share interesting fungal infections, so I’ll use my own instead.
I’m not sure that I’m doing the shoe thing right, but nobody’s told me I’m doing it wrong yet, so I’ll take that as a win. And I did see one of the staff make a guest take her shoes off, so they clearly enforce it to some degree.
And we’ll close with a weather report. Going to get a travel umbrella, I think. That seems like a good idea.
