I pretended to be a tourist on Tuesday. I figured that I might as well visit some of Singapore’s local attractions since I had so much time on my hands. So, geared up with my camera and a cap, I headed to my first destination: Changi Airport. It’s only natural for an impersonator to start from where the real deal does.
The airport turned out to be quite a bore. And it was freezing, too. Apart from some nice architecture, and a few interesting tourists, there wasn’t much to see or do. There was this old guy who came up to me asking me to fix his camera, though. As much as I look like someone handy with gadgets, when a film point-and-shoot camera flashes a big ‘E’ on its status display and nothing more, it’s preposterous to ask me to troubleshoot. Especially since he was convinced that he loaded the film properly. Sorry, mate.
After a coffee at Starbucks, I headed out to Sentosa, home of the big mer-kitty.
$3 for entry, inclusive of a bus ride worth a dollar from Harbourfront, the nearest train station. This may seem innocuous enough, but when you realize that Sentosa has nothing much to offer for free… well you do the math. The only place of interest which can be visited without a fee is probably the beach.
There seemed to be alot of construction going on, especially at the Merlion area. A spruced up fountain garden, perhaps?
Thankfully the island still retains much of Singapore’s trademark green garden look despite the ongoing renovations.
Of course, there were some man-made curiosities, too. Jumping water!
For the sole attraction to visit in Sentosa, I chose the Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom. Bugs sounded like fun, and $10 per entry wasn’t too shabby.
There were lots of bugs! Unfortunately some of the containers had breathing holes drilled in, which was quite a photograph-killer. However some bugs were still easy to capture on the memory card, without holes obstructing the view.
I really like the emphasis they put on butterflies. They exhibited the whole maturation process, from this:
To this (yuck, slimy):
And of course to our favourite part:
The walk-through butterfly garden was nice, but not all that impressive. I still managed to hold quite a few butterflies, though.
There was a host of reptiles, too, both in the garden and on display.
Of course, the garden was replete with plants and fish as well.
Exiting the garden, one finds still more insects and other creepy-crawlies. Here’s but a small selection. The snails and the fat white one were especially disgusting.
There was this really weird exhibit. Apparently it’s possibly for insects to experience gender confusion - some very rare individuals exhibit both male and female traits. That’s to be expected, thanks to a defective genes. However, the way these conflicting characteristics are phenotypically manifested is strange to the core.
The male and female parts of the insect are split evenly down the vertical middle! Amazing!
Leaving the Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom, I decided to get on a tram ride and take random shots of real tourists. (Heh, heh.) Thankfully, the tram was a free service.
Nice ankles.
I wonder why there is even a ski lift in sweltering Sentosa. It isn’t as if that hill was all that a challenge to walk up.
I finally reached the Underwater World, but did not plan on paying the $16 fee to go in. Rather, I was just looking for a pit stop, but the wealth of photo opportunities got me snapping. There were many Japanese and Indian tourists, probably all pissed off at the ludicrous pricing of food and refreshments.
There was an exhibit on sea turtle conservation efforts. With crisply preserved dead turtles.
Still, there was also this big pond with two adult sea turtles splashing about. I have a feeling it was freshwater, juding from the fish that were sharing it with the reptiles. Is that healthy for the turtles? I sure hope so. The water looked a little too shallow for the turtles’ taste, too.
I think this trip was my first to Sentosa where it did not rain. Well, I had quite a lot of fun, and not to mention the hundreds of photographic memories. Not bad.
Tags: Singapore, Tourism, Sentosa
