You’ll Never Know If You Don’t Go, You’ll Never Shine If You Don’t Glow {Singapore}

When we arrived in Singapore, it was dinner time, so we grabbed some food at the (beautiful) airport before tackling the public transport system, the MRT. Luckily, it was very similar to the MTR in Hong Kong, so we did not have any issues.




We rode the MRT to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel (which has a boat on top of it!) to see the ever famous nature park, Gardens By The Bay. 

If you ever find yourself in Singapore for any length of time, you absolutely have to see this spectacular attraction. The beautiful, futuristic looking supertrees you can see for free, and are one of kind. In the evening at various times they light up and dance with color, making them even more breathtaking. 
 


Since it was late, we unfortunately did not have time to any of the attractions you pay for on the inside, but I think had we had more time, we would have thought them to be worth it. The following day would be an early one, so we made the venture to our hotel on Sentosa, Resort World Island. We arrived at our hotel, the Costa Sands Resort, and were sadly a bit disappointed in our choice. With the rushed decision, we had ignored some of the negative reviews about the hotel, which I highly regretted, however, at that point, a bed is a bed, and we were sure ready for bed. 

(it was not day time when we arrived, we took these photos later)

The next morning we were up rather early, as we made the small journey from our hotel to Universal Studios Singapore! 




We arrived just as the park opened. With it being a Thursday, most children back in school, and Halloween Horror Nights not starting yet, the crowds were pretty low for most of the day, allowing us to do everything we wanted to. We started our day on Transformers, which is the exact same attraction as the one in Orlando, but this line does tend to get the longest. 

From there, we continued on to the Mummy, with the ride also being similar to the one in Orlando, however, the land itself was a bit more intricate. 


A journey to Jurassic Park made me incredibly happy because we were able to ride the Canopy Flyers, similar to Orlandos Pteranodon Flyers, where you must be accompanied by a child to ride, plus this land has my favorite music.


The absolute best land of all was Shrek’s Far Far Away-land, complete with Lord Farquad’s castle, making it feel like feel like you stepped right into the film. Inside the castle was the same 4-D ride found in Orlando, but somehow knowing you were inside the castle made it just a little better.
 


The other ride found in Shrek’s land was Puss in Boots Giant Journey, which was a small coaster type ride with a cute storyline about Puss locating some golden eggs. 

Right outside of Far Far Away is Shreks’ swamp, where he was meeting with some guests. 

Keep walking, and you’ll bump into Madagascar Zone, where one of our favorite rides, A Crate Adventure was. The ride is built similar to Disney’s Small World, with a super cute storyline and all the characters from Dreamworks Madagascar. 


As we exited the ride, we ran right into some of the characters themselves. 


Ready to meet some more characters, we headed back to Hollywood themed area to track down some minions, and oh boy are these guys popular!


Our final few rides of the day were in Sci-Fi City and New York. Visiting the monsters of Seasame Street in their Trick or Treat show and riding Elmo’s Spaghetti Space Chase made me smile, reminding me of home riding the ET ride with my family. 


Universal Studios Singapore was great, and we had an absolute blast, but the highlight of my day was of course the corn dog I had, because you are not gonna find that in Hong Kong.
The other highlight of the day was the Water World show, where we were absolutely in the splash zone getting soaked to try and cool down. The show was really great! As a theme park performer, I encourage everyone to try and attend the live entertainment options of any park provided for guests and not just focus on the attractions. They are often really well done and still an entertaining way for you to rest your feet for a moment.


Since the park closed around 6pm, we had ample time to explore around Sentosa, grabbing some dinner, and a treat from Krispy Kreme, a churro doughnut, and Mike's weird treat, a sweet corn ice cream from McDonalds. 

He did actually like this! I thought it tasted like canned cream corn

On the way back to the hotel, we waved hello to the Merlion prosperity statue before finishing our day watching the clouds move in on the beach. 




The next day in Singapore we only had a few hours before we had to return to the airport to fly home, so we started our day by going back to our favorite spot, Gardens by the Bay to see the supertrees during the day time. They were still quiet beautiful, but I much preferred them when they twinkled during the evening hours.


On the way from Sentosa to the supertrees, we of course found the one Disney decoration for Mid Autumn Festival decorating the subway station and had to stop by.






Next stop was an accident as we wandered past the San Marina Mall, complete with its inside gondola rides and small river. The view from outside the mall of the city of the skyline was the perfect way to thank Singapore for our spontaneous adventure, where we even spotted the actual Merlion Fountain of prosperity and Helix Bridge.

Helix Bridge

singing about how poor I am, because, you know, when in Singapore...

One of the things I wanted to do in Singapore was to visit a food Hawker Centre and taste some of the local cuisine. With time ticking away, we took the MRT to Little India to experience one of the food hawkers there, called The Tekka Centre. We feasted on chicken curry and Prata, which were insanely delicious. We also tried the classic Singapore 100 "sports" drink, which tasted a lot like Squirt, but so good.




We walked around the stalls a bit after to get a sense of the culture, and fell upon Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple  in all it’s colorful glory. 


Before we left Singapore, I really wanted to visit Bugis Food Street Market, however, we only had about 30 minutes left to explore. Rushing through the food stalls, I wish we had spent more time here to experience more local dishes such as the world famous Sinagpore Chicken Rice, but alas, after our quick side trip it was time to go to the airport.


Surprised at the airport, we ran into a Nando’s, our favorite food place in London, and of course stopped off for some Haoloumi Cheese and Peri-Peri Chicken before our holiday had come to a close. 

Returning to Hong Kong just in time for the holiday, Mid Autum holiday itself was rainy, but we were still able to venture to Causeway Bay to see the fire dragon perform down the street. 


 The Tai Hang Fire Dragon is composed of around 70,000 incense sticks, where 300 performers tag in and out to help it dance, cleansing the city with its fire as the tradition says. 

Another Mid Autumn Festival tradition is moon cake, which is a small pastry that can be filled with a variety of items from lotus seed to red bean to duck egg yolk. They are really not my cup of tea, but Mike seemed to not mind them too much. 

The final Mid Autumn Festival tradition is the lighting of the lanterns, however, because it was raining, there were not a lot of them, sadly. However, the lights decorated the park and a fun time was had by all.
Happy Mid Autumn Festival from these two spooky souls, who are so very happy to journeying back to Halloween Town in their walk through experience, now open again! Come visit them soon!