Singapore - Gardens By the Bay
On the first day of my one full weekend in Singapore, I had booked myself a solo trip to the Gardens By the Bay. The hotel offered coach service to the gardens as well as the tickets into the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome, but I had to find my own way home which was fine by me.
With the whole day ahead of me, I was determined to see everything that I could see. I strolled past the magnificent Super Trees and headed down a path at random.
I couldn't believe the number of Plumerias here! They thrived so well! It made me a little sad to think of my pathetic attempts to grow them back home in California. Spoiler Alert; they died rather rapidly.
I found myself walking past such an array of plants and trees that I would've never thought could grow together. There were tropical plumerias and orchids, next to ponds full of water lilies, around the corner from pine trees and even a cactus forest! These plants all growing next to each other reminded me a lot of Singapore itself, with it plethora of cultures living happily side by side.
The man made elements were almost as beautiful as the ones provided by nature. Plus the views weren't half bad.
After exploring for a while, I couldn't wait any longer to find out what, exactly, a Cloud Forest was.
I was not disappointed.
Everything about this place made me want to stay forever. The sound of waterfalls, the smell of greenery and flowers and the cool air filled with water mist made this one of my favorite places.
Dispersed throughout was artwork so beautiful that it managed to actually add to the beauty of the flowers around them, which is a pretty rare occurrence.
Each level held something different than the last and there were helpful signs describing what was growing nearby.
The view from the top was so lovely that I completely forgot about my fear of heights.
Once I finally forced myself to leave the cloud forest, I headed over to the Flower Dome. It was a lot busier in here than it was in the Cloud Forest, but I wasn't surprised considering it was Orchid Extravaganza. Who could turn down seeing the ground blanketed in orchids of every color?! Not me, that's for sure.
If it weren't for the crowds, one could mistake this place for a fairy wonderland. Even with people everywhere, I was still thoroughly enchanted.
I decided to purchase myself just one more ticket before leaving. Facing my fears again, I made my way to the skywalk that's constructed between some of the supertrees.
For this view alone it was 100% worth the 8SGD that I spent on the ticket.
Honestly, you could spend days wandering all the gardens and discovering the different plants of the world. But my feet had had enough and I still had to figure out the bus system and make my way home so I headed out, back towards the bridge that would take me across the bay.
And thank goodness I left when I did! I ran right into a practice performance for Singapore's National Day and had the most amazing view of it from the footpath of the bridge.
There were helicopter, fighter jet and naval boat demonstrations as well as arms and fireworks displays. It was a thrilling sight to see and a misadventure I won't soon forget.
And by misadventure, I mean that I ran into the teeny tiny problem of not being able to get to my bus stop because I found myself right where a line of tanks was. I WOULD be the awkward foreign girl that has to ask the armed military members - who are assisting a tank procession - for directions.
To their credit, they helped me with directions without batting an eye and redirected me to the train (really it's a subway but for some reason they don't call it that there). I made it home safe and sound, still laughing at myself and at the places I wind up in.
If you want to know more about Gardens By the Bay this website is a good place to start;
If you're ever in Singapore you really should go! The best part is that tickets are extremely reasonable, and the outside gardens cost you absolutely nothing!