Singapore

            When I looked outside of my porthole and saw Singapore in the morning my first thought was that it was a future city.  The buildings I could see all looked like they could have come out of a Science Fiction movie.  It was pretty awesome!  We cleared immigration around 8:30 and I had a trip at 9AM.  Since the line was pretty long I went ahead and got in it.  The port at Singapore was a lot like an airport terminal, complete with walking sidewalks and immigration desks.  It was pretty interesting.  In every other port we have had to walk through shipping crates to get anywhere.

            I was going on a City Orientation with an SAS group, so I met with the group and got on the bus.  I knew a couple of the people who were on the trip and there were several Lifelong Learners and teachers.  The bus took us to Chinatown first.  We visited a mosque where we were required to take our shoes off, then walked down one of the streets that had a lot of shops, and took a bunch of pictures of random things.  Then we stopped at a building that had a gondola that went to the other side of the island.  If I had more time I would have taken it somewhere, but we only had 12hrs to spend in Singapore.  Next we stopped at a gem factory and saw the equipment used for gem cutting.  Then we went to the National Orchid Gardens.  That part was my favorite.  They had over 60,000 orchids and 400 different species.  It was beautiful.  We were supposed to stop in Little India next, but we ran out of time so we just drove through and also looked down Arab Street before heading back to the terminal.  Riding around on the bud was really cool.  We got to see a lot of the interesting buildings.  One hotel was made up of three buildings and had a giant ship built on top of it and there was also a revolving restaurant (I really wanted to go there!).

            We had to be back at the port at 1PM, since that was when the trip was scheduled to return.  I was planning to run back to the ship and find Liz K to walk around some, but before I got there I bumped into Liz K and Morgan so I didn’t have to.  We went to lunch immediately.  We just stopped at McDonald’s because we figured we would go out for local food for dinner.  There was a subway system in same building as the dock terminal (there was also a mall there), so we bought passes and boarded the subway.  We wanted to go see the building with the giant ship on top.  We walked around for a bit and climbed part way to the top of the building, but didn’t make it to the top.  Liz K and I decided to walk around some more while Morgan and some other people looked for a way to get to the top of the building.  Liz K and I found an underground mall.  As far as I could tell it went on for eternity.  There was a skating rink in there and a river with row boats paddling around.  It was insane.

            Next Liz K and I went back to the subway where we ran into Matt, Liz O, Paige, and Caitlin.  We decided to follow them to dinner.  They were going to Hard Rock Café (my first choice would have been the rotating restaurant).  Liz O, Caitlin, and Paige all hopped into a cab to find the restaurant since it was pouring rain, but Matt, Liz K, and I decided to walk.  We almost got lost in the subway while trying to cross the street (you get fined for jaywalking, so we were trying to find a different way across), but it didn’t take us that long before we found the right place.  I was still full from lunch, so I just ordered a Coke.  If we had gone somewhere more unique I probably would have made myself eat something.  I was really wishing that I had just gone to a different restaurant.  Singapore was definitely safe enough that Liz K and I could have gone by ourselves.  I thought it was kind of disappointing to go all the way to Singapore just to end up at a Hard Rock Café.

            We only had an hour and a half to get back on the ship.  We still needed to buy a couple things and it would take us half an hour to get back to the port.  We all split up when we got to the terminal.  I bought a CD and a few things at the grocery store before getting in line for immigration.  I got on the ship just 10 minutes before on ship time and there was still a huge line of people behind be.  Last I have heard there were at least 40 people that got dock time.

            Singapore was a very interesting place.  I really wish I had some more time to look around.  I have heard they had some interesting laws there…  You get fined for spitting, smoking, bringing a certain kind of fruit on the subway, and having gum, among other things.  It was really clean, though.  Hopefully I can go back some day and visit the awesome revolving restaurant.