29th May

Singapore, Partly Cloudy, Temp 29C. No rain.

Breakfast in our cabin today as we prepare to go ashore. Our tour today was an independent one to the Gardens By The Bay. We went from the ship by taxis as Princess now dock at the new Marina Bay terminal which is yet to get decent public transport, it is still being developed. I am sure most of you have seen pictures of Gardens By The Bay. It is the area where those very tall imitation tree arrangements are. We took a shuttle trolley from the entrance which gave us a tuor of the whole park with an audio commentary. It was a good way to appreciate the size of the complex. As well as the tall super trees, there are numerous garden rooms and 2 very large domed buildings both of which are air-conditioned. One is called the Flower Dome with plants from Mediterranean and Subtropical regions. The other one is the Cloud Forest with plants from the cool-moist tropical regions. It has a 35metre man made mountain and waterfall. There is also a sky walkway inside which winds around the top of the dome giving spectacular views of the gardens below. Extensive use is made of vertical gardens with lots of orchids and other exotic plants. To do justice to the whole garden you would need more than a day so we have left something to do at another time. As we walked around the sky walk in the Cloud Forest we were surprised to meet Wal McDonald and Kay from our village. They are on their way back from doing a River Cruise  with Debbie  our travel agent and had been staying in Singapore for a few days.

Very close to the Gardens By The Bay is the very distinctive Marina Bay Sands Hotel, this is the hotel which has slopping sides and has what appears to be boat spanning the top of the 2 towers. The is a walkway from the gardens to the hotel so we went across there to get something to eat and to use their free WiFi. We returned to the ship in time for sailing at 4.30pm. but the terminal is so new even the taxis driver had trouble finding his way there.

The entertainment tonight in the Princess Theatre was Ashley Carruthers, an Australian pianist who was fantastic. I don’t know where he has been hiding because we had never heard of him but he is very good. He also holds the record for being the fastest piano player in the world. He will be performing again in a couple of nights and we will definitely be there. This is my last night in the seventies so I think I will go to bed.