Before I arrived in Singapore, friends who had recently been in Singapore told me about several things that I had to see and/or do while I was in town. The two things that I heard about most often were the Singapore Flyer and the Night Safari. On my first full day in Singapore, I decided to go to the Singapore Flyer.
For those who don’t know, the Singapore Flyer is a huge ferris wheel. Well, it’s a little more than that. According to plaques and signs all around the wheel, it proclaims itself to be the world’s largest observation wheel. I can’t say that I have any evidence to the contrary.
Looking at the map of Singapore that I had, it appeared that the Flyer was about two miles away from my hotel, so I decided to walk to the Flyer to get a better look around the city. Normally, it would only have taken about forty minutes, but Singapore is quite warm. In addition, it’s really humid. I think that each day that I was in Singapore, if it wasn’t raining, it was about 90 degrees with humidity hovering about 80 percent. It was fairly uncomfortable if you were out in it for a while. Fortunately, however, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Singapore is about 60% malls, so whenever you get too hot, you can drop in and get some ice coffee or just otherwise cool off. Also, for the first time since I hit town, it wasn’t raining. With this in mind, it took me around an hour to get to the Flyer in the heat.
When I arrived, I purchased a ticket for the wheel. I don’t recall how much it was, but I recall that it was kind of expensive, just like everything else in Singapore. Also, it wasn’t very busy. Each of the cages on the Flyer has a capacity of 28 people, but I didn’t see more than five or six in any of them. I got on and went around. The entire trip took about a half hour. It actually was pretty interesting. You are provided with great views of Singapore as well as being able to look into Malaysia and Indonesia, though those views from the Flyer weren’t nearly as impressive. There is some really interesting architecture in Singapore but I think the thing that caught my attention the most was the floating soccer field, a picture of which I believe I put in my last post. Another thing that jumps out at you is all of the cranes, signifying all of the construction that is still going on in Singapore, even in a time in which it has slowed in most other places.
After the Flyer, I went to a mall for some free wifi and then went back to my hotel to take a nap. The big event for the evening was to meet up with a friend that I used to work with and her husband. I hadn’t seen her since we both quit our jobs within a week or so of each other and was looking forward to catching up. I met up with her husband first and then we all met up in a restaurant/bar section of Orchard Street, where I had been the night before with other friends. In addition to catching up, we tried a lot of different foods at dinner and then went for a beer, during which I learned a lot about Singapore and reaffirmed my belief that quitting my job was the best thing that I had ever done for my own peace of mind. I had a great time and we discussed meeting up again before I left Singapore. That never happened, but it was great to see them nonetheless.
That was pretty much it for the first day. Next up was Chinatown and the Night Safari. We’ll get to those next time.
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