Gardens by the Bay

in Singapore

We made a second Zwischenstopp through Singapore in order to fly out of Indonesia, and decided to actually stay a couple nights since our time had been so short on the way to Bali.

Our first night we just hung out at Betel Box, a great backpackers' hostel in between the airport and downtown.

The next day, we decided to inflict some mega-tourism on ourselves and hung out in the Bugis area where there are many popular malls and bazaars. It was fun walking up and down the tight lanes of merchandise, trying on items until we got shooed away, but after a time we got bored and went back to the hostel for a nap.

Once night fell, we took back to the streets in search of a popular activity: one of the many light shows offered nightly in Singapore. We'd heard that Gardens by the Bay was a good one, so we showed up with seconds to spare and enjoyed the short, very impressive display accompanied by music.

The park has about 20 so-called "super trees" which have live vegetation on the trunks, but solar panels on top. There are a couple pedestrian bridges linking some of the super trees together and it was a really dramatic park to impress all the visitors that gather each night.

After that we went and saw a second show involving water misters, projectors, and lasers. It was also fun, but we really preferred the tree displays. Both shows were totally free to the public.

It was a fun, cheap evening!