Thursday, February 17, 2005


"The Durian" Singapore's giant bug-eyed art gallery and art exhibition hall. Posted by Hello

The habourfront park near the Art Gallery is filled with these giant black statues of naked fat people in a vareity of poses (including having sex). I'm told there is also a gallery of the artist's paintings of fat people someplace in this area as well, but managed to miss them. Not on my list of regrets. Posted by Hello

This is the front of a Duckboat, an amphibious tour craft use to tour the habourfront. (As opposed to the docks, which are on the other side of downtown.)  Posted by Hello

The only picture from the Night Safari that Connie and I went to the first night in Singapore. It's basically a zoo filled with nocternal animals which are lured into certain viewing areas by regular feedings so the tourists can see them. Some of the animals are really amazing, I saw a deer the size of a guinea pig, and a guinea pig (Capybara) the size of a small deer! This is the only picture because the animals are scared by flash photography, so none is allowed inside the park. Posted by Hello

Monday we went to Sentosa Island, a popular tourist spot and the former military base because it controls the only entry point to the harbour from sea. Unfortunately the guns were facing seaward when the Japanese attacked from shore, which didn't help Singapore much, and it fell into Japanese hands for about 3.5 years of WWII. Posted by Hello

Singapore is one of the world's busiest ports, and a huge part of the harbourfront is dedicated to shipping. Those cranes are gigantic, and there must be over a hundred thousand cargo containers scattered about the island. Posted by Hello

The Habourfront center, and the road is a long way down...(This picture was taken once Connie calmed Rob down and convinced him they weren't about to plunge to their deaths.) Posted by Hello

The Peeeeeeaaace Booooaaattt, promising fun and adventure for everyone. In this case doing it by being a floating casino that travels between Singapore and some distant port and bringing people together through the common cause of gambling. Posted by Hello

Riding our way to the relay post. When we reached the post the car suddenly stopped and a voice came on telling us to be calm and that "service would resume soon". Not something you want to hear while hanging several hundred meters in the air. Service did resume after about 3 or 4 minutes, I suspect some tourist hit a panick button somewhere on the system because their kid got their foot stuck in the door. Posted by Hello

Sentosa island has an ancient style Chinese village on it that is run-down (one of the only run-down things in Singapore) and where tourists aren't allowed from what I can tell. Posted by Hello

Sentosa is surrounded by "double beaches" on the sideside which you can see in the background, the shore beaches are protected by crescent shaped islands which also have their own beaches. You can also see the Sentosa Merlion and the Sentosa Art Gallery in the picture. Posted by Hello

Robyn and Connie having just left the Sentosa Cinemania Ride-Show, one of those 3-d theatres where the audience sits in cars and gets thrown around. In this case the rides were the points of view of a toy slot-race and a toy rollercoaster. Very creative but also very jarring.  Posted by Hello

Robyn and Conne in the middle of the flower garden with the Sentosa Merlion in the background. The symbol of Singapore, there are at least two Merlions, one here and one at the city harbourfront. Posted by Hello

In the flower garden was this ugly dragon statue, so of course I had to take a picture of it!  Posted by Hello

One of the rarest animals in the world, the Pink Dolphin is born gunmetal gray but slowly turns light gray and then pink as it gets older. There are only a handful of them in the world, and this park has the only ones in captivity. (Having them doing tricks for their dinner, of course...) Posted by Hello

The entrance to what Connie's mother referred to as "probably the world's cleanest Chinatown" when she saw the pictures, and she's right. At least some of these are the decorations for the giant Chinese New Year party the week before waiting to be taken down. Posted by Hello

An old-style street in what is perhaps the world's cleanest Chinatown. You will notice the lack of cars on the road, in Singapore I'm told that there are two types of license plates: ones that let you drive downtown, and ones that limit you to outside of it.  Posted by Hello

Clark Quay may not look like much in this picture, but it's a major landmark on the riverfront. It's basically a collection of restaurants on the riverside, one of several such places. All of them catering to tourists and quite romantic at night. Posted by Hello

Connie and I next went to Ju Rong Bird Park (Aviary) where they have hundreds of different types of birds from around the world, such as these colourful parrots. Posted by Hello

A close up of another pair of lovebirds. ^_^ Posted by Hello