DAY 50 -  Singapore, Singapore   On our own!

February 16, 2024

Having visited and enjoyed Singapore on our last cruise segment, we felt comfortable going out on our own. It was such a clean, well organized city with lots of taxis and most everything in English, we thought it would be great fun.

Our first stop was to be the two glass covered Arboretum/Garden indoor domes that we saw while on the Singapore Flyer. We had also been asked by some friends to pick up some Botanical Garden tea for them while we were there.  Little did we know that these are two different places! So after our taxi ride seemed a bit longer than we thought it would be, we entered the Botanical Garden and went right to the gift shop to pick up some tea...and some more teas...and a tea set...and a few other nice items.  We left the shop and started looking for the domes - until we realized our mistake. They are two separate places several miles apart.  The Botanical Gardens was a park originally built in the late 1800's that had a very special indoor Orchid greenhouse.  After enjoying the free outdoor park, we found the relatively small Orchid Garden. To be honest, we had avoided going to any gardens on this trip. But what a beautiful surprise!  We could not stop taking pictures!!


























This one is called ladies' slipper




So carrying our recent purchases, we hopped on a second taxi to go to the spot we thought we were originally going to go to, the Gardens by the Bay.  An indoor arboretum and garden - two domed structures with a rain forest in one and international gardens in the other.




















A quick lunch at the local Shake Shack gave us a taste of home!





Then off to Little India for some more shopping...we were told that Singapore is the best pace after India to buy some of the things we missed in India.
We also bought another suitcase for all of our souvenirs to ship home after the cruise.


We then took another taxi to the big mall.....for some shoe shopping.
But afterwards we could not find a taxi there to take us back to the ship,  So we started walking to find another taxi stand, and found our missing stop from all our time in Singapore, the Raffles Hotel...famous for inventing the Singapore Sling. So  we decided to carry our suitcase upstairs to the Long Bar....and all we found was a long line!  Turns out they charge about $30 for each drink...and they are not even that good!  So we went back to the ship and sat by the pool with a couple of rounds of wonderful tasting Singapore Slings.  I think it still counts!





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