Singapore ŋkeke 2 lia

Day 2 in Singapore. Oh guys, what should we tell you? Day 2 made everything right again. We wandered around the city for nearly 13 km and were totally impressed. Singapore is truly modern, friendly, and impressive.

We left the ship early and were already in the subway at 8:30 am with our day ticket :D. After changing trains once in Chinatown, we arrived at our destination - Bayfront.

We got off directly at the Marina Bay Shopping Center and were rewarded with a magnificent panoramic view of the skyline. Fortunately, we were early, firstly because there weren't many people yet and secondly, it wasn't as hot.

Then we walked around a big round, past the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, the museum, over a bridge made of fancy steel pipes? :D, past the stadium towards the Merlion, the symbol of Singapore. There was already quite a bit going on when we arrived. On the way, since we had forgotten to bring our water bottles, we bought a watermelon drink, very refreshing, 0.3 liters for 8 Singapore dollars. I don't know the exact exchange rate, but it was around 6 euros.

When we arrived at the Merlion, we replenished our stock of water bottles (for 3 Singapore dollars) and then went back to the shopping center. It took us about 3.5 hours for the round trip.

On the ship, we had lunch. There was an Asian buffet, which we also know from home. You choose the food, in raw form, fish, meat, vegetables, etc., and then get it freshly prepared in the wok. In front of the buffet, there was also a huge pan of fried calamari... xD. Lisi brought a small portion and I stole one. Delicious, I've never eaten such tender calamari rings. When Lisi came back to the table with her food, I raved about how tender the calamari were. Then she started eating and was also impressed. However, it was confusing when a woman walked by the table and called out to her husband that she would get some onion rings. MMMMHHH?!?! Well, it turns out that they weren't the tenderest calamari for us, but simply onion rings. Haha. Yes, we had a great time all day laughing at our refined taste buds.

At 6 pm, our tour "Singapore Superlatives" started, which we had booked through AIDA.

There were 39 of us and our tour guide's name was Charly. It was difficult to understand his German as he probably never lived in a German-speaking country.

Our first stop was the "Gardens by the Bay", two huge glass dome houses. One is the "Flower Dome" where you can admire plants and flowers from all over the world, the other is the "Cloud Forest Dome", a tropical house with a 54m high artificial waterfall. We had 1 hour and 15 minutes here and just let the surroundings sink in. When we came out, it was already dark and the "Supertrees" were already lit up, a fantastic sight.

Unfortunately, Charly didn't manage to collect all the people and so we continued with only 38 instead of 39 people. (But the lady also made it back to the ship).

Next, we went to Clarke Quay where we took a very short bumboat ride across the Singapore River, unfortunately, the fun lasted less than 20 minutes.

Then finally came my highlight, the ride up to the 56th floor of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Unfortunately, Charly was completely unorganized and we only had so little time that we were only on the visitor platform for 10 minutes. The view over the illuminated Singapore was AMAZING!

Our conclusion from this day: Singapore can definitely be explored on your own, probably even more relaxed than with 37 other people.

Singapore, it was great with you. Now a sea day awaits us before we arrive in Penang (Malaysia).