Hi all,
Last night, we met Josh and his wife at a bar in Clarke Quay. Josh works for
the serviced apartment company that owns the apartment we are staying in. He
showed us around the apartment and pool on our first day and was lovely. It was
really nice chatting with he and his wife. Then, we had Indian for dinner at a
restaurant at Boat Quay. The food and drinks were delicious. Finally, we headed
north of the river to the Victoria Concert Hall, National Gallery and the Old
Parliament building. Here there was a festival running called ‘Light Tonight’
that only started a few days ago. There were lots of projections onto buildings
accompanied by music. One involved high rise apartment facades being blended
with iconic Singapore buildings. Another was about a ballerina and a violinist.
They were fantastic and some of the best I’ve seen. We really enjoyed watching
them and were lucky to catch the festival.
We slept really well, and then got up and caught the train to the Botanic Gardens.
The gardens here are huge. We started from the northern end and made our way
down. We enjoyed a short exhibition about durians, where we learned that there
are actually 27-30 types of durians. We also learned that many crops were
trialled back in the day at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, including rubber
trees that ended up being quite prosperous due to rubber being required for car
tyres. We enjoyed a cold brewed tea at the gardens shop which was very refreshing.
Then we headed to the best part of the gardens – the National Orchid Garden. I
had very fond memories of seeing the beautiful orchids here in 2012, and it was
even better this time. Part way through our visit we ran into a woman from
Virginia, USA, who was visiting here in January 2020 to visit her daughter who
lives here. She ended up getting stuck here for five months and told us that in
2020 when she was here, the orchid garden was closed to a huge upgrade. There
were lots more inside sections this time including a ‘Cool House’ that had the
most amazing flowers I’ve ever seen, which must have been added then. There
were strands and strands of beautifully coloured orchids in here, everywhere
you looked. Throughout the whole gardens we saw every colour possible, so many
shapes and sizes. All so beautiful. Orchids are one of my favourite flowers so
I was delighted and took a lot of photos. I apologise in advance for how many
there are to look through below, but if you like orchids, you are in for a treat!!
Burkill Hall, a former Anglo Malay plantation residence in the National Orchid
Garden, had a short display that explained the orchid family is the second
largest family of flowering plants in the world. It is estimated that 10% of
all species of flowering plants are orchids. This particular garden opened in
1995, however, the hybridisation programme they run here (to create new and
interesting types of orchids) began in 1956. There are different orchids that
have been created for different dignitaries and celebrities. Us and the lady
from the USA were happy there wasn’t a Trump orchid, but there was a Biden and
Obama one. We joked that if there were to be a Trump orchid it would have to be
ugly and orange!
The photos will mostly do the talking for the orchid garden, but I will say
that we had a wonderful time and spent about two hours there. The flowers were
probably the prettiest and largest collection I will ever see in my life. We
then checked out the Bandstand in the Botanic Gardens that was erected in 1930,
before heading to Orchard Road. By this stage we were very hot and sweaty!!
Orchard Road is a big fancy shopping street, full of Gucci, Louis Vuitton etc
etc. Not our scene, but what was our scene was the food court in the Ion shopping
centre on basement level four. Shopping centres in Singapore have wonderful
food courts, with heaps of cheap options for Asian style food. Mum, Dad and I
shared Hainanese chicken (a Singaporean specialty), honey soy chicken noodles
and pad Thai. We also each had a juice, mine was watermelon yoghurt and was
delicious. We then shared a mango and sticky rice for dessert. All of that all up cost us $40. Perfect!
We caught the train back and are now chilling out in the apartment. I’m going
to swim and relax by the pool for a couple of hours soon, before we meet my
friend Vijay for dinner and drinks. Tonight is our final night, but I will post
a blog tomorrow at the airport as we don’t depart until 9.30pm on Wednesday.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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