Sun 29 Apr 2007
Just south across Singapore’s harbor is the beachy-island getaway of Sentosa. Locals come over on weekends to have some fun and sun. You can get across on a ferry, cable car, or I took the new Sentosa Express monorail. In less than five
minutes I was out of the city center and on an island paradise. It’s an idyllic resort island with beautiful white sand beaches, resorts, bars, and fun attractions for the whole family. Admission to the island is just $3 and that also gives you free rides on Sentosa’s trams and buses. I actually walked the length of the whole island, but the tram is nice to get you from one end to the other.
For a Sunday and for a big city like Singapore, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the ‘less than crowded’ beaches that I found. After recently being in Thailand where it was packed sweaty butt to butt, this was a nice change of pace. Plus, as expected, everything was squeaky clean and had that perfect landscaped, brick pavers, Disney kind of shine.
Here, Asia’s tallest observatory tower, the sky tower, shoots up 131 meters above sea level to give you amazing 360 degree views of the Singapore skyline and harbor. I walked up a hill just past the tower and decided to take the luge cart ride down. I haven’t done this since the Alpine Slide at Action Park in New Jersey. It was a fun ride down a curvy lane in a plastic sled with wheels.
Once at the bottom, I paid a visit to Underwater World. For $15 you get to walk through a 100 meter long acrylic tunnel
that snakes through two large underwater tanks where sharks dart all around you, stingrays laugh at you, and immensely huge tropical fish flit about. It was pretty cool to see, but the smelly tourists crowding through the lukewarm tunnel was another story.
I was amazed at all the man-made beaches here which were originally created all by
imported white sand. I ended up hanging out at KM8, one of the few cool outdoor bars here and took in the warm sunset over the South China Sea where, of course, several bridal couples were posing for their ‘perfect’ wedding day photos.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Ahhh, sweet memories of Action Park where you never were quite sure if you'd come out alive! Unfortunately, the park earned itself a pretty poor reputation in safety. But, that alpine slide was alot of fun!! That underwater world sounded very cool – complete with the smell of "fishy people!"
May 9th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Sounds fabulous, except the smelly tunnel part. From the pictures, this place looks like a Carribean type of place. I hope you didn't spit out any gum on the imported white sand beach. My mind won't rest concerning my buddy getting caned until you get to your next destination. So far, you seem to be the best behaved tourist on the face of the Earth. On the flipside, being in such a sparkling clean place is probably a nice break from some of the less hygenic places.