Life of a Numbnut

Trip to Singapore, Sentosa Island (03-11-2005)

This is so sad, it's already 2006 and I'm writing about events in 2005. It's ok, I know Singapore wouldn't mind, I'm advertising for Singapore for free after all. :D

Basically, you can't finish visiting all the places in Sentosa Island in one day's time. That's impossible, if you want to enjoy everything there properly. So I only visited selected places this time. The first place we went to was the Siloso Beach. The beach was, like any other parts of Singapore, picture perfect. The first thing that came to my mind was,"Wow, this is where directors will wanna film their movies at." It was clean, and beautiful, with nice little huts along the beach. We spent some time walking around, munching snacks and taking pictures, enjoying the breeze at the seaside. After that, we headed over to Delifrance, which was nearby. Breakfast time! Munch munch! Just like any other resorts, the price of the food differs from the normal price. Had to dish out a few extra dollars for a breakfast set. I like to drink soup, so I was looking forward to it, but when she gave me the soup, I went,"What the heck?!" Instead of your usual nice bowl of hot soup, the soup was served in a small polystyrene cup! ARGH! We spent another good one hour just munching there (who on earth will go to an entertainment place, just to eat and eat and eat?). http://www.sentosa.com.sg


Welcome to Siloso Beach!


Searching for shells...or picking up sticks?

Finally, my mom, sis, two other cousins and I went to the Underwater World, leaving the rest of the adults to continue munching and drinking coffee at Delifrance. Before entering, we participated in the "feed the turtles" session. I think it was $2.00 for a cup of turtle food, which consisted of squid, cabbage and fish. They also provided us with plastic gloves so that we don't smell like seafood ourselves. Boy, those turtles were really gluttons! I don think it'll be a good time to fall into the huge pond at that time…

After that, we entered the Underwater World. The first thing we saw was this uh, I've forgotten the name, I think it's something like "Touch Pond" or "Touch Tank". Ah, whatever. Basically, we can touch those fishes and sea creatures n that tank. I was trying to touch this dog faced fish, but failed (coward lah). Those who wants to view the video can get it from me.

I didn't know that it was the “CRABS – The Unusual Suspects!” exhibition when I was there. No wonder there were so many crabs! I never knew that there were so many different kinds of crabs out there. There was one crab that I can never forget. When I first saw its legs, I thought that it was part of a rock. Then my mom exclaimed loudly and pointed at the "rock" . Only then did I realize what it was and all I could say at that time was "WHAT THE…?!" It was the Giant Japanese Spider Crab and until now, I'm still wondering if it could be eaten. Then, I saw later on a REALLY tiny spider crab which is not worth eating at all. Apparently, there were Coconut crabs there as well, but I don't remember seeing it otherwise I will surely remember. I did see them at another place called D-Paradise in Malacca though. They called it Robber Crabs, but I think they are the same, they look the same and they eat coconuts. I learnt about this crab from a manga called GTO (excellent manga), the mangaka drew a silly comic out of this crab at the back of one of the manga for fun. I think it's supposed to be delicious.


The Giant Japanese Spider Crab. It's the largest, I think.


Compared to this really tiny spider crab circled in green.


Eeee...dunno what crab this is. So hairy.

Another thing that caught my attention was the small sea creatures that glows in the dark. Really pretty! They were like fairies floating about. Video of them can be requested from me. Then, we went onto the travelator (is that how u spell it?) that takes us one big round in the tunnel built underwater where we can view the sea inhibitants in their "natural" habitat. Good for those who can't swim. There were small sharks, fishes that we eat, fishes that we don't eat, fishes of all sizes, ray fishes (not sure if there were sting-rays though), turtles, 3-D image of the great white shark (pity it's not the real one, the fake one was frightening enough as they put it around the corner) and Gracie, the resident dugong. It was hard to take pictures in here. It was too dark without the flash, and when the flash was on, the glass reflected the light. So there were only videos of it, and video taken by my camera ain't that great. We saw a guy (or girl?) in scuba diving suit cleaning the display items on the seabed. After two rounds of that, we continued looking at other weird sea creatures. The Sea Horse and Sea Dragons were magnificent, the colours were odd. Sometimes, the real stuff looks even more fake than the fake ones (does this sentence make any sense at all?). http://www.underwaterworld.com.sg


Glow in the dark tiny jelly fishes.


It's really dark in here.

Right after that, we rushed off to Fort Siloso located on what was called back then "Mount Siloso". At the foot of the hill, there was a station for us visitors to wait for a small bus to take us up the hill. On the ride up, they will lecture tell us about the history of Fort Siloso (more information here http://creativeclassroom.starhub.com/fortsiloso/index.asp). But of course, My aunt, uncle, sister and I refused. We had enough of history lessons. We wants this holiday to be free of history lessons. My youngest cousin was with us too, but she does not know the horrors of learning history yet. So, up we went, on foot. After all, nearby only waaaaat, right? RIGHT! It was near. The hill was steep. Maybe history lessons on a bus ride up wasn't such a bad idea. We reached the nearest building. In there, there's a wax figure of a soldier from the past standing at attention in front of a desk facing his superior and the chair at the desk was empty. So, I filled in that space :D



Then, the next building exhibits things from the Japanese Occupation period. Apparently, locals who can speak Japanese were given better treatment, so some locals make the effort to attend classes. Not fair! Free Japanese classes! Well, I think free lah. But I don't envy the hardship they have to go through during wartimes. Not at all. Then, there was also the Surrender Chambers where, according to the brochure, "Life-sized waxwork models re-enact the epic British surrender in 1942 and the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945. Wartime documentary films of both events let you re-live the drama as it unfolded". Well, they sure did try to make it life like. Even the dolls have different heights. The Scottish (or was it Irish?) marine soldiers were taller and bigger than the British marine soldiers. Most of the Japanese soldiers were, needless to say, shorter than the westerners. I know, I know, the situation is different now, there are many tall asians now, such as Yao Ming. We also saw a life-size gun crew in action and heard the 6-inch canon going off. We didn't have time to visit the tunnels thoroughly. It was a pity, there were many interesting things to see in there. All I managed to see however, was a big black room. As I entered, my heart was thumping hard, wondering what to expect, when AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! My cheeky, mischevious cousin decided to give me a push forward to scare me. >.<


Surrender Chambers

Alas, it was almost time for the dolphin show! We ran down the hill and rushed to Dolphin Lagoon to watch the show. All along I was thinking, what's with them, using pink dolphins as mascots? Can't they give it a more realistic colour? But…as I said, sometimes, the real stuff looks more fake than the fake stuff (confused?). The dolphins were really pink! Unbelievable! They weren't entirely pink, they had grey pigmentations on their body. The proper name for them is Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins. Here's a picture of us with a Pink Dolphin called Jumbo.


Tight security around Jumbo.


Jumbo, the male pink dolphin.

Then, we were off to the next attraction, Images of Singapore, where visitors can experience how life was like in past. Wax figures and images showed how Singapore progressed as time passes by. The highlight of that walkthrough was when a guy used a FAKE W.C to do his small business! We meant to tell the staff about it (so that they can clean it before the whole place stinks) but totally forgotten about it by the time we came out. The most breathtaking event in Images of Singapore was the show on Singapore's four big businessmen of the past, I can't remember their names of the trading company's name. Something to do with Four Winds. It was a VERY high tech show (it seems like magic!), and for a moment I felt what Harry Potter felt in the first book. Anyway, I shall not spoil the fun for those who have not visited that place.


Images of Singapore

Exhausted, we left that place late in the evening. My only regret was that there were many other attractions that I did not get to visit and enjoy, such as The Flying Trapeze, Sentosa Luge, VolcanoLand and The Merlion. Perhaps one day, I will get to stay overnight there and enjoy all the attractions that Sentosa Island offers.


The Merlion Walk.

FIN!

Labels: Numbnut Explores the World

posted by Jonquina @ 10:32 PM