Singapore: Marina Bay and the Singapore Flyer

The Singapore Flyer

Having completed our walk around the wonderful Gardens by the Bay, we decided we just had to experience the Singapore Flyer. It is Singapore's answer to the London Eye, which when erected in 1999 was the world's tallest Ferris Wheel. The flyer overtook the Star of Nanchang which had eclipsed the London Eye, but was in turn beaten by the High Roller in Las Vegas. The wheel initially rotated in a counter-clockwise direction when viewed from Marina Centre, but on 4 August 2008 this was reversed on the advice of Feng shui masters (thank you Wikipedia).

As we approached the Singapore River, it became clear that the Flyer sat on top of a three storey building, which presumably helped its claims to be tallest.

The river is crossed by two massive highways, but as we headed along the bank we spotted a footbridge on their far side. This turned out to be the wonderful Helix Bridge completed in 2010 (seen more clearly in an aerial photo later on).

As we walked across there was a fine view across the reservoir to the wonderful Esplanade: Theatres on the Bay (but what a clumsy name!), which we had first seen on our walk around the Colonial District.

As we got further across, there was a great view back towards the extraordinary ArtScience Museum, 2011, by Moshe Safdie. It resembles a lotus flower.

Just beyond it are the towers of the Central Business District (CBD).

On the other side we made our way through the levels and corridors of the Singapore Flyer building - designed presumably to handle great queues of people. Happily, it was not busy so we were soon joining a nearly empty pod.

There was soon as great view out to sea where an astonishing number of ships were moored.

There was a great view down over Esplanade: Theatres on the Bay, with the Colonial District and endless skyscrapers behind. The real Singapore!

Further up, the Art Science Museum and the CBD dominated the view. The current dock area can be seen to the left of the CBD and it is planned for them to be moved to accommodate its expansion.

Finally, there was a great view of the Helix Bridge.

Conditions: hot, humid and quite cloudy. The typical weather we have experienced during our visit.

Distance: perhaps a mile from Gardens by the Bay.

Rating: 5 stars. A great experience, definitely best done at the end of our stay because we understood more about what we were seeing. It made me want to visit the London Eye.

Singapore: Gardens by the Bay

The Super Trees

Gardens by the Bay is number 1 out of 786 things to do in Singapore according to Tripadvisor and so it seemed the perfect thing to do on our last full day. The Gardens were built on reclaimed land next  to the Marina Reservoir and opened in 2012. According to Singapore's Infopedia, "the Gardens were conceptualised in 2003 as a key component of the government’s City in a Garden vision, which evolved from Singapore’s reputation as a Garden City". Singapore is quite green, there are trees and bushes everywhere, but it is also heavily urbanised (it is the third most densely populated country after Macao and Monaco), so this is a truly inspiring concept.

We walked from the Bayfront MRT station and emerged onto the Dragonfly Bridge over the Dragonfly Lake. To the left there was a fine view towards the Singapore Flyer, three of the Supertrees (of which more shortly) and the Flower Dome.

We made our way to the main Supertree grove and this was our first view, including the inviting walkway.

At the grove your attention is drawn upwards to these astonishing structures. "The tallest steel-framed concrete structure [i.e. Supertree] standing at 50 m and the shortest at 25 m. Each Supertree is covered with nearly 163,000 plants of more than 200 species and varieties, including bromeliads, orchids and tropical flowering climbers. The Supertrees, inspired by the giant trees of the rainforest, also function as exhaust vents for the conservatories and as dining spaces, and 11 of them have environmentally-friendly features such as solar panels and water harvesters" (from
Infopedia).

This is the view from the start of the elevated walkway.

And these are some of the thousands of plants growing up the structure.

Here is the Marina Bands Sands hotel, an extraordinary structure, which appears to be three towers with a ship on top. Apparently there is an infinity pool up there.

There were some great views downwards as well. It's rare to be able to look down into a palm!

After the excitement of the astonishing Supertrees we headed towards the south end of the Gardens where I had read there was a butterfly garden, passing ion the way Marc Quinn's sculpture Planet, which depicts his 7 month old son.

We reached the end of the Dragonfly Lake ...

... and located the Butterfly Garden, where I quickly spotted a Blue Glassy Tiger (Ideopsis vulgaris).

Soon there was also a male Blue Pansy (Junonia orithya) ...

... and a female. Female dimorphism is quite common, but it seems rare for the alternate form to be equally beautiful.

Another first was a Tawny Coster (Acraea terpsicore) 

 But perhaps the most striking of all was this Peacock Pansy (Junonia almana) seen near the entrance on the way out.

Conditions: cloudy at first, becoming brighter.

Distance: a couple of miles.

Rating: 5 stars. Memorable! A really great experience - and some lovely butterflies.