Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Singapore Sling tour: Day 2 Amongst the Orchids



By the numbers

17,527 steps

13.98 steps

 

Last night as I was writing my blog, I was crashing and hitting the sleep wagon pretty hard. Today I was refreshed and ready to roll for another day. I must have really needed the sleep as I was wanting to take off today. The plan was to visit the Orchid garden at the Botanic Gardens. I had seen it last time I was over here and was wanting to visit it with mum as it would be pretty much interesting. We both got moving as we were going to be dropped off after meeting with our friend Dawn, who also wanted to check it out.

We had a quick breakfast and met Dawn, who got a grabcar for us to get to the gardens. Last time I had caught the train so it wasn’t that bad. The traffic looked pretty busy, but that could be Singapore on a normal day. It could also be something Singaporian not to post the fuel prices so when you pull into the servo you have no choice. It was great being dropped off out the front and being able to walk in. Mum got a shock when she seen her first squirrel that ran out in front of us and then proceeded to act like it was twitching on drugs. A nearby sign did say there were monkeys along with the otters that were around. Also a fine if you feed them, so you don’t really want to do that.

 

The National Orchid Garden houses many Orchids and I soon found out just how many. The heat outside was constantly muggy, but not overly that we would be too uncomfortable. Mum was pointing out the many different Orchids to Dawn while I was the one taking photos, although it was interesting watching several people with camera equipment floating around and taking photos. One of the flowers I never knew about was a black Orchid that I would have dismissed as nothing. One part had celebrity Orchids, which were named after a variety of people from royalty in Europe and Asia to many politicians including Australia and New Zealand. We got to see many Orchids from around the world including some from Australia. A coolhouse that was temperature controlled was great to wander through fort a little while as it wasn’t hot like the outside, and there were plenty of flowers. It was enjoyable just to relax instead of trying to rush from location to location as I tend to do. Once we were done in the Orchid garden, we looked through the gift shop before calling it time at the Botanic gardens as it was warm outside and we were going to look at sandals for mum on Orchard Road.

 

We were heading for the Takashimaya building that was a Japanese store. It had designer everything and Dawn had dropped us off to go looking. I had a bookshop on the top floor I wanted to see. It is the flagstore in the country, so I can understand why it would be so big. Deciding before we went hunting that getting food would be a good idea. We both were not sure what we wanted as we looked at the different Japanese style foods. I found crustless sandwiches and then ended up in a supermarket called Cold Storage. I grabbed a Bento box mainly as I didn’t want to keep wandering around. Mum found a fruit salad that she would eat. Looking for a seat was the next big thing, but we found one. I ate with my hands as I never had utensils and never asked as we used the self service machines. We soon found the prices to the sandals to be out of our range so would be happy to look in a smaller mall. We soon found ourselves wandering through the bookstore. I knew it was huge and there were books I was looking for. I ended up with several on Singapore history, and then manga as they just appeared. I left a few things alone as I didn’t have the room in my bag for more books. My bag was actually full enough that I couldn’t fit several things in.

 

I wanted to take a pic of mum outside the Cartier watch shop, but she didn’t want to. The Ion building was huge and we went there for the train back to our home base. Once we were back in Novena, we ended up in a shop to get some sandals at the fraction of the price for the ones on Orchard road. I surprised mum when we popped out of a different part of the shopping centre, and we still havnt been to the upper floors yet. We walked back and had a little rest before walking down the road to get some food for dinner. We ended up in a small Thai food restaurant with a roll that was really nice. The lady had laughed when we didn’t want it too hot and as a normal hot. Can imagine the kick from the chilli. Exploring the general area was a great idea and one we should do often.

 

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