The City in the Garden

by Sarah Ann
for Wednesday, July 31st

Today we went to the botanical gardens. The botanical garden is this giant garden complex. It is used today for research and it is Singapore's only UNESCO World Heritage site. There were different gardens all with their own feel. Singapore is a very green city. When you use the bathroom, there will be signs about how to reduce water usage and plants are growing up the sides of buildings. Singapore has an ideal to be a "city in the garden". The botanical garden is just one effort that helps to reach this ideal. First, we went to a garden that was really just the natural rain forest. Then we went to the National Orchid Garden. It had lots of different kind of orchids including hybrid ones they invented. It was really pretty and probably our favorite garden. We also visited a ginger garden and a few other I don't remember the names of. When we did the treetop walk, we all enjoyed resting in a net that overhangs the trees. While we were there, we saw a group of people all doing this yoga-ish-thing together. This is not uncommon in Singapore, and I also remember seeing it a lot when we were in China. Often you will see a huge group of people all dancing in a park together. Overall, the gardens were really pretty, but by the end, we were all hot and ready for some AC.

inside the National Orchid Gardens

In the Botanical Gardens. We get wheelchairs for me when possible because Severs makes my feet hurt a lot when we walk so much

We were also all hungry. We decided to go to Orchard Road for lunch. Orchard Road is a road that has a ton of malls. The outsides looked really modern and cool. We found a food court we ate at. When we were in Thailand, Taylor ate Pad Thai for every meal (no exaggeration-- that's what he actually did), so he was excited when he found a place he could eat Pad Thai at. Once he got it, he was disappointed that it was quite bland, so he decided to mix in a seasoning that came with it. Turns out, the seasoning was super spicy. Taylor only ate a few bites, but it was enough to make his eyes water and nose run. He didn't eat much more of that!

Orchard Road - where the big, fancy Singapore malls are

posing outside Ion Orchard Mall

We went home for a bit. At 3:30, my dad came and we went to the River Safari while my mom stayed home to work. When we got our tickets for the zoo and night safari, the river safari was included, along with a bird park we will do tomorrow. The river safari was basically a zoo but with animals that depend on rivers. It was a big loop you walked around with different exhibits organized by what rivers they were from. Of course, we started out going the wrong way. We saw manatees, catfish, piranhas, electric eels, alligators, turtles, and lots more! I really enjoyed learning about all of them. One of our favorite exhibits was the panda one. The river safari also has boat rides, and we had wanted to do the Amazon River quest. It was 5:55 when we realized that it closed at 6:00. We ran to the station, bought our tickets at 6:00, and made a boat ride. It was designed to be sort of like a roller coaster, except it moved slow. We all really liked it. We saw lots of monkeys, along with tapirs, anteaters, and other animals. We got a little bit wet!

The river safari was about to close, so we left and headed to a mall by our house to eat. We went to a Hong Kong restaurant. For dessert, we ordered mango shaved ice. It ended up being huge!

Tomorrow is our last day in Singapore before we move on to Sri Lanka. I wanted to mention a few things about Singapore that we haven't mentioned yet. One is that most people have an accent, even if they have spoken English all their life. This is known as "Singlish"-- Singaporean English, and also shows in the style they talk. For example, they will often say statements and then add on "yes?" to make it a question. I also haven't seen a single homeless person the whole time I've been here, and I already mentioned that it is very green. Singapore also has a lot of cultures all mixed into one country. For example, at the food court, Taylor ate Pat Thai, Christian ate Chinese dumplings, while my mom ate food from Indonesia.