Day 2

My impromptu tour guide and I left early for the Botanical Gardens. It houses over 600,000 botanical specimens and the National Orchid Garden was beatiful. As it was saturday there were lots of tourists and locals jogging. We drove to Sentosa Island off the south coast, an artificial beach complete with ongoing construction work. I rode on the travellator at Underwater world, a moving walkway through the tanks and touched fish in the touch pool. I felt the urge to return to age 5 and unfortunately there was little time to see the Dolphin lagoon after having coffee overlooking the island. We took a sky ride to the resort and walked Palawan beach with both tourist and local families. Sgp is very family friendly, tourists less-child were few and far between. After a short ride back into town, I finally walked the famous Orchard road. It can only be described as shopping heaven. Women in Sgp are well dressed in individual sometimes quirky items. I stopped many times to stare at peoples' shoes or handbags, like a fashion vagabond. There is less trend following compared to the U.K. Designer brands line every shopping complex and believe me there are lots of them. Eating and shopping are big here. WARNING: If you like cheap clothes, bags, accesories or elecronics, do not visit Sgp. I missed the shuttle bus to the night safari in my hunt for bargains. After boarding a later bus to the zoo, I was taken on a 3.2 km tram ride from the Himalayan foothills to equitorial Africa (sales talk?). Hyenas, leopards, deer and liond wandered the night. The night safari has won so many tourism awards and it is very unique. The creatures of the nights show meant a 20 minute q and squashing 600 spectators into an open auditorium to watch a 30 minute show featuring owls and racoons. The announcer's persistent crowd-banter was pedantic and perhaps an condescending attempt to appeal to the children in the audience. In summary the tram ride was miles better than the night show where people were filing out before he show had ended. After boarding the last coach back to he city centre, I was exhausted.