Saturday! We were invited to a event for us 'younglings' from work for the coming Sunday, so we reshuffled our a little bit, bringing forward to Saturday...
Sentosa Day!! (Well, Sentosa Part II, for the others)
Today we headed over to Sentosa Island, to do everything else on the Island that ISN'T Universal Studios.
I've heard that some locals consider Sentosa to be purely a tourist centre - that the 'tax' for getting there via road, monorail or cable car has discouraged the residents from going too often. Which is a shame - Sentosa (ignoring a lot of human objects called 'attractions') is a rather pretty place.
Back to it: we covered a fair bit today - starting with
A Cable Car ride. Ha! You thought I'd be talking about the rides... :P (Not yet - soon)
I'd heard a little bit about this way to get to Sentosa - and decided to go on it. Overall, there's nothing OVERLY special about this - it's yet another cable car trip. However, during our time there, some of the cars had been decked out with the Angry Birds theme =).
Sentosa Day!! (Well, Sentosa Part II, for the others)
Today we headed over to Sentosa Island, to do everything else on the Island that ISN'T Universal Studios.
I've heard that some locals consider Sentosa to be purely a tourist centre - that the 'tax' for getting there via road, monorail or cable car has discouraged the residents from going too often. Which is a shame - Sentosa (ignoring a lot of human objects called 'attractions') is a rather pretty place.
Back to it: we covered a fair bit today - starting with
A Cable Car ride. Ha! You thought I'd be talking about the rides... :P (Not yet - soon)
I'd heard a little bit about this way to get to Sentosa - and decided to go on it. Overall, there's nothing OVERLY special about this - it's yet another cable car trip. However, during our time there, some of the cars had been decked out with the Angry Birds theme =).
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| Hard not to find your way there... |
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| Seeing Red... =P |
More boring details about the Cable car: it goes two ways - we boarded at HarbourFront and went straight to Sentosa. However, the same network goes all the way up to Mount Faber - which has almost nothing to do up there (which is why they set up the Angry Birds Space promo there - more on that below).
Cost: it's S$29 for a round trip, I believe. For Uni students (even international ones) - bring your ID card, and pay-3-get-4-Student passes. We went for a bit of an extravagance option - paid S$89 for unlimited Cable Car rides, and 4 of the attractions on Sentosa. Now though that sounds expensive, it wasn't: we made full use of the unlimited rides by going from Sentosa up to Mount Faber (and back) around sunset (and got a few pretty shots), and the 4 Sentosa rides... we picked the more expensive ones to abuse them on - got the full S$50's worth out of them :D
Anyways, the rides: The Luge!
Now I've wanted to do this ever since I was here in the summer... and
it's just a wonderful little boy's game! The karts are adult-sized, the
track runs for about 5 minutes... but it sure as hell is FUN! Here, I
went by Maybelline's advice: instead of using one of the valuable
Ride-passes (on something that was only worth S$10), we each bought a
three-pass for S$20, and went twice during the day, and the last time at
night.
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| Up the skylift to get back up |
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| Traffic building up... (there's a STOP sign) |
And yes - do think about doing it like this. We went down the beginner track first, caught the chair lift back to the top, then down again down the advanced course. We spent the rest of the day going around Sentosa, coming back at 7pm to do one last trip (Advanced course in darkness), ending up down at the Beachside to watch the Songs by the Sea show down there!
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| Night shot of Andy going down to the Advanced Course (R) |
So after our 2nd Luge ride, we spent a bit of time wander the Beach sector. If you wanted to go for a drink, or other things, then this is the place to be.
Next on the list: a try on the Segway. Pretty easy, to be honest ;)
Next on the list: a try on the Segway. Pretty easy, to be honest ;)
Then we caught the monorail, and wandered around the Imbiah Lookout and Merlion...
Lunch time - our S$89 package had lunch included - a free meal set from Sarpino's Pizza =)
After lunch: the triple ride attraction! These were heavily advertised everywhere:
Pirates in 4D - sit there, watch a 3D movie, and get sprayed/wind-jetted as appropriate.
then the Extreme Log Ride: sit in a cabin simulator and watch a 3D movie. And be shaken around VERY violently - I got severely jarred just by sitting at the end of the cabin... cabin goes one way, I sway the same way... only to be whacked hard by the cabin going the other way...
and the Desperado's 4D ride (3D glasses on 'horse'-back that moves, and you shoot with a laser pistol) - I did pretty good on this - despite all the little kids there, I was 2nd and 3rd in the two rounds =)
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| Us in the Background there =) |
Underwater World - think a massive aquarium. Entry fee for this isn't included - S$25.90 for me to get in. Michelle and Andy got the combo instead (which I passed on ) - $39 for Underwater World, Butterfly Park, and a 10-minute fish-spa treatment. For the record: I have no intention for being fishbait :P
I'll let the pictures speak for themselves: We wandered around the aquarium section, and found seats in time for the 4pm Dolphin show =)
Dolphin Show... =)
After the show, we went underneath to the moving travelator section...
After Underwater World, Michelle wanted to do the Butterfly Park - so off she went with Andy to use their fish-spa treatment. 10 minutes later (and numerous jokes about Andy being a dirty bugger), we caught the shuttle over to the Butterfly Park.
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| A pretty wedding car outside the Ritz Sentosa |
To be honest, I don't care for insects of any form - so I camped outside at the Imbiah Lookout, relaxing my feet, waiting for the other two to rejoin me.
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| The Tiger Sky Tower (rotating lookout platform) |
So after all's been said and done, it was almost 6pm - so we made full use of our Unlimited Cable Car rides - going all the way up to Mount Faber, the Angry Bird Space promo section, and just making a damned nuisance of ourselves taking photos during the Golden Hour (sunset).
The Angry Birds segment:
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| The RSAF Helicopters in force practicing for the National Day Parade |
Other photos captured from Mount Faber... which I love more
By 7pm, things started getting darker - so we boarded the Cable Car to head back to Sentosa, and went straight on the Luge for our last drive - in near absolute darkness. This following images was captured on my iPhone - rather remarkably, if I may say so!
Lastly: down at the Beach Section -
We saw notices everywhere about this 'Songs by the Sea' - turns out to be a nice outdoor song-and-light show. If you have the time to stay out at night, do go - tickets need to be bought a few hours before the show, S$10 each. Shows are at 7.40pm, 8.40 and 9.40pm - and start queuing up to enter from 7.20 if you have a general entry - there are a LOT of competition for good seats. We decided to splurge a little - S$15 for the Premium seats - and it's worth it! Why:
1. No queuing up to enter.
2. We rocked up with only 10 minutes before the 8.40 show, and still got wonderful seats.
3. The Premium seating block is in the middle of the stage - best views all around.
4. We were hungry. And really, really didn't want to THINK about queuing.
So we did: got decent seats to watch a song and dance show complemented with lasers and fireworks and water jets, and had a crappy dinner to sate part of our appetite.
(That "Tastes of Asia" store at Beach Station is only for the desperately hungry - I'd recommend McDonald's over that).
We saw notices everywhere about this 'Songs by the Sea' - turns out to be a nice outdoor song-and-light show. If you have the time to stay out at night, do go - tickets need to be bought a few hours before the show, S$10 each. Shows are at 7.40pm, 8.40 and 9.40pm - and start queuing up to enter from 7.20 if you have a general entry - there are a LOT of competition for good seats. We decided to splurge a little - S$15 for the Premium seats - and it's worth it! Why:
1. No queuing up to enter.
2. We rocked up with only 10 minutes before the 8.40 show, and still got wonderful seats.
3. The Premium seating block is in the middle of the stage - best views all around.
4. We were hungry. And really, really didn't want to THINK about queuing.
So we did: got decent seats to watch a song and dance show complemented with lasers and fireworks and water jets, and had a crappy dinner to sate part of our appetite.
(That "Tastes of Asia" store at Beach Station is only for the desperately hungry - I'd recommend McDonald's over that).
Well, that's it for this entry - just a short highlight into the world that is Sentosa. This, however, is one place you should experience for yourselves if you get the chance! I leave you now with some choice photos I saved for the end =)
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| Bored Photographer... |
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| Everything is green-screened... why are we not surprised? |
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| And a cute kid who pulled faces at me. I just LOVE kids =) |
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