It was all over so fast...
It's crazy. Time really does fly when you're having fun! We checked out of our pokey little room at the hotel; it had served us well, no mosquito bites, a couple of generally good nights of sleep, good temperature despite the noisy aircon unit, proximity to the city, friendly staff at the desk, bottles of fresh water delivered daily, and of course, very good price! I wouldn't put it top of any TripAdvisor list, but I wouldn't put it at the bottom either. Ben came to meet us again. The plan was to hire a cab to take us to the airport and drop off our bags at the Left Luggage counter for convenience, to save us dragging it around with us all day. A blue cab was just passing as we left the hotel, and we managed to nab it; it took us down Singapore's brand new roads toward Changi airport. We saw Ben's building, dNata, pass by on the right hand side as we took the south airport perimeter road, and planes on final approach came in overhead.We spent some time admiring and photographing the Kinetic Rain artwork (sculpture?) in Terminal 1 before heading up the escalators to leave our luggage. Weighing the luggage on the scales provided at the counter served two purposes, 1) to check we were within the limit but 2) a clever idea of Ben's, served as a quick screening tool to see if anything had been added or removed when we got back later. By this point we were hungry; after a bit of deliberation concerning which outlet to go to Ben suggested the staff canteen - apparently it was vast, and well stocked. Other outlets of choice in Terminal 1 included an award-winning (though expensive) Japanese restaurant not far from the luggage, a KFC, a Korean restaurant, and a couple of other outlets.
Down the escalator we went, to the level of the check-in desks scattered across the concourse; we headed left, away from main doors and kinetic structure, toward the back of the area and down a corridor. A handful of staff were milling around waiting outside a couple of lift shafts; we joined the queue, conspicuous in our shorts and holidaywear! Down a couple of floors we went, and the lift opened out into a white corridor, to one side was a set of doors and the other opened out into what looked and sounded like a seating area. Heading that way we were greeted by a long hall, with rows and rows of benches and seats filling it; what made us impressed was the huge selection of small restaurant fronts serving food. Not just one, or even half a dozen, but 18 different food outlets all serving foods from different cultures from Malay to Korean to Indian, and even different varieties of the same cultures' foods such as fish, noodle, rice, chicken, etc. 18! All lined up along one wall. We told Ben that such a thing just does not exist in the UK - it was a far cry from the exceptionally limited choice of food in the staff canteens we have at home. We ordered some soup noodles, I can't remember from which nationality, and Ben had something Malay. We washed down our breakfast with ice lemon tea, and me, Milo ais (ice milo, a delicious malty drink by Nestle, cross between Ovaltine and chocolate milkshake).
Heading out of the canteen by the door past the lift shaft, we emerged via a set of up-stairs into a courtyard, and finally turning right, beside a road, from where Ben pointed out the main airport apron and some of the areas he worked in, just visible through a gate in the distance. We re-entered the terminal building by a back-door, onto the main check-in concourse, and headed for the underground bus terminal via a set of down-travellators, topping up a couple of chip travelcards that Ben had brought with him at a couple of NFC-reader equipped machines, like Oyster card machines. We waited for the number 36 bus. Ben brought up an app on his phone - Singapore's public buses were all tracked by GPS, and you could tell exactly when it was going to arrive, instead of just looking at a timetable. True to its word, the modern looking red and white single-decker bus arrived exactly when the system said it would, and we beeped into its air conditioned cabin and took seats near the back, awaiting departure.
The bus departed terminal 1 on time, and between both remaining terminals was stopped at checkpoints where a policeman with what looked like an MP-5 assault rifle boarded, made a very cursory glance behind all the seats while walking up and down, and left the bus again. It was more of a show of force than proper terrorist-spotting, but good to see it happening. Back on the open road again, we went past Ben's dNata building and headed along the coast road toward the more residential areas of Singapore. Strangely, this was so far the closest that Emma and I had been to the sea! It was tantalizingly blue, with white sands and palm trees, out of the left window of the bus along the coast road. Coconuts were visible up the trees, stalls dotted along the treeline sold them. However we were reminded of the immense industry and commerce of Singapore as lying not far out in the bay were what seemed like hundreds of ships of all shapes and sizes either at anchor or under way, scattered across the horizon at various distances, some of them pumping black smoke out of their funnels into the clear blue sky. After about 20 minutes the bus turned away from the beach, still following Marine Parade road. We passed dozens of bright white apartment complexes on both sides of the road, complete with sports courts and swimming pools; schools and shops passed us by when the bus wasn't stopped for passengers alighting and boarding from various stops along the route. Ben and I talked about motorbikes - he used to have one too, but hasn't ridden for a while now. Like KL, motorbikes and scooters zipped in and out of traffic to avoid the queues on the roads, but unlike KL the Singaporean riders were far more careful about their traffic compliance, as well as riding generally bigger and cleaner machines, and wearing better protective gear!
The bus emerged from the other side of the high-rise residential area, and looming up at us in the distance we caught a glimpse of the Marina Bay Sands hotel, a slightly curved complex of three towers, resembling three rocks from Stonehenge, and topped with a massive (and I mean huge) slightly curved, boat-like structure lying atop all three towers, some 50 floors up in the air. The bow of the boat overhang the northernmost tower, that closest to us, by a considerable distance. You could just make out palm trees and buildings perched high on the top of the boat. An architect's dream! Nearer to us was a podded ferris wheel, much like the London Eye. As we drew nearer, and started climbing a causeway over a river (the Geylang River), Ben pointed out that this was the Marina Bay area of Singapore, home to the annual Formula 1 race. Reaching the far side of the river, looking over the sides of the bridge out of the window, we could see the grey pit buildings and part of the circuit, complete with red and white rumble strips. Visible to the right were the familiar skyscrapers of Singapore's business district gleaming in the sunlight; up ahead to the left was a really weird set of structures, looking like enormous metallic skeletons of a small outcrop of a crossbreed of palm tree and baobab tree. These were of course the 50m tall functional sculptures of the "Supertrees Grove" of Singapore's latest addition to the world of horticulture, the Gardens By The Bay. Next to these were three massive glass blobs, amorphous to the point of being indescribable. They stood tall, and were formed of glass and metal stripes. These were the greenhouses of the Gardens, housing different themed plant and wildlife displays.
The bus turned off to the right, before reaching the hotel or the gardens, and headed toward the skyscrapers of Suntec City where we alighted. Suntec City was a group of 5 buildings, four of which were very tall (but all different heights, the 2nd being the tallest), and one was a dumpy one (tower 5), surrounding a centre water feature, a massive elevated bronze ring about 50m across, with thousands of jets of water pouring from it forming a near continuous sheet, towards its centre. The plan was for the buildings to look like fingers and a thumb, and the fountain was a bowl held in the palm of this cupped hand. From the ground, by the fountain, they were towers reaching forever skyward. It must look different from the air. Suntec City was finished in 1994, and houses many offices as well as the Suntec Mall.
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| The Suntec City logo, on the front of Tower 1 |
I remembered this area of Singapore, around the wide mouth of the river Geylang, before the developments here had even begun, it used to be a quaint old area, with dozens of eateries and places to go, with a bustling night life and tastes, sights and smells of the old days. We'd had a steamboat meal there back in the 2002 with uncle Thien Sie and his family. Now that was all gone, replaced by a multibillion dollar investment scheme to put Singapore firmly on the Southeast Asian tourist map. Gardens By The Bay, the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, Mall and Casino complex and the Formula 1 circuit were the result.
The Gardens are a 101 hectare development of neatly managed outdoor gardens, with three main indoor exhibits in the form of the large amorphous glass blobs (domes), and the "Supertree Grove" of a dozen or so massive metal trees, clustered together and some of which linked by a metal walkway elevated about 25m above the ground. They serve aesthetic functions, being in themselves extraordinary structures, and are lit up brightly at night from within; they have engineering function too, in that they serve as cooling towers for the plant serving the remainder of the Gardens, and they have a green function, serving as the base for many species of plants growing on their structure and the land around their bases.
The iconic and world-famous Marina Bay Sands hotel is a 5-star hotel, complete with casino complex and shopping mall, and the boat deck (the "Sands SkyPark") elevated 55 stories above the skyline contains restaurants, bars and cafes, alongside real palm trees and gardens and a couple of highly acclaimed infinity pools, really living up to their name at that altitude! The hotel opened in 2010, and has over 2,000 (yes, two THOUSAND) luxury rooms, starting at S$360 per night.
The Singapore Grand Prix circuit opened in 2008, Singapore having previously hosted grands prix until 1973. It is a night-time race, to cater for the majority of viewers being Western, and is proud to be Asia's only street circuit, stretching over 3 miles around the Marina Bay area. Vettel has won the race for the last three years, previously Alonso, Hamilton and for the first race, Alonso.
The taxi dropped us off at the Gardens, opposite one of the shorter Supertrees, covered in neatly kept vegetation and colourful flowers. Tourists milled around the drop-off area, mostly westerners, with DSLRs slung around their necks. A golf buggy picked up an older couple and hummed off toward one of the big blobs. We trudged through the thin crowd with our rucksacks still attached to us like limpets, and found our way to the visitor information centre. The drop-off area was sheltered to the left, and contained a few shops and facilities; the information area a hundred yards away was covered too, more of a concourse, and contained the entrance to one of the biodomes and a souvenir outlet. Buying three drinks to cool ourselves down on this scorching day (and setting us back about S$15 in the process) we found that entry to the outdoor gardens was free, and they could be accessed via a public walkway. Visiting two domes would cost S$28 each (S$20 for a local resident with identity card); the walkway was cheaper - S$5 each, so that is what we opted for!
We walked past signs pointing us to the various domes and garden attractions, through well manicured pathways lined by flowery things and green things that I confess I had little knowledge about. The Supertree Grove loomed up ahead, and its central highest "tree", complete with restaurant at its top, was partially surrounded by a series of trees from which hung the yellow ODBC Skyway, the elevated metal walkway. Accessible by a lift within the trunk of one of the trees, the S$5pp for entry Skyway hung from suspension cables, and its grid-iron see-through surface did no favours for Ben's trepidation with heights and I admit, my own! It did however give us great views of the Gardens site, as well as the Marina Bay Sands hotel and the estuary area, as well as the cranes and containers of the Singapore docks to the west, and the skyscrapers of the city centre to the northeast. We stayed up on the walkway admiring the view, Emma soaking in the mid-day Singapore sun while watching a storm front building slowly to the north of the island, and waited for Teong Seng to announce his arrival by phone, which he did, and we descended the elevator on the far end of the walkway to meet him.
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| Teong Seng, me, and Ben at the foot of one of the Supertrees. The vegetation growing on it in the form of rare orchids, lilly species, etc., can be clearly seen, as can the walkway connecting the trees in the far top right of the photo. More supertrees can be seen behind us, resembling some sort of alien invasion; the Singapore ferris wheel can just be seen in the distance. |
Hotel guests only!
We walked the short distance through the well-manicured foliage, past several Merlion-head (so, just lion-heads really) fountains squirting water out into drains along the way, to the pathway leading to the triple-building boat-topped hotel. A pedestrian footbridge linked it and the Gardens, over a dual carriageway leading to the docks to the left. The footbridge was accessed via a set of escalators; we waited for a group of French-speaking orang puteh to make up their minds as to where they were going, and finally ascended the escalators.
The footbridge was wide, and lined down the middle and both sides with more manicured plants, some of which were being watered by gardeners with hosepipes. It led to a glass double door in the side of the westernmost hotel tower; the structure looming ahead of us was impressively imposing, complete with its SkyPark so many storeys above, its shadow being cast toward us to the south by the mid-day sun, oddly in the north of the sky owing to Singapore's latitude being less than that of our local star. We walked through the door and instead of finding a set of stairs down to the hotel lobby, found ourselves on a footbridge spanning a vast atrium within the hotel, stretching the full breadth of the building about 10 floors up. Standing at the near end of the bridge, we could see hundreds of doors to the hotel rooms on the opposite wall of the hotel, accessed by many inward-facing balconies serving as corridors. The far wall was vertical; the wall nearest us was actually sloping inwards as it grew higher, balconies on this wall also demarcating the floors of the doors of the rooms located on this wall. To our left a huge glass wall was separated by dozens of footbridges allowing transit between the north and south walls of the hotel; to our right we could see the curvature of this first tower of the massive building, curving gently away to the left and ending in yet another bridge-lined glass wall. Looking over the edge of the bridge we were on we could see the highly polished gold, dark-wood and marble features of the hotel's facilities - the reception desks lining the far wall, and concierge service, and toward the middle an island formed by an elevated bar/restaurant, its sides rounded, and with no roof.
To our surprise there was no way into the lobby from the bridge at all - instead it passed straight across the atrium of the hotel, and out of the other side via another set of glass double doors, onto another elevated walkway this time leading to the Sands Mall. A glass and metal lift to our right, however, did provide some hope of getting into the hotel; we took it and rode it down to the ground floor, watching the concrete and glass of the building passing upward as we descended, giving way further down to thousands of gold sequins lining the walls, fluttering in the midday breeze and reflecting the light from the northern sun.
It wasn't obvious which way to get to the hotel's main entrance, so we took the logical approach and headed around the perimeter of the tower's base, in the direction of its westernmost point, and rounding the NW corner of the building finally happened upon a great glass wall, a taxi/dropoff area, complete with taxi desks and waiting booking agents, and the main entrance doors to the hotel itself. We walked through. It was colder down here than it was on the bridge over the atrium, which could be seen high up cutting across the vast prismic space. The northern wall to our right with its hundreds of rooms and dozens of protruding balcony/pathways was obviously leaning inwards; somehow, they managed to put lift-shafts into it, the lifts must be on a tilt. The similar-looking vertical northern wall lay to our left. We asked at the concierge desk about visiting the SkyPark - he directed us to the easternmost tower, Tower 3, at the other end of the hotel.
We took a moment to take in our environment, hearing the occasional clinking of metal cutlery on high-class china plates echoing above the low hum of dozens of conversations between the scattering of tourists, guests, businesspeople and staff placed around the lobby. Small incandescent shaded bulbs could be seen poking above the level of the frosted glass barriers surrounding the curved, elevated, restaurant-bar island; some people were queueing at the concierge desk, others the reception desk, others sitting on curving benches in the middle of the marble-floored atrium. Looking upward we could see the ceiling of the vast space, at about floor 20; the southern wall of the hotel was actually concave - nearly meeting the northern wall before heading back out again as it reached the top, supporting the SkyPark far above. I guessed that rooms above floor 30 or so would have balconies similar to these lower rooms but this time looking down on a narrower atrium but up at a wide roof, the floor of the SkyPark. Of course, this is only guesswork! We walked through the atrium, complete with indoor trees, taking in the ridiculously expensive shops scattered around the sides of the place - Prada, Rolex, Ferrari, shops you felt you'd have to pay to get into let alone consider purchasing anything from. A private, glass-fronted VIP-only registration area was provided for the more important guests just after the concierge desk. The west tower's atrium was linked to idential atria of the other two towers by means of air-conditioned but lower-ceilinged connecting ways, as wide as the buildings themselves. These also contained countless high-end shops, most of which I'd never heard of, but their shiny well-lit white and gold interiors gave the impression of their clientelle having more money than sense. The entry to the Marina Bay Sands Mall and Casino was to the left, down a set of escalators; we walked by, but noted its location for later.
Eventually we reached the other end of the hotel, the east building, and exited it through its glass doors, turning left to find the SkyPark Observation Deck ticket desk, which turned out to be accessible by a set of down-escalators originating in a covered glass shelter connected to the outside the hotel, to the north. Tensabarriers awaited us, funneling us toward a dark grey granite counter with a few staff members along it. A group of tourists ahead of us moved away from the counter as we arrived, tickets in hand. Observation deck tickets, it turned out, were not quite what we had expected. The deck only made up the bow area of the boat, and so allowed only a view to the south-west, south, east, north and north-west. We wouldn't have access to the hotel's infinity pools, cafes, bars, restaurants or indeed SkyPark itself. These were reserved for guests only, which we realised made sense, but still felt a bit let down. Tickets to the observation deck were S$23 for adults, allowing unlimited-time access to the deck area. Teong Seng kindly paid for us to go, ignoring my protests to let me pay! Thanks, cousin, appreciated.
Tickets in hand, we were ushered through the Tensabarrier pathways and, via a photographer who took a shot of the three of us together against a green-screen, we stepped into a tastefully designed lift and the operator pressed 56. We were shuttled quickly upwards and stepped out into soft rock music playing on the 56th floor lobby. Immediately we were accosted by a bellboy waving our photograph at us, the green-screen now turned into the backdrop of the view from the top of the Observation Deck, and the thing bound in a lovely white faux-leather cover. And a price tag of S$30. I said "no, no thanks, too much, thirty dollars too much!" and he knocked the price in half. I was nearly tempted by this but Emma's voice of calm, logical reasoning determined that £7.50 was still quite steep for a leather-bound photograph, even if it did have the Sands logo on it. To be fair I do regret not buying the photograph - we'll just have to go back and buy another one. We stepped into the open by walking to the end of the lobby to the right, and were greeted by a blast of warm wind and a huge observation area, with wooden grooved flooring much like that on a luxury yacht. Directly ahead of us was a glass and cabled barrier, protecting visitors against the 56-storey drop! You could see for miles; in this direction, south, you could see the hundreds of ships moored and underway between Singapore and the distant islands of Indonesia, as well as the unique structures of the Supertrees Grove and blob-like domes of the Gardens lying in front of us. We could make out the metal suspended ODBC Skyway that we'd walked across earlier - a tiny yellow thread suspended between the tiny trees viewed from this altitude! The Geylang river estuary was to the left of it, and the causeway above it that we'd travelled over earlier that morning could be seen connecting the west and east sides, on the way to the airport.
We walked further to the east along the edge of the glass panelling, taking photos as we went and discovering the points of interest from laser-etched metal plates describing the views below. Ben and a-Seng took photos and squatted down next to the lower glass panels to view the panorama of their island spread out beneath them. There was a small shop on the observation deck at its easternmost tip which widened significantly compared to the rest of the area. We contemplated buying drinks here but noted the elevated prices to match the elevated altitude, and left them alone. Hotel guests could look down at us tourists from the balcony of a restaurant situated one floor above us, accessed via a flight of stairs from the deck, however a security guard was placed there as a permanent reminder that one must first cough up S$400 for a room first! From the top of these stairs however, on the northwesternmost point of the observation deck, we could see the panorama of the city itself stretched out before us - the (now tiny) white Merlion guarding Singapore's marina, some red-and-white rumble strips of the F1 circuit, a floating football court (I guessed a throw-in or a corner would require a new ball every time, or at least swimming lines-men?!), and in the distance the forest of skyscrapers of the central business district formed Singapore's impressive skyline.
It came to the time we were getting hungry, hot and indeed thirsty, so we headed back into the lift lobbyfrom the north side of the building, this time filled with more soothing music, and avoided our keen photo-seller (I think he'd given up), before heading back to the ground floor to search for escalator to take us down to the Marina Bay Sands Mall complex.
The escalator took us down from one of the connecting areas between hotel towers into one wing of an unbelievably well-kept shopping mall complex. As soon as we arrived at the level of the shops we started walking in the direction of the casino that Teong Seng wanted to have a look at. The shops were on a whole new level to those I was used to seeing at malls such as Bluewater or Chapelfields. There were no Argoses in sight! I didn't even recognise most of the brand names, but I knew they were good by Emma's occasional oohs and aahs. The mall was, as expected, a combination of dark wood, granite and marble with white and gold, yet very modern at the same time. The wing we were in led into a circular focal point, with more wings leading off in 2 more directions from it and the entrance to the casino complex in the fourth, final direction. This is where we headed, through a wide well-lit tunnel.
We couldn't see into the casino from its reception desk. The idea of a casino was alien to me, I'd never seen the inside of one let alone been tempted to enter. The cost of actually gambling there was S$80 per person for residents of Singapore - however, in a cunning ploy to get the rich to spend lots of foreign money, it was free for those with a foreign passport! We queued up initially to deposit our belongings at the bag-drop; prohibited items included rucksacks, bags, weapons, most things metallic and indeed cameras. Bags dropped we showed our passports to the man at the reception desk, and we passed through the turnstyles to enter.
What a world! The faint blast of cigarettes hit us first; the second thing was the sound. Buttons being pressed everywhere. The occasional ruffle of a shuffled deck of cards. Every now and then a succession of computerised "jackpot" beeps in the air, and the general hubbub of excited gamblers. We walked on the plush dark-purple carpets, admiring the immense size of the place. The main gambling floor was filled on one side with row upon row of fruit machines and goodness knows what too-good-to-be-true games, with smoking guests sitting at them with various expressions ranging from utter dejection to mild happiness. To the other, the right side, were the main money-making areas of the casino. Dozens of red or green velvet tables for Roulette, Blackjack, Texas Hold'Em were neatly arranged throughout the central floor area; pundits sat around the tables, some holding chips, some talking, some smoking, some were simply silent, hands pressed together, hoping their number came up. People crowded around the busy tables, standing up, observing what the players were doing and how they were getting on. Above us, towering nearly 5 storeys high, circular balconies surrounded the massive shop floor. Some of them more decorated than others, the VIP levels, but all had a common theme - chandeliers, and gold. Lots of gold. Everywhere was golden! I came to the conclusion rather quickly that for the casino to look like this, the house must always win. I didn't feel guilty in the slightest when Ben picked up four mineral waters from a passing drinks trolley! I did feel mixed emotions for the poor sods believing that they could actually succeed in making a profit from too many hours spent here, staring at their computer screens, believing that they'd found the "system" to beat the well-programmed machines and win more than they put in. The air was incredible, but I found myself wanting to get out of there fast, not become enthralled in the well choreographed game of statistics. I was amazed by the amount of gantries over the main game area, and the ceiling covering the main floor's extremities. Every square foot of ceiling space or gantry was covered in loads of black domes. Security cameras. Thousands of them. Every single person here was watched constantly. Our little bonus with the mineral water probably didn't go un-noticed. Anyone making slightly too much money would be noted, and the dealer manning their table immediately informed via their spiral tubed radio earpiece. Really successful pundits would be quietly pulled aside. On the same theme, I wondered if the unsuccessful numpties pouring thousands of dollars into their diminishing funds would be invited as guests to increasingly more expensive tables by the same hoards of surveillance teams! I would never know, I didn't want to know. This was definitely not my world, and hopefully it never will be!
We exited the casino after trolling around its tables and games for about half an hour. Even if it was a place of addiction at its worst, it was an interesting experience to see. Our passports were checked twice more as we left the vast hall, once at the gate, and once at the desk to get our bags back. We headed back the way we had come in, discussing what to do next and where to go. Ben and a-Seng led the way, and somehow we found ourselves in another part of the shopping mall, well lit, and with an artificial canal flowing between a Venetian punt dock at one end, and at the other a huge inverted domed skylight, filled with rapidly oscillating water, emptying a huge cascade of water through a hole slightly offset from its centre into the faux-canal two floors below it.
A punt carrying a family with children was passing under an Italian-themed bridge over the river, steered by a man with a solitary long oar complete with flexible fin at one end, pushing them through the water. The whole mall smelled slightly soapy and damp; the shops were slightly more down to earth but still exceptionally high-class; another Rolex, Ferrari, Swissport (?), and, to my surprise (knowing very little about individual brands of bras), a La Sensa. We could see people above the skylight, looking down from its circumference into the oscillating fountain as its water flowed through its central hole into the mall below. As we watched from above, the oarsman skillfully navigated the family around the circumference of the cascading fountain, and headed the little wooden boat back down the canal toward the dock. Children happy, parents probably S$50 lighter in the pocket. Feet aching from all the walking we'd done, we debated going to see the Merlion and Singapore's City Hall, remnants from the country's British reign, but decided against these in the name of time, money and exhaustion, preferring instead to travel by MRT to Tampines Mall and have a nice meal before having to head to the airport.
The footbridge was wide, and lined down the middle and both sides with more manicured plants, some of which were being watered by gardeners with hosepipes. It led to a glass double door in the side of the westernmost hotel tower; the structure looming ahead of us was impressively imposing, complete with its SkyPark so many storeys above, its shadow being cast toward us to the south by the mid-day sun, oddly in the north of the sky owing to Singapore's latitude being less than that of our local star. We walked through the door and instead of finding a set of stairs down to the hotel lobby, found ourselves on a footbridge spanning a vast atrium within the hotel, stretching the full breadth of the building about 10 floors up. Standing at the near end of the bridge, we could see hundreds of doors to the hotel rooms on the opposite wall of the hotel, accessed by many inward-facing balconies serving as corridors. The far wall was vertical; the wall nearest us was actually sloping inwards as it grew higher, balconies on this wall also demarcating the floors of the doors of the rooms located on this wall. To our left a huge glass wall was separated by dozens of footbridges allowing transit between the north and south walls of the hotel; to our right we could see the curvature of this first tower of the massive building, curving gently away to the left and ending in yet another bridge-lined glass wall. Looking over the edge of the bridge we were on we could see the highly polished gold, dark-wood and marble features of the hotel's facilities - the reception desks lining the far wall, and concierge service, and toward the middle an island formed by an elevated bar/restaurant, its sides rounded, and with no roof.
To our surprise there was no way into the lobby from the bridge at all - instead it passed straight across the atrium of the hotel, and out of the other side via another set of glass double doors, onto another elevated walkway this time leading to the Sands Mall. A glass and metal lift to our right, however, did provide some hope of getting into the hotel; we took it and rode it down to the ground floor, watching the concrete and glass of the building passing upward as we descended, giving way further down to thousands of gold sequins lining the walls, fluttering in the midday breeze and reflecting the light from the northern sun.
It wasn't obvious which way to get to the hotel's main entrance, so we took the logical approach and headed around the perimeter of the tower's base, in the direction of its westernmost point, and rounding the NW corner of the building finally happened upon a great glass wall, a taxi/dropoff area, complete with taxi desks and waiting booking agents, and the main entrance doors to the hotel itself. We walked through. It was colder down here than it was on the bridge over the atrium, which could be seen high up cutting across the vast prismic space. The northern wall to our right with its hundreds of rooms and dozens of protruding balcony/pathways was obviously leaning inwards; somehow, they managed to put lift-shafts into it, the lifts must be on a tilt. The similar-looking vertical northern wall lay to our left. We asked at the concierge desk about visiting the SkyPark - he directed us to the easternmost tower, Tower 3, at the other end of the hotel.
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| The massive banana-shaped boat deck of the Marina Sands Bay Hotel's SkyPark, perched atop its three egg-timer shaped towers, each housing nearly 800 hotel guests in 5-star luxury. |
We took a moment to take in our environment, hearing the occasional clinking of metal cutlery on high-class china plates echoing above the low hum of dozens of conversations between the scattering of tourists, guests, businesspeople and staff placed around the lobby. Small incandescent shaded bulbs could be seen poking above the level of the frosted glass barriers surrounding the curved, elevated, restaurant-bar island; some people were queueing at the concierge desk, others the reception desk, others sitting on curving benches in the middle of the marble-floored atrium. Looking upward we could see the ceiling of the vast space, at about floor 20; the southern wall of the hotel was actually concave - nearly meeting the northern wall before heading back out again as it reached the top, supporting the SkyPark far above. I guessed that rooms above floor 30 or so would have balconies similar to these lower rooms but this time looking down on a narrower atrium but up at a wide roof, the floor of the SkyPark. Of course, this is only guesswork! We walked through the atrium, complete with indoor trees, taking in the ridiculously expensive shops scattered around the sides of the place - Prada, Rolex, Ferrari, shops you felt you'd have to pay to get into let alone consider purchasing anything from. A private, glass-fronted VIP-only registration area was provided for the more important guests just after the concierge desk. The west tower's atrium was linked to idential atria of the other two towers by means of air-conditioned but lower-ceilinged connecting ways, as wide as the buildings themselves. These also contained countless high-end shops, most of which I'd never heard of, but their shiny well-lit white and gold interiors gave the impression of their clientelle having more money than sense. The entry to the Marina Bay Sands Mall and Casino was to the left, down a set of escalators; we walked by, but noted its location for later.
Eventually we reached the other end of the hotel, the east building, and exited it through its glass doors, turning left to find the SkyPark Observation Deck ticket desk, which turned out to be accessible by a set of down-escalators originating in a covered glass shelter connected to the outside the hotel, to the north. Tensabarriers awaited us, funneling us toward a dark grey granite counter with a few staff members along it. A group of tourists ahead of us moved away from the counter as we arrived, tickets in hand. Observation deck tickets, it turned out, were not quite what we had expected. The deck only made up the bow area of the boat, and so allowed only a view to the south-west, south, east, north and north-west. We wouldn't have access to the hotel's infinity pools, cafes, bars, restaurants or indeed SkyPark itself. These were reserved for guests only, which we realised made sense, but still felt a bit let down. Tickets to the observation deck were S$23 for adults, allowing unlimited-time access to the deck area. Teong Seng kindly paid for us to go, ignoring my protests to let me pay! Thanks, cousin, appreciated.
Tickets in hand, we were ushered through the Tensabarrier pathways and, via a photographer who took a shot of the three of us together against a green-screen, we stepped into a tastefully designed lift and the operator pressed 56. We were shuttled quickly upwards and stepped out into soft rock music playing on the 56th floor lobby. Immediately we were accosted by a bellboy waving our photograph at us, the green-screen now turned into the backdrop of the view from the top of the Observation Deck, and the thing bound in a lovely white faux-leather cover. And a price tag of S$30. I said "no, no thanks, too much, thirty dollars too much!" and he knocked the price in half. I was nearly tempted by this but Emma's voice of calm, logical reasoning determined that £7.50 was still quite steep for a leather-bound photograph, even if it did have the Sands logo on it. To be fair I do regret not buying the photograph - we'll just have to go back and buy another one. We stepped into the open by walking to the end of the lobby to the right, and were greeted by a blast of warm wind and a huge observation area, with wooden grooved flooring much like that on a luxury yacht. Directly ahead of us was a glass and cabled barrier, protecting visitors against the 56-storey drop! You could see for miles; in this direction, south, you could see the hundreds of ships moored and underway between Singapore and the distant islands of Indonesia, as well as the unique structures of the Supertrees Grove and blob-like domes of the Gardens lying in front of us. We could make out the metal suspended ODBC Skyway that we'd walked across earlier - a tiny yellow thread suspended between the tiny trees viewed from this altitude! The Geylang river estuary was to the left of it, and the causeway above it that we'd travelled over earlier that morning could be seen connecting the west and east sides, on the way to the airport.
We walked further to the east along the edge of the glass panelling, taking photos as we went and discovering the points of interest from laser-etched metal plates describing the views below. Ben and a-Seng took photos and squatted down next to the lower glass panels to view the panorama of their island spread out beneath them. There was a small shop on the observation deck at its easternmost tip which widened significantly compared to the rest of the area. We contemplated buying drinks here but noted the elevated prices to match the elevated altitude, and left them alone. Hotel guests could look down at us tourists from the balcony of a restaurant situated one floor above us, accessed via a flight of stairs from the deck, however a security guard was placed there as a permanent reminder that one must first cough up S$400 for a room first! From the top of these stairs however, on the northwesternmost point of the observation deck, we could see the panorama of the city itself stretched out before us - the (now tiny) white Merlion guarding Singapore's marina, some red-and-white rumble strips of the F1 circuit, a floating football court (I guessed a throw-in or a corner would require a new ball every time, or at least swimming lines-men?!), and in the distance the forest of skyscrapers of the central business district formed Singapore's impressive skyline.
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| A-Seng, Ben, myself and Emma and the view from the observation deck of the Marina Bay Sands hotel. Photographer: Security guard, preventing non-guests from entering the restaurant! |
It came to the time we were getting hungry, hot and indeed thirsty, so we headed back into the lift lobbyfrom the north side of the building, this time filled with more soothing music, and avoided our keen photo-seller (I think he'd given up), before heading back to the ground floor to search for escalator to take us down to the Marina Bay Sands Mall complex.
The escalator took us down from one of the connecting areas between hotel towers into one wing of an unbelievably well-kept shopping mall complex. As soon as we arrived at the level of the shops we started walking in the direction of the casino that Teong Seng wanted to have a look at. The shops were on a whole new level to those I was used to seeing at malls such as Bluewater or Chapelfields. There were no Argoses in sight! I didn't even recognise most of the brand names, but I knew they were good by Emma's occasional oohs and aahs. The mall was, as expected, a combination of dark wood, granite and marble with white and gold, yet very modern at the same time. The wing we were in led into a circular focal point, with more wings leading off in 2 more directions from it and the entrance to the casino complex in the fourth, final direction. This is where we headed, through a wide well-lit tunnel.
We couldn't see into the casino from its reception desk. The idea of a casino was alien to me, I'd never seen the inside of one let alone been tempted to enter. The cost of actually gambling there was S$80 per person for residents of Singapore - however, in a cunning ploy to get the rich to spend lots of foreign money, it was free for those with a foreign passport! We queued up initially to deposit our belongings at the bag-drop; prohibited items included rucksacks, bags, weapons, most things metallic and indeed cameras. Bags dropped we showed our passports to the man at the reception desk, and we passed through the turnstyles to enter.
What a world! The faint blast of cigarettes hit us first; the second thing was the sound. Buttons being pressed everywhere. The occasional ruffle of a shuffled deck of cards. Every now and then a succession of computerised "jackpot" beeps in the air, and the general hubbub of excited gamblers. We walked on the plush dark-purple carpets, admiring the immense size of the place. The main gambling floor was filled on one side with row upon row of fruit machines and goodness knows what too-good-to-be-true games, with smoking guests sitting at them with various expressions ranging from utter dejection to mild happiness. To the other, the right side, were the main money-making areas of the casino. Dozens of red or green velvet tables for Roulette, Blackjack, Texas Hold'Em were neatly arranged throughout the central floor area; pundits sat around the tables, some holding chips, some talking, some smoking, some were simply silent, hands pressed together, hoping their number came up. People crowded around the busy tables, standing up, observing what the players were doing and how they were getting on. Above us, towering nearly 5 storeys high, circular balconies surrounded the massive shop floor. Some of them more decorated than others, the VIP levels, but all had a common theme - chandeliers, and gold. Lots of gold. Everywhere was golden! I came to the conclusion rather quickly that for the casino to look like this, the house must always win. I didn't feel guilty in the slightest when Ben picked up four mineral waters from a passing drinks trolley! I did feel mixed emotions for the poor sods believing that they could actually succeed in making a profit from too many hours spent here, staring at their computer screens, believing that they'd found the "system" to beat the well-programmed machines and win more than they put in. The air was incredible, but I found myself wanting to get out of there fast, not become enthralled in the well choreographed game of statistics. I was amazed by the amount of gantries over the main game area, and the ceiling covering the main floor's extremities. Every square foot of ceiling space or gantry was covered in loads of black domes. Security cameras. Thousands of them. Every single person here was watched constantly. Our little bonus with the mineral water probably didn't go un-noticed. Anyone making slightly too much money would be noted, and the dealer manning their table immediately informed via their spiral tubed radio earpiece. Really successful pundits would be quietly pulled aside. On the same theme, I wondered if the unsuccessful numpties pouring thousands of dollars into their diminishing funds would be invited as guests to increasingly more expensive tables by the same hoards of surveillance teams! I would never know, I didn't want to know. This was definitely not my world, and hopefully it never will be!
We exited the casino after trolling around its tables and games for about half an hour. Even if it was a place of addiction at its worst, it was an interesting experience to see. Our passports were checked twice more as we left the vast hall, once at the gate, and once at the desk to get our bags back. We headed back the way we had come in, discussing what to do next and where to go. Ben and a-Seng led the way, and somehow we found ourselves in another part of the shopping mall, well lit, and with an artificial canal flowing between a Venetian punt dock at one end, and at the other a huge inverted domed skylight, filled with rapidly oscillating water, emptying a huge cascade of water through a hole slightly offset from its centre into the faux-canal two floors below it.
A punt carrying a family with children was passing under an Italian-themed bridge over the river, steered by a man with a solitary long oar complete with flexible fin at one end, pushing them through the water. The whole mall smelled slightly soapy and damp; the shops were slightly more down to earth but still exceptionally high-class; another Rolex, Ferrari, Swissport (?), and, to my surprise (knowing very little about individual brands of bras), a La Sensa. We could see people above the skylight, looking down from its circumference into the oscillating fountain as its water flowed through its central hole into the mall below. As we watched from above, the oarsman skillfully navigated the family around the circumference of the cascading fountain, and headed the little wooden boat back down the canal toward the dock. Children happy, parents probably S$50 lighter in the pocket. Feet aching from all the walking we'd done, we debated going to see the Merlion and Singapore's City Hall, remnants from the country's British reign, but decided against these in the name of time, money and exhaustion, preferring instead to travel by MRT to Tampines Mall and have a nice meal before having to head to the airport.
Goodbye Singapore
Seeing the now familiar scenery of Singapore zipping by the windows of the MRT as we made our way to Tampines, we realised this would be the last time for quite some time before we'd see the city again. The new stadium, Lorong 18, the Marina Bay Sands hotel, the skyscrapers, all were consigned to memory and SD Cards. Our final trip to Tampines Mall was spent browsing for a suitable place to eat, and having a look around technology shops to druel over the latest products from Apple and Samsung. Interestingly, global price fixing from these companies resulted in the goods being more expensive to buy in Asia than they were in the UK - shame, no bargains to be found! Finding a brightly coloured orange and black-themed restaurant, between the four of us we ate a variety of delicious Japanese noodle soups, healthy and tasty in one dish! A-Seng bought us dinner; if you ever come to the UK my cousin, we'll treat you well, have no fear!
A local to the area, Ben took the three of us across the road from Tampines Mall, away from the MRT station, and over a road bridge across a busy main road. We waited for a bus here. To travel to the airport from Tampines, even though it is so close by, requires changing trains at Tanah Merah station further down the line toward the city; the EW line forks at TM station, Tampines is on one fork, the airport forms the terminus of the other. Therefore, to save hassle and time, it is far quicket to take the bus, so that is what we did. One last look at the final approach of Changi and the dNata building as we drove past, we were security checked by the boarding airport police one last time before arriving back at the underground bus terminal of Terminal 1. We ascended through the terminal building to the top floor, above the concourse, to fetch our luggage. We weighed it, it was the same. A Chinese man who was manning the left luggage desk taught me that "thank you" in his dialect, Cantonese, was pronounced "door-sheigh". From the top floor we could see into the departure lounge of the airport, aeroplanes waiting on the tarmac outside in the quickly progressing equatorial twighlight. Ben pointed out a bright, colourfully-lit feature in the lounge; it was about 15ft tall, shaped like a tree, and apart from having brightly coloured LEDs splashed all over it, flickering different colours, there was a curved videoscreen surrounding the top of the structure just before the branches, displaying what seemed like a slideshow of photographs. Ben informed us that this was the "Social Tree", a place for visitors to Changi Intl. to say "wish you were here" and post their photos onto Facebook with various scenes from Singapore superimposed onto them! We agreed we'd give it a try.
Luggage in-tow, after descending the escalator, we headed to the red AirAsia check-in desks on the main concourse below us to hand over our passports, weigh and check-in our bags, and receive our boarding passes, which were, in typical money-saving fashion, simply heat-paper receipts stapled together. Before passing through security, Emma and I said a heartfelt thanks to Ben and a-Seng for being such fantastic and generous hosts, despite the very impromptu nature of our trip! The least I could do was give Ben an Ian Rankin book that I had in my luggage, he previously expressed an interest in reading crime novels; I wished we had more to give both of them as a token of our gratitude for their efforts. There's always the future, though.
The glass panels separating security and border control from the departure lounge allowed us to wave goodbye to my two cousins for quite a while before we had to disappear off into the main departure lounge, it was sad to be leaving them after such a short yet full trip to a lovely country! Emma perused the duty-free perfume shop while I facetime'd dad using Changi's free WiFi. We both posed, as promised, at the Social Tree and uploaded the photo to facebook through the camera-ready and internet-able consoles provided surrounding the tree; Our photo appeared on the curving videoscreen immediately after its being posted online, and remained visible, bobbing up and down with other peoples' photos from the day, for the time we spent in Departures before heading to our gate. Time to kill, Emma and I had a great time on the moving walkways between the lounge and the gate, moving "faster than is humanly possible" according to Emma!
The AirAsia A320 whisked us in a north-westerly direction from Changi; we could make out the lights of Malaysia's Johor Bahru below us, and saw many townships with their yellow and bright white lights appearing as clusters of pinpricks of light 27,000ft below us. Arriving at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal in KLIA, we noticed what a far cry this facility was to that of Changi airport only an hour earlier! Walking across the tarmac from the plane instead of taking an air-conditioned gantry, climbing cracked tiled stairs instead of escalators, and waiting at a bustling customs complex to have our fingerprints scanned, we had arrived back on Malaysian soil.
The LCCT was still heaving when we left, taxis arriving and departing from the ranks outside McDonalds that we'd sat in only three days prior. We headed for the bus stop to the main KLIA terminal, hoping that we hadn't missed the last one. It arrived in due course, clattering to a stop. The same driver signalled us to pay Lima Ringgit (Rm5) and board; we helped an eastern european girl to heave her heavy suitcase into the luggage rack before taking a seat and waiting to arrive at KLIA bus terminal. Not entirely sure when the last free shuttle bus to The Concorde Inn KLIA was due to depart, we didn't hang around at the other end, instead heaved our suitcases, bobbles still attached, to the pavement outside Pintu 3 of the terminal bus station, and found a group of Chinese tourists waiting with their luggage for the same bus. Phew, we made it, just.
Being late or early at a hotel is really useful! This time we were decidedly later than planned, and indeed later than we'd told the hotel that we'd arrive, owing to expecting to have arrived from Perth Australia at 10pm, not Singapore at 12am. The result? An upgrade, and a change of location! Our previous room, 906, had been across the main carpark of the complex and on a row of rooms accessible by outdoor passageways. This time, our room, though still accessible outdoors, was accessible by skirting around the hotel swimming pool, still lit up but empty, and down the back of the breakfast room. Instead of the bare-necessities basic (called "Deluxe") rooms that the Concorde Inn KLIA had previously afforded us, this time we arrived in a brightly-lit, clean, carpeted room, bigger than the previous, with just higher quality fixtures all around and even a flat-screen TV. It was a surprise, I had assumed all rooms at the Concorde to be of the same basic standard! There ended another hectic day. We slept well that night, unsurprisingly. The next adventure was to fly to Langkawi, but that is the subject of the next blog!
Luggage in-tow, after descending the escalator, we headed to the red AirAsia check-in desks on the main concourse below us to hand over our passports, weigh and check-in our bags, and receive our boarding passes, which were, in typical money-saving fashion, simply heat-paper receipts stapled together. Before passing through security, Emma and I said a heartfelt thanks to Ben and a-Seng for being such fantastic and generous hosts, despite the very impromptu nature of our trip! The least I could do was give Ben an Ian Rankin book that I had in my luggage, he previously expressed an interest in reading crime novels; I wished we had more to give both of them as a token of our gratitude for their efforts. There's always the future, though.
The glass panels separating security and border control from the departure lounge allowed us to wave goodbye to my two cousins for quite a while before we had to disappear off into the main departure lounge, it was sad to be leaving them after such a short yet full trip to a lovely country! Emma perused the duty-free perfume shop while I facetime'd dad using Changi's free WiFi. We both posed, as promised, at the Social Tree and uploaded the photo to facebook through the camera-ready and internet-able consoles provided surrounding the tree; Our photo appeared on the curving videoscreen immediately after its being posted online, and remained visible, bobbing up and down with other peoples' photos from the day, for the time we spent in Departures before heading to our gate. Time to kill, Emma and I had a great time on the moving walkways between the lounge and the gate, moving "faster than is humanly possible" according to Emma!
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| Faster than is humanly possible. Emma already gaining distance on me by walking on the travelators! I, knackered, let the AC motors do their job and stood still! |
The AirAsia A320 whisked us in a north-westerly direction from Changi; we could make out the lights of Malaysia's Johor Bahru below us, and saw many townships with their yellow and bright white lights appearing as clusters of pinpricks of light 27,000ft below us. Arriving at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal in KLIA, we noticed what a far cry this facility was to that of Changi airport only an hour earlier! Walking across the tarmac from the plane instead of taking an air-conditioned gantry, climbing cracked tiled stairs instead of escalators, and waiting at a bustling customs complex to have our fingerprints scanned, we had arrived back on Malaysian soil.
The LCCT was still heaving when we left, taxis arriving and departing from the ranks outside McDonalds that we'd sat in only three days prior. We headed for the bus stop to the main KLIA terminal, hoping that we hadn't missed the last one. It arrived in due course, clattering to a stop. The same driver signalled us to pay Lima Ringgit (Rm5) and board; we helped an eastern european girl to heave her heavy suitcase into the luggage rack before taking a seat and waiting to arrive at KLIA bus terminal. Not entirely sure when the last free shuttle bus to The Concorde Inn KLIA was due to depart, we didn't hang around at the other end, instead heaved our suitcases, bobbles still attached, to the pavement outside Pintu 3 of the terminal bus station, and found a group of Chinese tourists waiting with their luggage for the same bus. Phew, we made it, just.
Being late or early at a hotel is really useful! This time we were decidedly later than planned, and indeed later than we'd told the hotel that we'd arrive, owing to expecting to have arrived from Perth Australia at 10pm, not Singapore at 12am. The result? An upgrade, and a change of location! Our previous room, 906, had been across the main carpark of the complex and on a row of rooms accessible by outdoor passageways. This time, our room, though still accessible outdoors, was accessible by skirting around the hotel swimming pool, still lit up but empty, and down the back of the breakfast room. Instead of the bare-necessities basic (called "Deluxe") rooms that the Concorde Inn KLIA had previously afforded us, this time we arrived in a brightly-lit, clean, carpeted room, bigger than the previous, with just higher quality fixtures all around and even a flat-screen TV. It was a surprise, I had assumed all rooms at the Concorde to be of the same basic standard! There ended another hectic day. We slept well that night, unsurprisingly. The next adventure was to fly to Langkawi, but that is the subject of the next blog!
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