Sentosa Island

Yesterday we spent the day on Sentosa Island which is pretty much a grown up version of Disneyland in Singapore. I can't believe it has taken me so long to get out there!  I guess I thought it would be more difficult to get to but it was just a 20 minute bus ride and then a 5 minute tram ride to get on the island from our apartment. It was a beautiful sunny day to be outside and I loved being out of the city where the air didn't have that distinctive city stink and there wasn't incessant traffic and construction noise. It felt like we weren't in Singapore at all actually because we didn't pass a single restaurant with whole dead chickens or fish hanging from hooks and noxious Singaporean food smells wafting out! What a nice little break!  I now understand why several friends who have visited their husbands on port calls in Singapore and stayed on Sentosa assured me I would love Singapore... because they spent most of their time in grown up "Disneyland" (which is exactly what I would recommend for any of you planning to visit in the future...).

As usual, our day revolved around activities chosen to suit our toddlers tastes and thus, the day began with a visit to The Port of Lost Wonder which is a pirate ship themed water play area.  Quinn loves to play in the water and loves fountains, but this was a little much for him.  Pretty much everywhere in the play area had some sort of water raining down on it.  He likes to splash and play in the water as much as anyone, but isn't a fan of having water raining down on his head unexpectedly.  I think in another 6 months he would probably love it.  After checking things out for awhile he settled for playing ball in a shady spot of grass off to the side- typical!

After the water park we walked over to Resort World for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. On our walk over we passed the Merlion statue, which apparently is a Singapore icon, though I'm not really sure why. Quinn loved lunch at Hard Rock!  He gobbled up his mac n cheese and his yummy peach smoothie and was rocking out in his high chair the whole time to the music.

After lunch, Quinn passed out in his stroller while hubby and I proceeded to get lost trying to navigate our way to Underwater World, our next stop. If there is one thing to dislike about Sentosa it would definitely be the lack of signage and the layout that is not at all conducive to walking between attractions.  They do have a nice tram system, but with a baby sleeping in the stroller, we couldn't very well break down the stroller and hop on a tram. So instead we probably walked 2+ miles up and down steep hills in the midday sun to get somewhere maybe 1/2 mile away.  Q woke up from his nap just as we approached our destination and was bright eyed and bushy tailed so we let him play ball while we caught our breath and rested our legs.

Q's favorite thing of the day was definitely Underwater World where he got to see all the "fissss." Underwater World was really neat.  The major attraction is the massively long tunnel you go through and there are all kinds of fish and sharks and stingrays swimming around you and overhead.  Q just loooved it! I would have loved it a little more if it weren't so packed with people that you could barely move!  And naturally, since we are in Asia, among the most camera-happy people in the world, every display had at least one group of people standing in front of it not even looking at the fish, but waiting for someone else to take 523 pictures of them while they were blocking everyone else's view. Fortunately going through the tunnel you stood on a conveyor belt which kept people from stopping to block everyone else's view:-) 

They also had a dolphin and sea lion show that we went to. Q didn't care so much about the dolphins unless they were playing with balls (of course) but he liked the sea lions (so did I) and he really got into clapping along with the crowd at appropriate times. It was so unbelievably hot at the dolphin lagoon that we were all ready to get back home to a cool bath and the AC after that was over! 

All-in-all, we had a very fun day and were all in bed before 9pm.  There is so much to do on Sentosa (much of which isn't really appropriate for a 1 year old) that I would like to go back sometime without Q- we'll see if that ever happens!