Our last day on Singapore. We needed to be back at the hotel to be picked up at 6:15pm, so this gave us about ten hours to explore, so …
We packed our bags, leaving them with the concierge. We checked out and left the hotel, took the MRT to Esplanade, just round the corner from the famed Raffles Hotel. This has only just been revealed again to public view, after extensive renovation.
We had come out of a back door in the Esplanade Shopping Center. in the search for the Raffles Hotel. Leaving the Raffles, we found — surprise, surprise — its front entrance. They had set it up to celebrate the upcoming National Day Celebration (10 August, celebrating Singapore's independence from Malaysia in 1965). We walked through a couple of shopping malls, finally finding an exit (easier said than done!)
We walked down North Bridge Road, past St Andrew's Cathedral and the Parliament of Singapore, reaching the Elgin Bridge. Here we turned left along the riverbank, walking down to the Raffles Landing Site. It was here that Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles landed on January 28, 1819, ushering in the period of British colonisation of the island. The riverbank opposite has retained many of its older buildings, becoming a vibrant restaurant area, and is overlooked by the high-rise financial district.
At the Raffles Landing Site itself, there is the inevitable statue of Raffles, recently refurbished. It is flanked on both sides by statues of other 'immigrants' who have made a significant contribution to the island's development …
Then we continued across the Cavanagh Bridge (at the southern end of which is a delightful statue of children jumping into the river), and down to the Merlion Park on the banks of the Marina Bay. The Merlion, a mythical creature with a lion's head and the body of a fish, is widely used as a mascot and national personification of Singapore. This statue was completed in 1972, but moved to its present location in 2002 after the new Esplanade Bridge nearby somewhat hid it from view. It's never short of a horde of admirers!
At this point, we were near the Raffles Place MRT station, so we took the MRT all the way out to Boon Lay station (about 30 minutes on the East-West Line) from which a bus would take us to the Jurong Bird Park. It's a long way out, so we were hoping the trip would be worth it. It was! The grounds are lush, and full of free-flying birds and others enclosed in aviaries. The 20.2ha park has about 5,000 birds representing 400 world species - of which 15 per cent are threatened. It attracts about 800,000 visitors each year.
There are shows on during the day, and we went in to the High Flyers Show. Very entertaining — here's a YouTube clip from a few years ago. Possibly the star of the show was Amigo, a yellow-naped Amazon parrot (average lifespan 20 to 30 years in the wild and 60 to 80 in captivity), who may well have been at the park since soon after its inception in 1971. He is the clearest talker we have ever heard — in three languages! — and he sings as well, and in tune!
We explored the park for quite a while, noting numerous exotic bird species, but all too soon it was time to get back to the bus, to get the train back to our hotel. We did this in plenty of time, arriving at 6:10pm for our 6:15pm pickup! Never let it be said that the Hams are not punctual!
We got to the airport, booked in, and settled in for the wait for our plane home. Changi airport is huge, modern, and very comfortable. We even found a butterfly room there. Anyway, by 9:30 we were on our way — next stop, Brisbane, 7½ hours later!
From here, we took a shuttle bus back to near the bridge across to the big hotel, the Marina Bay Sands, and found our way round to the lift up to its observation deck for a good birds-eye view of the whole area. Magnificent!
WE then went down, walked through the spectacular foyers of the hotel and to the MRT station beneath it, from which we took the train back to Orchard Street and our own hotel.
