New Year's in Singapore

After impatiently waiting for my passport to be returned to me from immigration (who was installing my student visa…for 3 weeks!), I finally got it back last week and booked a ticket at the last minute to Singapore for New Year’s.  Fellow Ambassadorial Scholar Andrew, who came to Cambodia, is based there so I knew I would have a local contact.  Additionally, a friend of a friend from Oregon was passing through at the same time so we met up and explored the city together.  It was a quick trip, only four days, but it turns out Singapore is really small, so I was still able to see a fair amount. 

We spent most of the first day around Chinatown and one of the more interesting sights was the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.  It’s a huge five storey temple that opened in 2008 that is said to hold what is believed to be a sacred tooth of the Buddha (experts have expressed doubts over its authenticity, haha).  The tooth relic itself is on a pedestal in a shrine made with 420kg of gold donated by worshippers (no photos allowed there, sorry), quite impressive.  But the tooth itself is only revealed on two days of the year, the first day of Chinese New Year and Wesak day.  There was a great museum about the history of Buddhism, a pleasant bookshop and teahouse, and a roof top garden with prayer wheels and thousands of tiny Buddha statues. 

Anyone need some chopsticks?

Who knew there were so many options?

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

It was very elaborate inside the temple, and it went on for many floors.

In Chinatown we ran into a youth group practicing drumming with a dancer performing acrobatics while balancing on high standing pedestals.  Really neat to watch.

From there we visited the Red Dot Museum, something I was not familiar with but I trusted in my travel partner who said it would be neat, and it was.  The “Red Dot,” from my understanding, is an award given to products/ideas/designs that have real market value.  It’s hard to explain but from the website “the aim of the award is to be the defining platform that separates good ideas with good design solutions from the mediocre, to provide a professional evaluation and internationally recognized seal that gives an advantage to the design and designer in the competitive market.”  The museum showcased tons of products that ranged from energy efficient bathtubs and toilets, sportswear, clean water solutions, furniture, etc., etc.  The designs were all very sleek and appealing and it was interesting to read about the functionality, so it was kind of like an engineering/art museum. 

Can you guess what this is?  Tupperware!

Later on we explored the waterfront and the architecture defining Singapore’s skyline.  The main waterfront it called Marina Bay and we took a small boat cruise around the bay and river.  The bay was filled with thousands of balloons or beach balls, it was hard to tell what they were made of, on which people had written hopes and wishes for 2012. 

I really enjoyed all the public art around the city.

There were many painted elephant statues as a fundraiser and awareness to save the elephants.

This one was painted with the Singapore skyline.

Marina Bay Sands hotel/casino, Art and Science Museum (the lotus looking building), and the Singapore Flyer observation wheel.  The boat in the foreground is what we took.

The Merlion, Singapore's mascot.  It was struck by lightening in 2009, but quickly repaired.

People's floating wishes for 2012.

We spent New Year’s Eve day visiting the Singapore Botanical Gardens, probably the best I have ever had the pleasure of strolling through.  There were small trees decorated everywhere by local NGOs in the Christmas spirit, but all the decorations were refreshingly made out of recycled materials.  That evening we went to a house party of one of Andrew’s friends and then headed down to the water front to battle the crowds to watch the fireworks.  They had shut down some of the major bridges, so we were lucky to stroll right up a great spot without having to fight crowds too much.  It was great to watch the celebrations across the background of the cityscape.  We wandered around with the crowds after midnight and found a DJ dance party outside one of the night club areas and thankfully caught the last subway back to our hostel or else it would have been a long walk as catching a taxi would have been impossible.

The night sky on NYE.

The last night I checked out the famed Night Safari, part of the Singapore Zoo.  It was quite extensive and it was great to see animals roaming “freely” with a no cage concept, just natural barriers like trenches to keep them separated.  It opens at 7:30pm and you can roam around until midnight so it’s a great way to see the nocturnal animals active.  My favorites were probably the hippos.  It was dark out and you weren't supposed to use flash, therefore it was hard to take photos, so this is the best I got!

Huge rino at the Night Safari.