Even though we have been staying on Sentosa Island, we hadn’t explored it as of yet. Sentosa was uninhabited before the British arrived. The British used Sentosa as a fort island to protect Singapore Island and until a few years ago, it contained nothing but the old forts. Then the island was designated a recreational area and master planned. There is tons of building going on all over Sentosa. The section of the island called Sentosa Cove, where we are staying, has tons of homes being built. We have been told some are selling as high as S$10,000,000 (USD$7,500,000), but we never confirmed that information. The rest of the island is geared at tourists. There are several fancy resorts already, and several more are under construction. A casino is under construction. They have put in a few man made beaches. There are a number of tourist attractions recently built, as well.
We have seen lots of orange and red busses painted with Sentosa around, but none of them seem to go to our bus stop. We have only seen the blue busses. When the blue bus pulled up, the driver told us to get in and he would drop us off where we needed to go. Halfway across the island he stopped and told us to go a couple blocks to another bus stop to catch the red or orange bus. Oh, we get it now. They are trying to make sure the tourists don’t wander into the local’s homes so there are separate bus lines.
We were picked up by an orange bus. The first stop was Underwater World and the Pink Dolphin Show. We suddenly felt like we were on the Disneyland tram, going from the parking lot to the various sections of the park. The second stop was the Sentosa Merlion. The Merlion here is enormous big enough to need a red light at the top for airplanes. For a modest admission fee, you can climb into its mouth and on top of its head. The brochure says there is a “stunning display featuring a mythical undersea world”, whatever that means.
The third stop was where we got off, Imbiah Lookout, which has the most rides and activities. It is at the top of a hill and there is a view from the food court area. We didn’t say a nice view. It overlooks the casino construction and the shipping port, with some of downtown in the background.
We went to the ticket booth. A pack of 5 attractions 3 regular and 2 thrill was only S$35.00 (USD$27.00). It was actually a really good value since most of the activities are S$9 – $15 each. There are probably enough activities on the island that you would need two, or maybe even more, full days to do them all. Now more than ever we felt like we were at Disneyland, just like when we were kids in the 70’s, with our book of tickets in hand. The “thrill” tickets are the “E” tickets.
The first ride was the luge. The luges are little sleds with small wheels and bicycle handlebars. We sat down on it and sped off down the track that took us to the bottom of the hill. It was fun, but not quite long enough to be a satisfying ride. We already mentioned that the hills in Singapore aren’t very big. At the bottom there is a ski lift that takes you back up the hill. There are hooks at the back of the lift that they attach the sleds to, which take the sleds back up the hill to the starting point. Quite clever. The ride up was quite pretty with nice views of the harbor, the refinery plant on a nearby island, cargo ships and a couple other nearby islands.
From there we went to the Singapore History Museum. There is a more traditional museum that is supposed to be good in town, but this one is geared at the average tourist. It was laid out exactly the same as the Hong Kong museum, with each room recreating a time period, starting with the geology and moving forward in time. It looked like the same set designer did both museums. The World War II exhibit was much larger than the one in Hong Kong. What is weird is that the history ended when Singapore became an independent nation. No mention is made of what happened over the next 60 odd years to make it the great nation it is today. Instead, you went right from “the birth of a nation” through a long hallway reminiscent of the “It’s a small world” ride at Disneyland and into the cultural exhibits. As you walk down the streets of the reconstructed row houses, each home depicted a family celebrating some event according to their tradition, such as weddings and births. There would be a Malay house, a Chinese house and an Indian house, but curiously there were no European houses on display. The next few rooms showed the traditional holidays of each of the three ethic groups. The signs and audio would explain what is done to celebrate and why. The cultural exhibit was probably half the museum, as opposed to the museum in Hong Kong that has only one room devoted to cultural rituals (that we saw anyway. There are more exhibits in that museum that we missed).
After the history museum, we went to “¦
To be continued”¦