After the history museum, we went to the butterfly and insect museum. This museum is certainly much more detailed than the one we had visited in Kuranda, with geological exhibits and tons of species in glass. They have some nasty looking creatures in there. You move from the museum area to the butterfly sanctuary, where many species of butterflies flitted about amongst beautifully landscaped terrain. Unlike Kuranda, most of the plants are flowering. There are food stations with sweet food on the table to supplement the nectar from the flowers. In the pictures below, the first photo are of Clippers and the second of Tree Nymphs. There are also tropical birds and turtles in the sanctuary, too.

Even though this sanctuary is nicer overall, we liked the Kuranda one better, probably because of the fascinating guided tour. It simply wasn’t as interactive or fun without the guide. From the butterfly sanctuary, you move into the live bug exhibits. There are some really scary looking and gross bugs out there. Half the bugs on display would freak us out if we ever saw them outside the glass.

We hopped back on the tram and went to the next stop up the hill, Fort Siloso. Fort Siloso was built by the British in the mid 1800’s to protect Keppel Harbor, where most of the shipping traffic came into, and the refinery on the small island across the way. There were 8 British forts in the Singapore area in total, four on Sentosa, and this is the only one left standing. There are three different exhibits set up, and as you followed the exhibit trails you make your way around the entire fort. The first exhibit is life in the fort for the soldiers prior to the war, and like the museum, had recreated the time period with décor and wax people in the midst of various activities. There were some watch stations, barracks, the kitchen, the exercise area, and even a recreation of the ship the English soldiers rode from England to Singapore, just to name a few of the displays.

The second and largest exhibit is about World War II. The forts were all set up to handle a raid by sea, but the Japanese surprised everyone by raiding from land, walking through the Malaysian jungle to Singapore. The soldiers stationed at Fort Siloso fought valiantly and were very upset when the British surrendered only a few days after invasion. The British felt they had no choice, since the Japanese had cut off basic resources to the people. The soldiers at the various forts destroyed all their weaponry, along with the refinery, to keep it out of the Japanese hands. Several rooms featured film footage, news articles, and interviews with survivors. The reenactment areas showed battle scenes. For example, wax figures hand cranking artillery up a pulley from underground storage areas to the guns on the surface, and on the surface wax figures grabbed the shells and loaded them into the guns. The displays were complete with vivid sound effects. Singapore was under Japanese control for 3 years, and there was a room set up with an exhibit of what life was like for Singaporeans under the Japanese. The Japanese used Fort Siloso as a POW camp, and there were several exhibits showing the starving and tortured prisoners. There was a recreation of the day when Japan officially surrendered Singapore to the Allied forces at the end of the war.

The next exhibit took you through the maze of underground tunnels and out to various guns.

The fort offers pretty views and a quite a few large gun displays. There are real and replicated guns from all the eras the fort was in existence. There seem to be large guns everywhere around the fort grounds.

The last “thrill” ride was a sky car over to downtown. It was kind of a let down. It had nice views, but it was a short ride that let us off at Vivo City, very close to the bus drop off. For extra, you can take it to the top of Mt. Faber to the “Jewel Box”, which sounds just like the station at the top of Victoria Peak in Hong Kong. Since Mt. Faber isn’t much of a mountain, we passed on going up there.

From the cable car terminal we took a taxi to the Central Business District to get dinner at a Mexican restaurant we had read about in Lonely Planet. We were father west than we had gone with Omar, to an area called Clark Quay. The restaurant was in an old restored warehouse on the river. The other side of the river has a four block area of row houses where the streets have been closed off to car traffic. Big umbrellas above the buildings shade the streets, and there is a big fountain in what used to be an intersection. The businesses in this enclave are all restaurants, boutique breweries, bars and nightclubs. Behind the enclave is another old warehouse that is now a concert venue. Clearly, this part of town had once been a seedy shipping wharf and over the years has been renovated to be a chic social center, much like downtown San Diego.

The Mexican restaurant is called Iguanas, and was surprisingly pretty good. Still not San Diego Mexican, though, but good enough to satisfy our Mexican fix. On the way back to the marina, the driver took us through Chinatown. We were amazed. The Chinese New Year is coming up, and in only a few days, tons of lights and decorations had been put up in the streets. Actually, we have noticed decorations going up everywhere, but here the décor was over the top, covering the street from one end to the other in lanterns, red lights, and Chinese New Year Mickey and Minnie Mouse. More and more we feel like Singapore and Disneyland are one and the same.

And, of course, it is very important that we try every dessert in the deli case before we leave Singapore, so we were back at the deli for half priced desserts. We both think our pants are a little tighter, but we have no idea why.