Singapore 2015: A Merdeka Getaway

Oops I did it again! I just spent this year's National Day outside of Malaysia. Last year I was in Bangkok. And this year, I went south to Singapore to take advantage of another 3-day Merdeka weekend :). From a Sin city to the SIN city :D.

We stayed at Holiday Inn Express Orchard which was a walking distance away from the Somerset MRT station. We opted for the 3-day Singapore Tourist pass that only costed us SGD20 for unlimited travels on the SMRT train and buses, including the travel to and from Changi. We just had to fork out another SGD4 for the Sentosa Express. With the lower Ringgit to SGD conversion rate, we were trying to minimize our expenditure ;).

I'm just going to spend most of this post talking about my first ever trip to the Universal Studios. Woohoo! I'd talk about the other (new) stuff afterwards. Maybe not a whole lot but that should suffice right? :)

Universal Studios Singapore
We had purchased the Universal Express passes because we could skip the lines that could go for 90 minutes of waiting time.

The obligatory picture in front of the Universal globe -- taken as we were leaving

We attacked the Transformers ride first. We managed to save our express pass because the queue wasn't that long. Still, it was a good 20 minute wait.

Bumblebee greeted us at the entrance

This is what you do to kill time while waiting :)

The line

Right before the ride started

With the man himself ;)

I just have to say the ride was 'awe-some!' or 'sick!' to be in touch with today's term.

Battlestar Gallactica was next. We chose Human first and Cylon next. With the express pass, we got on the coasters in almost no time. I was sooo excited to get on the roller coasters after the failed attempt in Kings Island, US a couple of years back; it rained on that day and I was leaving on the next. IMO, Cylon the inverted coaster was the better of the two because of its loopy loops and the sections that we went through the mist. Twice. They added that sense of going into the unknown and near miss. Cool!

The Battlestar Galactica coasters taken from the waterfront

Since the Revenge of the Mummy ride was experiencing a short technical difficulty, we hopped on the Treasure Hunters ride, where 'young explorers can drive their own desert jeep through an abandoned Egyptian excavation site'. There were no young explorers in our jeep though :D.

After the Revenge of the Mummy ride (which was awesome by the way because we were mostly riding in the dark), we were in luck because Anck-su-Namun made an appearance outside of the building.

Humongous statues guarding the Revenge of the Mummy ride.

She's sooooo pretty! #willmotherapprove :D

She wasn't having it when I was posing with the peace sign

The rides at the Lost World section include the Jurassic Park rapids adventure, Dino-Soarin and Canopy Flyer.

Barisan 'orang kebanyakan'. Hehehe

On the Jurassic ride

I did the exact pose when I went to the museum at Raleigh a few years back :)

Haha, riding on a kiddie ride. Well I got to fully utilize my Express pass right? :)

My very own pterodactyl

In the Far Far Away land, we went on the Shrek 4D show and the Puss In Boots’ Giant Journey ride.

I should have bought this T shirt for future investment :'D

The last couple of attractions that we went on before we made our back to the city were of course Transformers and the sound stage which was made into a boathouse in NYC that was about to be hit by a Category 5 hurricane. Really really amazing!

The Minions making an appearance

Long lines for each of the Minion character!

Out and about

In celebration of Singapore's 50th birthday, there was the Anooki Celebrate Singapore show, which was a light show projected the Annoki running riots on the façade of the National Museum. It was really, really fun and entertaining :)

Several of the projectors behind us

Food-wise, we visited the nearby Far East Plaza to try out the offerings by this one Puncak Noodles restaurant. We ordered (halal) Beef Char Siew noodles, dried wantan noodles and Sotong Oats. OMG, the sotong oats were so delicious!

Dry Wantan Noodles

Beef Char Siew Noodles

Sotong Oats

We stopped at Zam Zam restaurant for murtabak when we were walking around Bugis and Arab streets.

An awesome facade of a restaurant near Arab Street

Beef Murtabak at Zam Zam's

We do think that this is highly unnecessary

The best meal that we had has to be the dinner buffet at Royal Plaza on Scotts. If you are a seafood person, you ought to come by. Unfortunately we didn't take that many pictures to do the buffet any justice.

People went seafood crazy throughout the night for these

... and these

... and this

The other side of the table spread had tons of oysters

In the hotel lobby after dinner

On our last night in the city, we went to the Marina Bay Sands to go onto the viewing platform overlooking the Gardens by the Bay.

Marina Bay Sands

Garden by the Bay

Part of the Singapore skyline

I should visit the Garden by the Bay should I come back to Singapore. There are still tons to do here which I haven't done, like the Aquarium, Zoo, Wings of Time at Sentosa and what not. We shall see. The ringgit is quite weak at the moment. It's just next door but the exchange rate is about the same as that of the USD during my trip last year :P