Today was an exciting day for we were heading to Singapore’s ‘Island of fun’… Aka Sentosa Island! we try to discover if it really is the ‘State of Fun’ or ‘Peace and Tranquility’ as it translates to in Malay as youll soon discover we blog about the ‘free backpacker’ version of visiting the island not the ‘glamarous spend as much as you possibly can to entertain yourself’ version.
We began our day by picking up some delicious items at the Incredible ‘Four Leaves Bakery’ at Bugis St MRT, brekky was saved until later but included things like ‘little snows’ and ‘cheese volcanos’ which, quite frankly, would have been rude to ignore.
On the train, and about half an hour later we had arrived! We ate our divine brekky with a hot ‘Kopi’ gazing in awe at the scene before our eyes. Across the bridge we could see Sentosa Island. You couldn’t miss it as it was signposted like how Hollywood is, in big white letters.
We could see exciting things like ‘universal studios’ https://www.rwsentosa.com/en/attractions/universal-studios-singapore and S.E.A. Aquarium ‘underwater world’ https://www.sentosa.com.sg/en/things-to-do/attractions/sea-aquarium/ and ‘casinos’ so got onboard the moving floor(!) On the bridge and headed over, not wanting to miss a moment! First stop, universal studios. We thought it might have been the special Friday where they offer half price entry, but it appeared the guide book we had was out of date, as the girl smiled at us in a confused way. At around a years earning per person, we decided to give universal studios a miss. We did though get our photo taken outside the entrance which is nearly as good as spinning about on rollercoasters all day. So we ambled off to see what else we could do. Next stop the maritime museum. Turns out our guide book was out of date on this one too. The museum had merged with underwater world and the ticket price could easily have fed a small family for the year. So on we went. Phil desperately wanted to have a play on the glamorous casinos, so we trotted down, money hot in our sticky paws, confident we could afford a bit of fun here. Alas, a £100 entry fee just to get in. So on we wandered.
We did however come across bits of free entertainment as the day went on. Obviously lunch was a no no but we did find a merlion statue, a drinking water fountain, the toilets, a somewhat murkey beach complete with jellyfish infestation (although we did discover a ball floating about which provided a fair amount of amusement and we played with it in the shallows until we realised we were once again on a construction site and the beach builders were giving us funny looks.) We built a sand octopus. While doing so we spotted perhaps the 2nd funniest thing we would spot all day (the funniest being at the luge car races, which incidently we could not justify going on either, where we saw a man lodge his vehicle into the barrier causing a massive luge pileup while uusucessfully trying to hump the car down the track) which was a man with a leaf blower. This wouldn’t normally have been so funny, but it was a slightly windy day, and he was basically blowing leaves with his very noisy leaf blower which were all blowing straight out of the pile he had put them in back into the path of his leaf blower. We watched this performance for some time, wondering if someone had given him that job as a hilarious joke.
Still sniggering we continued our quest for free stuff.
We decided we were actually having a much better day than the hoards screaming with joy on the fantastic rides, those playing in the wave machine, or those enjoying a dip with dolphins, or those who could afford the trick eye museum, as we had walked far away from all the fun stuff to discover a sign which stated we were now at ‘Asia’s most Southerly point’ and we had stumbled across Fort Siloso, https://www.sentosa.com.sg/en/things-to-do/attractions/fort-siloso/ which we visited as it had just a £3 entry fee and because there was no one else there, nice and quiet! We soon came to realise that we had actually come to a really interesting place. Fort Siloso was manned by the British in WW2 and the original forts, hideouts and cannons were still in place. There were informative yet awful displays reaccounting the time of Japanese occupancy in Singapore, and memorabilia from the prisoners of war. Visiting this place was a starke reminder of how much we have nowadays, and how much so many men and women gave to allow us today to enjoy the places we do. A very humbling few hours were spent here and we were so glad we had come across it.
Before heading home we enjoyed some meat and rice Vietnamese street food and hopped back onto the MRT, homeward bound to our abode.
Click on the link for a list of other Free things to do whilst on Sentosa Island https://www.sentosa.com.sg/en/things-to-do/attractions/
All in all we would thoroughly recomend Sentosa Island for the whole family for a day out or more, you can achieve both tranquility and fun!
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