Singapore Sojourn Day 5: "Sentosa!"

Barbara and I with the students on Sentosa Island, with Singapore in the background.

The kids in the Carlsberg Sky Tower. That's "The Treasurer" in the background with the camera. Sentosa Island.


Singapore skyline as seen from the Carlsberg Sky Tower. Lotta smog, huh.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Once again we got up late. I went to the bank to change money and to try to find a converter that would allow us to plug in our chargers for our digital camera and camcorder. No luck.

We got on the bus for Sentosa around noon.

Sentosa is a small resort island just off the coast of Singapore. You can reach it by cable car, by train, or by bus via a short bridge. We took the bus.

There are all kinds of activities on Sentosa ranging from beaches, to the luge to the Carlsberg Sky tower, a spinning tower that gives you a panaromic view of Sentosa and the Singapore skyline beyond. We bought the kids a pass that covered several of Sentosa's key activities, and turned them loose. First they did the Cinemania 4D, a "movie" thrill ride, where the audience watches a 3D film while their theater seats jolt them about and various blasts of air and water crate the sensationof mice running under your feet and so on. Apparently "Micronesian Queen" and "The Treasurer" took off their 3D glasses at some of the really scary parts, so realistic was it. Or so I'm told. Barbara and I sat out that activity.

We had an overpriced and okay-tasting lunch at the theme parks signature restaurant, Taste of Singapore. I think the hawker stands provided a much more authentic "Taste of Singapore" than this restuarant did. But, thanks to the kids holding park passes, we were able to get 20% off.

After a late lunch we tried out the luge, a long downhill course that your race down on flat, wheeled carts that you brake and steer using a single lever. That was a lot of fun, and was probably my favorite part of Sentosa.

Barbara snapped these picture of our students hurtling down the final stretch of the luge course. The main part of the track was much wider than what was picture here. The track narrowed as you approached the end to force you to slow down.

At the bottom of the luge track there was a "skyride", a ski lift type apparatus that transported you and your luge cart back up to the top of the hill. Here's one of our students in midair.

Me with the 8th-9th graders post-luge. Sentosa's luge slogan was correct. "Once is not enough." We all eagerly went for another go-around.

After that it was time for the 8th graders to have some Official Learning Time. While the 9th grade students wandered the park with Barbara, I took KoreaY, Holly, and Micronesian Queen to Images of Singapore, a sort animatronic walk-thru museum that depicts the historyand culture of Singapore. Anyone whose been to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World has a pretty good sense of what this was like. The kids enjoyed it, and added to their knowledge of Singapore for their Geography class.

A sample shot of the displays in the "Images of Singapore" museum. I think this shows a Chinese bride preparing for her wedding, but I don't remember. You can see how much I learned!

As we criss-crossed the park, several times we passed a snake charmer offering to allow gullible tourists the privelige of paying to having our photo taken with his snake. Finally, during a brief interlude between "Images" and the Sky Tower, two of our students relented, and paid five dollars to have their picture taken holding this huge, horrifying-looking snake. The student below actually ran away screaming on her first try at holding the snake, but as you can see she eventually mustered up the courage to get her five bucks worth, hold the snake, and even smile.

Our final activity of the day was the Sky Tower, and we were able to take some great panaramic photos of the Singapore skyline from that vantage point. We left the park around sunset and heated back across the bridge to Singapore, where we shopped at the Vivo Mall for a few hours before heading home--late--by bus once again.

Me with the Singapore skyline in the background, on the Sky Tower.