Day 3 Good morning from Singapore!
We decided to take a break from the city parts of Singapore and instead visit one of Singapore's
most famous sites: Singapore's Botanic Gardens.
This is an award winning garden, and it's an UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it's one
of the most visited, no, actually THE most visited Botanic garden in the entire world...so
our expectations are pretty high for what we're going to see today.
Let's go check it out.
Only 3 gardens in the world are designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Apparently being called a city within a garden wasn’t enough for Singapore - they
also have gardens within a garden!
There are many themed gardens within the Singapore Botanic Gardens, and together they are home
to more than 10,000 species of flowering plants and trees.
Wow, good job! Ohhh, good job!
Boy, I wish that Smell-Tube was a thing.
It smells so amazing here!
The flowers...
These here smell amazing, they're called White Butterfly Ginger.
It reminds us very much of Hawaii.
And of course Jasmine always smells amazing!
...and even the leaves smell amazing.
We don't know what it is but we keep catching the scent of like light coffee mixed with
rum and caramel and it could be wishful thinking on my part, I don't know.
But that smells really good, Jasmine everywhere, just a really nice floral scent pretty much
everywhere you go.
It is sort of intoxicating.
I haven't been on one of these since I was a kid!
Neither have I.
This is a sundial I can read.
It says it's time for lunch!
Well, we are taking a break for lunch.
These gardens are huge!
I would guess we've seen like 10-15% of it so far.
It's so impressive - it's beautiful, all the flowers, and occasional wildlife.
Oh my god.
It's really amazing in a city that prides itself on having tons of green space, which
is already impressive, they've also set this aside and it's 1.7 kilometers long by I'm
not sure, but it is massive.
And it's beautiful.
Sort of tall - oh my gosh, it feels like plastic!
It's like corrugated plastic.
Wow, look at that - it's like an army!
Heather's calling this the camouflage palm.
This is just the edge of the Foliage Garden.
They're beautiful but I can't really smell them.
We actually decided not to go into, I think it's called the VIP Orchid Garden.
It's another 15 Singapore Dollars - actually so far this has been free, so it's actually
a cheap day.
There were plenty of orchids outside that were just beautiful, so we just didn't feel
the need, I guess.
Oh it's a piano! Oh, it's Chopin.
In 2009, it was here at Symphony Lake where 163 couples were wed within 24 hours.
That set a Guinness World Record for the most couples married within 24 hours at the same
location, but unfortunately that record was beat in 2013 and is held now in Yemen.
Let's just take a moment to think about this place.
We're in the middle of one of the most populous cities on the planet and you'd have no idea!
You're in this tranquil, peaceful space full of greenery everywhere.
What a treasure for the Singaporeans to have this available - and it's completely free
to enter.
We are currently in the Healing Garden, and pretty much anything that ails you, there's
something here that can cure it.
Like this plant!
Which will help heal broken bones, and treat gonorrhea and hemorrhoids.
This here is a type of Jasmine, which, among other things, can help cure flatulence.
Strangely enough, there's a toxic section to the Healing Garden.
I think that's a little bit inconsistent but I guess they had to put it somewhere.
I wanted to take advantage of this beautiful background to share with you how we got here.
We took a bus from our hotel to the Singapore Botanic Gardens and we're taking the MRT (train)
back.
It is SO easy to take public transport here!
All you need is a wireless credit card, you know, with the little wifi sign on it, and
you just swipe that as you get in and then swipe it again as you get out.
And it's only like a dollar or 2 to go anywhere.
It's so easy!!
Honestly, public transportation should be this easy everywhere we go.
Apparently there are nut trees here.
That could really explain that coffee caramel rum smell that we have smelled everywhere.
Wow, I can't believe that this is all free.
It's amazing.
And there's even a children's area.
It was closed when we got there so we're not able to show it to you, but it looks amazing.
If you've got kids, bring them here.
Having spent all day here, and I really do mean ALL day, I have to say - this is a fantastic
place to spend the day if you're in Singapore and you want a little bit of a break from
the cityscape.
Everything we've done today has been completely free - which is just sort of amazing.
I absolutely love that this is just available to everybody, no matter what your status is
in Singapore. It's incredible.
Day 4.
Good morning!
We are starting at the monastery that you see behind us.
Kong Meng - wait, what was the name of it?
Kong Meng, Kong, You have the name - Oh, I have the name, ok.
We are at Kong Meng San Phor Kark See.
Ok, I have to read that - it has 6 words that are part of it.
I'm sure we did not say any of it right, but that is our starting point for the day today.
We're not sure how much filming we'll be able to do, so fingers cross that we can show you
what it looks like because we're really excited about this experience.
Let's go take a look. Alright, let's go.
By the way, masks are required for this entire visit, so if we are able to shoot, this is
what we'll look like.
KMSPKS dates back just over 100 years, to 1921, and it was the first traditional Chinese
monastery to be built in Singapore.
What started as just a few buildings continued to expand over time and even includes a Buddhist
college that was established recently in 2006.
The complex is positively massive in size, taking up approximately 75,000 square meters,
which is equal to around 11 American soccer fields, but some of you might know that sport
as football. ;-)
It turns out that we are here on a special
day of prayer, so not only were we fed lunch - which actually was really affordable - but
there are tons of people here and there's lots of offerings going on, and it just feels
like a really unusually special atmosphere.
We are just really fortunate to be here on today of all days.
Our visit coincided with the annual Qingming festival, so the temple complex was much busier
than we expected.
Qingming is a day set aside for honoring family members by cleaning memorial and burial sites,
burning incense, and putting up food offerings.
This is a tradition that dates back at least 2500 years.
Although our visit coincided with the Qingming festival, temple volunteers were happy to
explain what was going on and never gave us the feeling that we were intruding on their
special day.
We just finished visiting the largest Buddhist monastery in Singapore and what did you think?
It was a beautiful and enormous place.
There's a lot going on today - it was a festival that we sort of just stumbled onto.
They're honoring their ancestors by offering up food and we saw that on the numerous tables
that were honestly all over the monastery.
They were everywhere.
We tried to be respectful and take some video without getting in anyone's way.
It was really special for us to be able to visit on this day.
I'm really glad that we made the trip out.
Orchid breeding and micro-propagation.
Shaking helps to confuse the tissue.
Shake it, shake it, shake it.