Welcome back to Tales from our Pocket! Today we are finally spending some money. So far
in Singapore, we've been enjoying the wealth of options that Singapore has that are free.
Today, that changes. We are in the bay... We are in the bay? We're in the bay. I'm not
in the bay. I'm not in the water. We are at Gardens by the Bay. This is one of the most
iconic areas of Singapore with architecture that you recognize, even if you haven't been here, and we
are doing it all. We're going into the Cloud Forest. We are going into Floral Fantasy. We are going into the
Flower Dome, and we are even going to the top of one of those trees that you see behind me. They're
called SuperTrees and we'll tell you all about them later. We have a huge day ahead of us! So much
to do, we better get going. By the way, masks are required every time we go inside, so this might
be the only time that you see our smiling faces. We'll be smiling behind our masks though, be assured.
Wow, it's huge! It is also really chilly. I was not expecting it to be quite this chilly. It's
very air conditioned. If you come, you might want to bring another layer. It smells amazing in here!
Back home, these are annuals.
Well, we just finished flower dome you can see it behind us. Those flowers were amazing! It was so
much fun to photograph the flowers, and i guess video them, depending on what device we were
carrying. So far, I'm really impressed; it was really neat. Bill, what'd you think of the flower dome?
It was fantastic. I think there's nothing like it, at least that I've seen in all our travels, and it's
it's just really unique. Everything's temperature controlled in there so it's very comfortable.
Just, everything's very well done, lots of fun sculptures and lots of beautiful flowers, Oh! We
happened to arrive at the very end of their Sakura display - Japanese cherry blossoms - which is kind
of amazing! A lot of them were past their peak, you know, it's the end of it, but it was neat to be able
to come in and just see the very end of that. That was probably my favorite part. We've canceled Japan
plans like three times in the past two years, so it was neat to be able to experience a little bit of
Japan through here in Singapore. We bought a bundle package that's how we're able to do absolutely
everything and we are on our way to grab some lunch. Our bundle included a $14 credit to a
couple of restaurants around here, and one of them is satay, and we enjoyed that so much the other
evening, that's our choice. Keep hoping for some otters to be crossing my path, but nothing. Fake news.
Well, what'd you think of lunch, Bill? The satay was really good. I felt the meat cuts were a little bit
better than the place that we went to. The meat was so tender. Yeah. The sauces though, I think Heather
liked a little bit better this time - it wasn't so spicy. It tastes like peanut, and cumin, and fire.
and I like the other ones, because they were spicy. We are off now to the Cloud Forest, I believe it's
called. Really excited about this one. I have no idea what the climate's gonna be like in it. I was
so surprised by how chilly I was in the first one. Anyhow, we're excited to go walk them on the clouds.
This is so impressive! I bet you can't even hear me; the waterfalls are so loud! It's so cool! Also,
it's not as cool as the last one we went to, but it's a little bit cold. Flowers look so sad.
They're trying to grow. Happy flower. Whereas the flower dome was emulating springtime all the time,
this dome, the cloud forest dome, is emulating mountains and the forest that we find in the
mountains. It's sort of a tropical feeling in here, a cool tropical feeling, and you never know what
you're gonna find. Bill's back there filming every single dragon we go by. We've seen like eight of
them so far, so I'm sorry about the dragon montage that you're probably experiencing right now.
I've never seen orchids trained like this before, on a trellis to climb. It's so cool.
There was a sign on the way in that said that the next misting - misting - takes place at 2 p.m,
which is in about 15 minutes. We don't really know what that means - misting. What's getting misted?
Am I wearing the right shoes for this? Questions.
My hand for dimensions. Wow.
Oh, we're at the back of the waterfall.
Don't worry, we're inside, it's not raining.
Don't give us a copyright strike! It's Jurassic Park!
We are going to check out those a little bit later; those are called the SuperTrees,
and we're actually going to go up inside one.
Well, we finished up at Cloud Forest, and I think that we were both pretty impressed. My
favorite was the Orchid Garden area. There was this curtain of orchids that just came down
next to you. I've never seen orchids trained in that way, and it was just beautiful. My favorite
part was just the waterfall. It is very tall. Apparently at one point it was the tallest
[indoor] one in the world, but that title went to the Changi Airport's waterfall in the Jewel, I
think it's called. We'll see that later. So, if you look online and you're trying to figure out
which of the domes you should go to when you visit Gardens by the Bay, most commonly you'll see people
recommended to go visit the Cloud Forest, the one we just did. And so far, we'd agree, but we've only
seen two. We have one left to go before we go up to the SuperTree and enjoy a sunset, except it's
thundering out, so we'll have to see how that works out for us. One more to go - we'll go see whether we
recommend Floral Fantasy over Cloud Forest. It is a high bar. All day we've sort of been able to see
the cruise ship hotel thing off in the distance, and it is just really quite the landmark. It's
very impressive. Time for a midday beverage snack. Bill went out on a limb and got something that
we've never heard of - 100 plus. It's an original isotonic drink. I have no idea what that means, so
i looked that up and it sounds a little like kind of a low sugar Gatorade. Let's give it a try.
Oh, it's really tasty, it's like, um it's like a citrus flavor. In the US, we
have something called Fresca, and it tastes a lot like that, just a little bit less sugary.
Heather's going to try it. It's delicious! It's really good, big fan.
Final dome garden!
Oh, it's so pretty!!! Holy cats, it's beautiful.
Well, we just finished up our third flower dome of the day. That was Floral Fantasy. That was pretty
ethereal - is that the word? Ethereal? I think that's a good way to describe it. Yeah, there's some nice
soft relaxing music playing. Yeah, basically it was a bunch of flower arrangements - lots of things
hanging from the ceiling and from all over the place, really. What was really interesting about
that one is that it was a mix of dried flowers and live plants, so I thought that really added to the
atmosphere, but I have to go with the internet on the recommendation. If you can only go to one,
I would say that the Cloud Forest is the way to go. We have one more activity to do here
in Gardens by the Bay today, and I'm thinking it might get rained out, and lightning
and thundered out. We are supposed to be going to the SuperTrees that you can see right back there.
I'm thinking we might have to come back. We're going to go walk over now and find out.
If you are trying to decide which one to go to, Floral Fantasy is
by far the most Instagrammy of them. If that's your thing, then that's the one you want to go to. They
had this butterfly flower thing that had squares telling me where to stand, they had all of these
benches set up with props they had. I mean, it was totally like, what more could an Instagrammer want?
Really, we don't do a ton on Instagram, but it still was fun to do different poses and stuff.
So just a heads up! Well the thunder lightning and rain persisted while we had our dinner, so we
rescheduled our SuperTree visit to a few nights from now. For those who are curious, we walked
about seven miles today and we'll be coming back to visit the SuperTree that you can see
growing out of my head. We'll just add it onto this video, so keep on watching!
And we're back! Here are the Super Trees! We are back at the Super Tree Grove, and we are about to
go up i think the tallest one. Now you might be wondering why are they called SuperTrees, also
why is Heather swatting at her face? There are gnats out. It is dusk. We are hoping that
we timed this perfectly to catch the sunset and the light show from the top of the SuperTree.
If we timed it right, it's going to be amazing. Now you might be wondering, why
are they called SuperTrees? They are called SuperTrees because some of them harvest solar
energy, they collect rain water, and of course they grow plants because this is Singapore.
We'll go up them and tell you some more about them from the top.
Oh, that's so cool!!
Well, we are at the top of the SuperTree. This is the tallest one. It's about 16 stories tall.
It's amazing, and when they say that there are 360 views from up here, they're not kidding.
Definitely the best view that we've had of Singapore and the perfect time at sunset.
We don't think we'll be able to see the light show up here, so we'll try it a couple
levels down, and if that doesn't work we'll have to go all the way down to the bottom.
But gosh, perfect timing, perfect timing. We are just waiting for the light show to begin. I'm so
excited we came down from the top of the SuperTree and now we're camped out on the street with
like hundreds of our new closest friends. I'm so excited to watch this and it's free. You
don't even have to visit any of the gardens or the SuperTree or anything. All you have to do
is come by here at the time of the show. I know at least one is 7:45, which is like in a minute.
Enjoy the show.
Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you again at the Gardens.