Flower Dome - Gardens by the Bay

Okay I'm not going to say don't do the Flower Dome but if you're choosing between the two do the cloud dome! The flower dome was lovely but wasn't spectacular :) I think a trip to the (free) Singapore Botanical Gardens might be wiser but if you're on a time restraint, as we were, doing the dome was nice and convenient and definitely no regrets. Essentially the flower dome takes you around the flowers of the World and is a nice show case. We pretty much zipped through it in under an hour, I felt the cloud dome had less to see but I wanted to stay longer in it :)

Kangaroo paw! Yup they had an Australian section :)

This lovely couple took our photo which was super nice, we found the majority of Singaporeans really sweet :)

 Okay I won't, promise! I have a love of taking photos of signs :)

Yay, it's nice to have a photo together! On a funny side note, probably only applicable to people who have an interest in cameras but whenever someone went to use my camera I made sure everything was auto and said "just press the button" but they always wanted to try and zoom my non zoom lenses, lol lol. I think he really wanted to crop us in but I wanted a big wide shot, lol.

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Cloud Forest Dome - Gardens by the Bay

Okay my photos simply cannot do justice to the Cloud Forest Dome. I read an online review about it being like entering one of Miyazaki's films and I don't believe a description could be more spot on. I think I said to Ben numerous times "I'm speechless" and I kind of got choked on emotion from the grand-ness and beauty.

 It's hard to describe but the gist is, you enter the dome and you're met with this huge structure covered in flowers and plants with a spiraling walkway, the largest indoor waterfall in the World and streams of mists that get burst out every 2 hours creating a cloud effect. I think it was the most amazing designs I've ever seen. I wonder if the old Fee (who got bored of plants) would of said the same but I have a suspicion it might have changed her view :p.

The flowers and colours were so incredible and as they covered the entire structure I was constantly going "oooh look at that"

Lots of orchids to spy :)

Normally I'm not good with heights but it was Ben this time who got unnerved on the walkway, I  think I was too distracted to think about the potential of plummeting to my death :p

I really need to buy everyone a plane ticket so they can experience it themselves :)

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Gardens by the Bay

After spending the morning at Haw Par Villa on our first full day, we then took the train to go explore Gardens by the Bay in the afternoon. BTW the train system is not only super cheap in Singapore (on average never more than a few dollars for a trip) but it's also super easy to navigate. It's similar to Japan but being a much smaller place makes Singapore more simple. We also bought ourselves a train card so we just needed to swipe it at each station :)

Gardens by the Bay opened in 2012 we took a big walk around and there were still some areas under construction but on a whole it was very much open and welcoming. Now there are a few ways to spend money at the gardens but this post is for the cheapskates! You see entry to the park is free and the gardens are really nice to go for a stroll in, so I'd say if money is super tight, bring a picnic lunch and have an hour or so stroll around :) If money is semi tight, I'd say...you must do the Cloud Forest Dome! If you're loaded with the cash then I say, do both domes, the sky walk, get a shuttle bus ride, eat at the fancy restaurants, buy lots of souvenirs, book yourself in at Marina Bay Sands...lol, lol, okay I'm being silly!

Onto the freebie photos!

You know what was sad about our trip? We missed the lantern festival :(
We did take these pictures of the floats being set up though which was a nice little glimpse! Maybe an excuse to go back to Singapore?

This is the view you see as you walk towards the gardens from the train station. See those tree structures? That's the supertree grove :) For a $5 fee you can walk around the structures on a skywalk (looked awesome!) but was unfortunately or fortunately (which ever way you look at it) it was shut due to bad weather, you know fear of lightning strikes!

This is one of the domes, there's two, which I'll post about next but as a spoiler alert, the Cloud Dome totally kicked the Flower dome's butt :p For a look into both domes it cost us $28 per adult.

How amazing does that skywalk look! Actually the trees were super impressive. I imagine once the creepers and plants on them have flourish it will be even more killer :)

Playing around with double exposures on my holga :) It was a definite fun photo trip for me :)

Marina Bay Sands in the background, a totally ritzy hotel which has the thing called an infinity pool on top, google it if you want to see one impressive pool!

Giant baby! This sculpture is a new feature to the park created by artist Marc Quinn

You know what I love about Singapore is how they use their space. This picture above, for example, was taken as we exited the train station to get to the Gardens. Mirrors and flower panels lined the hallway, really setting up our experience - I definitely appreciated that about Singapore :)

On another freebie note the gardens do a free light show at night, which from all the pictures I saw looks awesome.  We were knackered though from our day and decided we couldn't make it to 8pm !  Sad but true

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