Gardens by the Bay

Yesterday was a no-school day and instead of letting the kids stay home and sit on their butts all day playing games, we decided to do something unusual for this family. We went outdoors.

When I said outdoors, I mean outside, out in the open, fresh air, with insects and plants and trees and many, many other people.

Yes, we visited Gardens by the Bay.

We were swept away by the hype. Since Gardens by the Bay opened in June, I had been thinking about visiting it. I'm not really a plants and insects person. I enjoy looking at pictures and illustrations of plants and insects much more. I also have itchy skin so if anyone mentions going outdoors, I immediately feel itchy. I have powerful imagination. Hubs thinks I'm hypochondriac. Well, actually the real reason I wanted to visit was I wanted to see what a one billion dollar garden would look like. Yes, one BILLION. 1 followed by 9 zeroes.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to go yesterday. I was kinda limping. Yes, another body part of mine requires stem-cell transplant. But it would be difficult to find another day when hubs was off and the kids had no school. So I thought to myself: How big can the Gardens be?

Very, very, very big.

To get to the bay, we had to take a few trains and walk through a tunnel of mirrors. I decided to take a photo of myself walking through the tunnel of mirrors. My son photobombed the pic.

This was where we started. The trees hid how large the gardens are. Just imagine landing space for a few space ships.

It's mostly real trees, shrubs and more real trees. But the real attractions are the Supertrees and the Conservatories which you can get a glimpse of in the distance. We had to walk along a lake which I believe is called Dragonfly Lake because there are dragonflies in the lake.

After trekking what felt like days, we finally came to the first of the Supertrees. Do they look sinister?

In case you're wondering, Supertrees are 25 -50 metres tall high-tech solar-powered vertical gardens which are a cover for their true  purpose - to communicate with E.T.

The top of the Supertrees also act as landing pads for the spaceships.

Further up are the Supertree Grove - in reality just a bunch of spaceship landing pads clustered together. Can you see the bridge? Many humans were up there gawking at the structures. We passed. I have fear of height, remember?

Here you can see the tree structure. No climbing is allowed. Unless you're not afraid of lightning.

Hubs went to great length to take the photo of me and the trees so you can see the structures of the supertrees. Yep, laid on the ground and all. I had to be in the photo so the camera could focus on something big like my head. I just want to say the camera adds 10kg.

Close by is Singapore's Stonehenge more commonly known as Marina Bay Sands. The top of the 3 buildings are meant for the motherships only.

At night the Supertrees Grove come to life. When this image was taken, it wasn't dark enough. The sun had just set. The light display and new age music had not come on yet. Many people with cameras were just hanging around waiting for the performance.

We didn't wait. We were tired and wanted to get the hell out. But we got lost. The signage sucked. We got more lost. It was dark. Finally we found our way out. That's when I saw the light display playing to loud symphonic music from afar. E.T. phone home!

We found our way back to the tunnel of mirrors. I decided to take a photo of myself. My family photobombed. I think son was in the middle of a moonwalk.

Today I'm lying down all day.