Marina Bay North

-This was another long day so lots of pictures and rambling!-

After a terrible nights sleep - think pounding club music, opera (?!), a snorer, a guy who talks in his sleep and then 3 girls coming in at half 5 drunk and falling over. Today was all about exploring the northern part of Marina Bay though! Singapore has created a huge reservoir (so they don't have to rely on fresh water from malaysia) and in creating the damn they reclaimed a huge portion of land - marina bay! Aside from it rendering some street names redundant (Beach Rd which is now a 10 minute walk from the water) it's also created a huge commercialised area of Singapore - everything is brand new, most of it so new it's not finished yet, but the shopping centres are pretty much done (the ones that aren't finished are a complete jumble of shops and you can't get from one end of the mall to the other without walking for 20minutes on the road). 

Looking back at China Town

Anyway to get there I walked along the river as it's one of my favourite places in Singapore right now to take a stroll. 

By the time I got to the millennia walk I was dying for some air conditioning - Singapore City is actually quite compact but the humidity makes walking everywhere a pain!

The colourful ceiling

There were quite a few mini art galleries in the various malls too

 Singapore is getting ready for Valentines Day already!

I've definitely been spoilt with the Dubai Malls where there are maps of the logical and clear layout of the gigantic mall.. But aside from the illogical and baffling layout the shopping centre was very pretty

The whole recent I went into the mall (aside from air conditioning) was to get to the fountain of wealth!

I'd just missed when it goes really high (I saw it from the window of the lift as I was on my way to the fountain) and things seem to only go 'off' every couple of hours in Singapore and as much as I wanted a photo of it when it's all dramatic I wasn't going to wait around in the boiling hot sun for it!

 Donburi

Kimchi

I stopped by a little Korean restaurant while I was here and finally got to try some kimchi!! I've wanted to try it for ages but I couldn't find anywhere in the UK that had it while I was home and I haven't found anywhere in NZ either. Anyway I had donburi in a 'hot stone' with some kimchi and it was completely delicious!

After that I took the iconic Helix footbridge over the Marina Bay Sands.

 I loved how you could look through the bridge and see the skyline!

I popped into the Art Science Museum briefly

 The museum itself was nothing special but there were a few interesting bits and pieces - the setting was by far the highlight of the museum for me though

Just outside the museum was a lovely water lilly pond!

 love this photo!

Then it was into the Marina Bay Sands to enjoy the view and potter about the shops a little bit

 Inside was this slightly bizarre… waterfall? that fell into a canal which went around part of the mall!

If your legs got tired shopping you could just hop on a little boat! (Dubai's malls need these!)

Once it had cooled a little bit I walked back over the bridge to the 'Singapore Flyer' and after running around like a crazy lady looking for the ticket office (the sun looked like it was going to set and I really wanted to go on when it wasn't dark so I could see the city and not just a bunch of lights - although I do think that'd be pretty). I eventually found it and jumped on board for my 'flight' (i think they call it a flight just to be dramatic… It is the world's biggest ferris/observation wheel at 165m though)

Luckily I was with some lovely people in the my 'shuttle' as the whole thing takes over half an hour and I was really lucky to be with a lovely couple and a family. 

Then I was planning to just wander back to the hostel taking in the evening skyline but what I hadn't realised was Chinese New Year is celebrated for weeks after the actual new moon! Every weekend from now until the end of feb there will be some live music and events on, last night was the big celebration though!

I'm just going to let the pictures talk for themselves the skyline, the event itself was all really beautiful!