Sentosa Island

Every year this time, it will be summer holiday for all the schools in HK. In other words, the parents have to find some activities to fill up their free time.

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In order to handle the 2 hyperactive monkeys that off from school, KS has applied 2-week long annual leave since long ago. Therefore, the 3 of them were free and ready to go elsewhere anytime. After many discussions, finally we have made up our mind to go to Singapore and Johor Baharu for holiday. The reason we choose Singapore is because it would be the easiest port for standby passengers like us in the peak season. The frequent flights commute HK-Sin would most likely help us to get 4 seats without too hassle.

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Our itinerary of the holiday :-

1. Visit Singapore Zoo and Sentosa Island

2. Visit my parents and my brother, CK's family in JB

3. Visit Sibu Island with KS's parents and his brother, KH's family

Arrived at Singapore Changi Airport with our luggages : 1 big size + 1 medium size baggage, 1 backpack, 2 boys.

Day 1 night (29-Jul-06) : Night Safari Tour

Day 2 (30-Jul-06) : Sentosa Island

Although I have been to Singapore for several times, this is the 2nd time I visit Sentosa Island. I remember the 1st time was probably 20 years ago. Actually I don't quite remember the things I've seen 20 years ago, I just remember the place is all so fascinated and fancy in the eyes of a little girl. After so many years, I don't know what to expect in Sentosa Island. We just went there with an open heart...

The theme-park island is a popular weekend spot and one of the most visited attractions in Singapore. The largest and best known of Singapore’s offshore islands is also one of the closest to the mainland. Sentosa is a multi-million dollar pleasure resort girdled by a monorail and offering a wide range of activities and attractions. These include the Underwater World and Dolphin Lagoon, Images of Singapore, the recently upgraded Musical Fountain Show, the Maritime Museum; and the New Food Centre.

Walking to the Cable Car Towers at the Harboufront Centre.

Initially, we wanted to buy this package :Tour 5, which includes the admission to The Jewel Box, Scenic Cable Car Ride, Sentosa Island Admission, Underwater World, Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom. But while lining up for this, KS found the package offered virtually no discount if compared to buying the individual admission ticket at the spot. Therefore, we thought might as well just buy the carble car ticket and remain the flexibility to go or not to go to those listed attractions when we were there later.

There are several ways to go to Sentosa Island. But the best by far is to take the cable car from Mt. Faber or the Harbourfront Centre. This 1.6km ride cableway is the first in South East Asia region.

From the cable car there, one could see a panaromic view of lush greenery during the day and the stunningly lit up Singapore skyline at night.

Inside the cable car...

Inside the cable car...

The cable car mock-up at the back was actually made up of thousands pieces of small Lego blocks.

Mt. Faber is not a high mountain, but it is high enough to offer a good vantage point of the city. Other than that, there is nothing special to look for at Mt. Faber.

We made the kids sat there for a while so that we can take a quick rest. I think it last less than 5 min.

Nestled above Mount Faber hill, The Jewel Box resembles a hilltop musical jewel box.

Met the Star Cruises stopped over at the harbour : Vigro and Gemini

Frankly speaking, I felt scared taking this cable car. It was a rainy day, and the wind was strong enough to swing the cable car to the left and right. If we fall, we would fall straight to the sea without any blockage. And considered its height, I think our survival chance is not too optimistic. Thank God we are alright.

Finally we reached Sentosa Island. We took the shuttle bus to our first destination : Underwater World.

The Underwater World oceanarium on Sentosa is home to more than 2,500 fishes from 250 different species. Admission : S$19.50 / Adult, S$12.50 / Child (Child 3 - 12 years old), includes admission to Dolphin Lagoon. I would say the admission fee is quite expensive lo.


This mother and daughter were guided to feed the stingrays in the shallow pool. I don't know that stingrays eat small fishes, thought they eat planktons?

The Touch Pool for some 'hands on' experience with starfish, stingrays and baby sharks. Touching a starfish is like touching a coral reef fossils. It doesn't give me a feeling that it is a live form.

baby sharks

The Japanese spider crab is the largest living crab; fully grown it can reach a leg span of almost 4m, a body size of up to 37cm and a weight of up to 20kg. The crab's natural habitat is on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean (some 300-400 m deep) around Japan, where it feeds on dead animals and shellfish. It is believed to have a life expectancy of up to 100 years. Amazing, isn't it?

The crab has an orange body, but it has white spots on its thin legs. The claws of male specimens become longer than its legs.

We all stood there and admired the Japanese Spider Crab for a very long time. Vincent, who is fascinated about spiders and crabs all this time, probably find this hybrid a super ideal creature in his imaginative world. He asked me to snap a photo of him with this spider crab.

Jellyfish has always been our favorite sea creatures too. They are as pretty as the angel in the sea.

Venture into the ocean depths via a moving travellator that ferries us through an 83-metre-long acrylic tunnel. As usual, we see sharks, stingrays, eels and schools of fish glide past – engrossed in their own world.

Included in the Underwater World ticket price is a visit to the Dolphin Lagoon. We get to observe the highly intelligent Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins through a series of interactive, feeding and training sessions specially designed to demonstrate their natural ability of tail-walking synchronization. Lucky visitors might even score a peck on the cheek, or a chance to wade next to them, fully supervised by the trainers, of course.

From the Dolphin lagoon, we caught a passingby tram which arrived just in time. We get off the tram at a food center near the Pelawan Beach. When Vincent and William see this play pool next to the food center, they exclaimed and ran into it...How could we not to let them play?

We sat near the pool to keep an eye on them while taking our rest. I started to feel a bit nausea and stomach upset. When the gentle wind blows, I felt cold. The longer I sat there, the more tired I became. Fever started to develop in me. It's really not a good timing to fall sick in vacational trip, sigh.

But when I saw how happy they enjoyed themselves, it's worth to hang in there as long as I could. Furthermore, we came so far to here, can't just leave like that.

Perhaps finding the water jet irritating, Vincent this fella, he picked up some falling leaves and started to stuff the holes where the water sprays upright from it. After some time, he did succeed in blocking the water by carrying out his "engineering work". If we didn't drag him out from there, I think eventually people would feel puzzle why there isn't any water spraying out anymore?

There are many tall wooden statues set around the Pelawan Beach area. This is just one of them.

Father and son strolling at the beach. I don't think the sea water is good for swimming cause I can see there are many cargo ships or oil tankers that could possibly spill the wastes and pollute the water.

Palawan Beach, where a suspension bridge links beach-goers to the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia, or Asia's closest point to the Equator.

Happy Vincent, dancing at the beach.

This stretch of beach looks very peaceful and beatiful. Just this corner, ok.

It didn't take a long time for the fever to overwhelm me. I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable after walking for a while. In fact, I felt cold and exhausted. I don't think I could walk to the rest of the attraction places with a body condition like that. Thus, we decided to leave the island by 5.30pm. The time was still far early from the showing time of the daily musical fountain show, schedule at every 7.30pm and 8.30pm. What a pity.

We took a taxi to return to our lodging Grand Mercure Roxy Hotel. As soon as I went back to the hotel room, I swallowed 2 Panadol pills and went straight to sleep. So did the boys, they slept almost instantly with me. Poor KS, he rested for a while, then he went out alone to take away the foods so that when we woke up, we would have our dinner all ready. He woke us up at 10pm to eat some simple foods. Then we quickly bathe the kids, and went back to our slumber sleep.

* The fever and mild diarrhea subsided only after I went to see a doctor and take the prescribed medicines for intestinal inflammatory. I suspect the curry laksa noddle that I took for breakfast in that morning was the culprit for the illness.

* After this trip, I feel that HK Ocean Park and Disneyland is far more lovely theme park than Sentosa's. The expenditure sum up in Sentosa Island is less competitiveness compared to OP and Disneyland. If we were to go there again, maybe it's another 20 years time later?