Hop on Hop off

 Today was a complete day of Hop on Hop off buses.

This morning we caught the metro and about 30 minutes later we were in the general area of the Big Bus company (open topped double decker touring buses).

We purchased 2 day passes and a 3 1/2 hour night tour.

The first tour (the yellow route) took us over a large area focussing on a general overview of the important sites here. We went right beside the famous Marina Bay Sands triple buildings topped off with a common terrace for example. This city sure has some stunningly beautiful sky scrapers!

The first tour took 1 1/2 hours and as we were up top, unprotected from the sun, we were hot and thirsty upon completion so we took a break and went into the Suntech building shopping centre. Caro had wanted sushi so we went into a place and it was interesting. The sushi ordered was delivered on a tray moved by automatically by magnets(?) on a rail to right beside our booth. We didn’t even notice it as we were not looking to our left but looking over to our right. Our order taker had seen that the food had arrived but we didn’t realize it so she came over and showed us what to do.

The next photo is Caro in a BYD electric car (China). They are beautiful looking vehicles.

Next on our ”bus”day was the Red Route. This hour long trip around specific ethnic areas of this city gave us our ideas for tomorrow’s travels. We will be doing Little India and Little China as these areas are “must sees”.

After that tour was done we went back to out hotel (probably 45 minutes door to door) for a break for relaxation before our night on the Hop on hop off escorted tour. 

We first stopped at a location on Marina Bay that had decent photo ops.

Our second stop was an eating area with MILLIONS of tiny restaurants. The tour included sampling a couple shish kebob style meat sticks and then 5 minutes afterward to tour the VERY busy area. Naturally we explored only to get lost in the maze of people and establishments. OMG we just made it back to the bus before they left (2 people were left behind!)

Our last stop and the reason we were on the tour was to see the famous Garden Rhapsody held at the Gardens at The Bay.

It was beautiful.

The first photo is taken by me as we lay on the cement pathway along with hundreds of other people looking straight up.

The last three photos were taken by our tour guide from a different spot near where we lay. He took these on another night.

The night ended with us catching the metro back to our hotel area,