Sentosa Island

We changed 200 Australian Dollars and headed to Mount Faber Cable Car station (these days called the Jewel Box Center) for a fun but pricey day on Singapore's Sentosa Island. But great views and fun to boot.

First up it was a 15 minute cable car trip to the island itself......brilliant views of both the city and the island. From there we wandered around and had a bland lunch at a place called "The Coffee Bean".....where the hot food is served warm and the iced coffee is also warm. Eat before you go to Sentosa Island, folks!

Then we checked out the butterfly enclosure, which was interesting although I had been expecting thousands of butterflies rather than the few dozen specimens we saw. Thos that did flutter by were pretty little souls though.

Then it was a chairlift ride down the hill to the artificial beaches and lagoons at Palawan Beach. They shipped in the sand from Saudi Arabia, created a Phuket look alike and bingo ! - an artificial beach resort complete with resort hotel and bikini clad chinese girls. (thank heavens for the 10X zoom on my camera :) ) However at 6 bucks for a mineral water the chairlift rides are the highlight of the trip rather than the fake beaches. The views were cool though and there were plenty of container ships idling by (sigh).

Next it was up for a ride in the Carlsberg Tower, a 180 metre tall observation tower with amazing views across Singapore, Sentosa Island and as far away as Singapore and Malaysia. Not your usual tower which you access by lift however - this thing has a pod which travels up and down the tower, rotating slowly as it does so. You just sit back and enjoy the ride and the views.

A cool idea and somewhat cunning as you only really get to spend 10 minutes in the tower before the next batch of visitors enter.

From here we wandered down to the ferry terminal to discover it was closed down. We spotted the new Imbiah skytrain travelling from Singapore to Sentosa so we tried the skytrain station - only to learn it wasn't open yet and the trains were just being tested.

In the end we caught a free bus to the Harbourfront Center and explored the brand spanking new Vivo shopping center complete with rooftop swimming areas, views over the river and avant garde architecture ans sculptures everywhere.