Out and about with the kids...

The toys are yet to arrive by boat, there are only so many swims you can take in one day... so we've been exploring and trying to keep cool at the same time.

Underwater World and Sentosa

For my birthday on our 2nd day in Singapore, I picked Underwater World on Sentosa - my main wish for the day was the kids NOT WHINE - I hoped this would keep them happy.  The exciting thing about getting there? Monorail!  Kids were duly unimpressed. 

But it's a monorail!!

What's that mean?

It only has one track!

So?

Haven't you seen that Simpson's episode?

No.

OKaayyyyy then.... Just look out the window and be quiet.

We purchased a Subrmarine Package which gets you entry in twice for the year, plus discounts for friends, a crappy keyring, and 10% off at Food and Gift outlets for a year.  But seriously, pack your own lunch, or eat around Sentosa before going in.  Given the overly fried nature of the menu there, I didn't have high hopes, but this was possibly the worst thing ever eaten.  I felt kinda bad eating a fish burger at an aquarium, but I'm not sure this was ever really fish.... and if it was it was fried a few days ago, dyed bright orange, and then microwaved.  Inedible.

Although not a huge aquarium, there are lots of different things - touching and feeding the stingrays near the entry was a highlight, and the travelator fish tunnel was a nice cool escape.  The best bit is of course the dolphin show though!  Touted as pink dolphins, they are a kind of mottled grey-pink - but very sweet, and great performers - almost outshone by the seals who were just show-offs.  Most seats have a good view of the action, they blast the fans just as the show is about to start to keep you cool, and it was entertaining enough to even keep Frankie captivated for the entire show, which goes for about 20 minutes I think.

After that we had a little walk back along the beach at Sentosa - not crystal clear waters, and quite strange seeing all the ships so close - feels vaguely wartime, an odd impending sense of doom looking out over the ocean -  but you soon get used to them. 

The strange thing was people found Frankie exceptionally cute in her swimmers.  Sure, I think she is cute, but there were people trying to take photos of her (which makes her rather grumpy), and the biggest admirers were 20-something guys who would coochy-coo her - maybe the guys in Singapore are the clucky ones....?  Photo evidence below - look at them turning around for another look!!

Amazonia

I let the kids pick this one - they'd seen an ad for Amazonia in a magazine.  Looked good from the pics - but then I looked up the prices on the website - $30 for Oscar, $20 for Frankie.  OUCH.  From what I gather, playcentres are a bit more expensive here, but this one seems to be extra pricey.  But they wanted air-conditioned fun and were missing home... and it's only money, right??  To add insult to injury, this only gets you 2 hours play - if you spend extra time, you get charged.  Maybe on a weekend I can understand this to stop people staying all day and avoid overcrowding, but there were 4-5 other kids there the whole time we were there on a weekday- so it just makes them seem mean.  They have cool stuff like glow-in-the-dark mini-golf, and some ball shooting cage, but these were extra - I figured for $50, there better already be enough stuff to keep them entertained for 2 hours.  The good thing I can say is their ball pits are very full, and the balls are very clean - the whole place was clean, and nicely decorated.  They had a cool floor piano in the toddler area, but it wasn't working : (

Overall, the whole centre is fairly small (compared to Australian centres), and the toddler area doesn't have enough to keep a 2.5 year old entertained for 2 hours (so I broke the rules and let her on the big kids climbing bit) - but Oscar was ready to go after 1.5 hours as there was no-one there to play with, and not much to do apart from the large climbing structure with slides etc.  I made him stay and ENJOY EVERY CENT until our two hours were up.

We got lunch in the playcentre as it was inside a rather chi-chi shopping centre, with not many other cheap food options around.  The food was reasonably priced, not overly unhealthy but still kid-friendly - my only gripe is that they had 4-5 staff working in the cafe, we were the only people eating, and yet all our meals came out 5 minutes apart - not cool with hungry kids!!

So we won't be going again... but will be on the lookout for some cheaper / more interesting playcentres around Singapore!

Singapore Zoo

Amazing zoo - similar to Australia Zoo with a very open and natural layout, where you get to be up-close with all the animals.  Elephant rides were available at $8 per person (BARGAIN - an icy drink will cost you about that much there!), which we will definitely be taking up next time.  And there will be a next time, because the kids were being their absolute brattiest and Andy got a migraine - we only really saw about 1/4 of it, so more details when I feel we have visited PROPERLY.

 If anyone has any recommendations of kid friendly places to visit in Singapore, please leave a comment!  The Science Centre is next on our list.. I want to play in the outdoor water area!