Since the Volendam was going to be in port in Singapore for two days, we had lots of options for touring on our own. For this first day, we decided that we would buy an all pass on the overhead cable car. We also thought that we might go do a night visit to the Zoo, however, getting tickets via HAL wasn't possible and another option also didn't work out.
Two weeks earlier I had purchased a 3800 milli-amp battery for one of my cameras, but it would not hold a charge longer than my 1000 milli-amp batteries. I approached the salesman that sold it to me and he was more than eager to help me and replace the battery. None was in stock, so he ordered it in and I picked it up later in the day.
The cable car leaves from the left tower just outside the cruise terminal. We elected to purchase the all day pass and two additional options of our choosing. Tickets are sold on the main floor and an elevator takes travelers up to the 15th floor where the cable car passes through the building. First we headed off to ride up to Mt. Faber which we had visited a couple of weeks ago on a bus tour. We walked across the Henderson Waves bridge (architecturally stunning) and through the park and eventually ended up on a road underneath the bridge and had to walk 100 steps up in the 90ºf and 90% humidity. From Mt. Faber, we rode the cable car back and over the ship to Sentosa Island where we spent the rest of the day exploring. We used one of our extra pass options to take a small bus tour of the island which gave us a sense of the lay of the land. That trip also included a cool walk across a swinging suspension bridge to a beach area.
Afterwards, we enjoyed a quick lunch at a Subway restaurant before taking another cable car out to Fort Siloso where we spent the bulk of our time exploring this nice museum which preserves the history of this former military installation. It's definitely worth a visit!
Back on the cable car in the late afternoon, we rode it to the other end of the line and we visited the largest Merlion in Singapore and used our second voucher to get a ride up 5 stories in the Merlion to the mouth and top of its head where we could take pictures.
About then I received an email from one of my tour agents requesting passport information for some guests traveling on my Viet Nam excursions. This was certainly a curveball this late in the cruise and led to some emails composed while walking through a colorful garden area on Sentosa Island.
As darkness crept its way in, we rode the cable car back to the Harborfront Centre and walked through 3 floors of the Vivo Shopping Mall where we also enjoyed some dinner in the food court (I had White Bee Hoon soup which was excellent).
Back on the ship, I tried to pay our Bank of America credit card bill online (I have a portable internet device which has very cheap data rates), but I was locked out of my online account which necessitated a call to BofA where I learned that I can't use a VPN connection to access their system. That got fixed and I was able to get the bill paid on time. And now it was 1am. More adventures are in store for tomorrow, stay tuned.
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