Meagan's World: Sentosa Island

The next day was gorgeous, so Grandma and I excited to head over to Sentosa Island. Sentosa Island is like an elaborate resort, with lots of different attractions to see and beaches to play on. We took the cable car over, and the view was amazing! We lucked out with the perfectly sunny weather and blue sky. We did the "Sentosa Island Package" which included a trip to Fort Siloso, the Merlion and Carlsberg Tower.

Grandma really wanted to go tour Fort Siloso because she is a history buff and was really interested in Singapore's role in World War 2. The fort was very well laid out, and I learned a lot about the Japanese occupation. Looking at pictures of people held in the Japanese prisoner of war camps was truly horrifying. They were similar to the pictures of prisoners that were held in Hong Kong, and I read a book about the Bataan Death March in the Philippines which sounded even more gruesome, and a book about when the Japanese invaded Nanking in Chin which sounded the worst of all. It is astounding to think that all of these atrocities occurred only a shot time ago, within Grandma's lifetime! Seeing those images made me think about the current tensions between China and Japan, due to the Japanese trying to gloss over, deny or even glorify their war time actions, depending on how you interpret the Japanese leaders visiting war shrines for their World War 2 leaders. I am all for calm international relations, but it is dangerous to forget the past.

We moved on from Fort Siloso to the Merlion. I think they included that in the package only because no one else would ever visit the Merlion otherwise. Basically, it was a giant Merlion statue that you could go into and watch a very cheesy movie about the origin of the Merlion myth. We had a slight crisis when we couldn't figure out how to get back up to the cable car terminal without walking. It was hot and Grandma would do anything to avoid walking back up the steps! We couldn't read the map and ended up getting lost and walking very far. Grandma's face was bright red, and I think one of the park workers was concerned so he drove down to where we were walking and asked if we needed help. We told him we wanted to find the quickest was to get back to the cable car terminal and he pointed up a very long and steep path...then he did a u-turn and drove up the hill! Grandma and I were like, "Why did he drive all the way down here and then point us up the hill? Why couldn't he give us a ride back up?" It was confusing...

We finally made it up the hill and went for a ride in the Carlsberg Tower. It is basically one of those rotating rides that go up a pole so that you can get a 360 degree view of your surroundings, sort of like the one at Sea World. It was nice, and we could see all the gorgeous beaches on the island. If Matt and I ever go to Singapore, I would like to explore the beaches more! Also on the island were a Shangri-La resort, an aquarium, a butterfly enclosure and some hiking trails. There are a lot of things for a tourist to do in Singapore, much more than in Hong Kong. Singapore is very well set up for travelers, and I think it is a good thing because it seems like Hong Kong is taking the lead as a business center for Asia. For instance, Matt's company used to have and office in Singapore but they moved it to Hong Kong because it is more business friendly. It seems like a lot of the expats in Hong Kong used to live in Singapore.