We made our way up Orchard Road as best we could avoiding the difficult to predict Saturday shoppers. It's one of those things that when you're made aware of it you can't help but see it to distraction. In this case the fact that the Singaporean doesn't walk in a straight line. Very annoying if you're moving with a purpose.
Today's purpose was to visit the Botanical Gardens up the road and the Orchid Gardens across the island with a quick detour via the camera shop to get my noisy zoom sorted. Sadly, [it transpires] noisy zooms are the norm.
We trek on to the Botanical gardens. The gardens are quite nice though you get the impression you shouldn't be walking on the grass. They do have a great little display/fountain/[sculpture/]thing. Some Swiss geezer spent three months hand crafting a 700kg granite ball (about 80cm across) and a concave scoop in another lump of granite then fired water up through the base allowing the ball to freely spin on the water. Very impressive. Of course I had to stop it spinning and push it the other way to prove it was real. In practice, 700kg or inertia isn't stopped by wet hands but I did get it to rotate a little in the other direction [axis].
We reached the middle of the park hot and sticky [I just typed "stinky" -- probably that as well] and saw the National Orchid Garden. Well, a S$2 entrance fee would save an awkward trek on the bus. If you like flowering plants it's very good. I shot a few seconds on each flower and twenty minutes of film later... 
It was 2 ish so on the slow amble back we popped into a cafe selling baked potatoes with filling for S$2.50 where I read one of the local rags. Not only did they have a four page special on the Worthington Cup but another seven pages on the Premiership.
We sidled back and typed a little more on the Internet (before the power died) and headed back out for tea. We went back to the noodle joint of the other day and spent S$60 of the S$100 we'd just taken out of the bank to cover the next 36 hours before we leave. Oops.
Grand Central Hotel, Singapore N1.30137
E103.84187 Elev. 35m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.