Flying over Singapore

When you read this I really will be flying over Singapore en route to meet up with Dave in Shanghai. But this post is not about that flight. It's about the Singapore Flyer, which Hillary, her 6-year-old daughter, and I did last night.

The Singapore Flyer is the world's largest Giant Observation Wheel. There are 28 air-conditioned capsules the size of transit buses, each able to hold 28 people. It takes 30 minutes to complete a rotation. It sits 165 meters tall and is just four years old.

We timed it for sunset and it was worth the wait until the end of my trip. Today the sun came out and we saw some blue skies. It was also miserably hot, at least for someone like me who is not used to the intense sun coupled with humidity in the 90th percentile.

From the Flyer we could see as far as Indonesia. The cargo ships stretched out as far as the eye could see. In 2011 the port of Singapore processed 57 million containers. Amazing! We could see hundreds of cranes which unload the containers, the ones that look like those two-legged walkers called AT-ST's from The Empire Strikes Back.

The Theatres on the Bay at the Esplanade are called Durian by the locals because the domes look like the spiky fruit. And the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, the one with the casino up top and the much-photographed infinity pool 55 stories up, stands alone. There's also a DNA-inspired double-helix curved bridge over Marina Bay.

 The architecture in Singapore is eye candy. The economy in Singapore is booming and there is much new construction going on. Hillary told me that they don't renovate in Singapore, they bulldoze and rebuild. Much attention is paid to outside spaces and art, and it's a visual delight. I especially like the chubby Buddhas by Taiwanese sculptor Li Chen.