New Heights

When coming up with ideas of things to do here in Singapore, newbies like us are never at a loss.  It seems like there are a thousand and one things we want to do.  Right.  Now!  But knowing how we are such high fliers, and all (haaaa!), we had to get ourselves over to the Singapore Flyer. 

We first saw this amazing ferris wheel as we were driving towards our downtown hotel from the airport on that very first late, dark night.  This giant glowing ring loomed in the distance, looking as if it was missing all the spikes that would actually hold the wheel’s structure in place.  As we pulled up to it in a taxi on this bright, sunny day, the spokes gleamed white with the large glass pods stuck to the outsides of the ring.  The line for tickets only took a minute or two.  The price, like everything else in Singapore, is… pricey… at a little over $100 US dollars for the three of us.  The Pea was thankfully free.  An escalator took us up a level where we took a trek through a dark and neon lit museum before depositing us into a long line that snaked up the ramp to the Flyer.  I’m not really sure what happened next, because as we stood in the line, a man came, opened the chain next to us and pulled us and a few people behind us out of the line, and then had us walk past 20 or so people directly to the next pod.  I assume the group now behind us was together, but boy did it feel awkward to jump up the line like that.  I try very hard to not stick out when we are in foreign countries, so walking purposefully past a long string of Asians for front of the line privileges is most certainly the opposite of not standing out.  But away we went! 

The pods hold 28 people and I would say ours had about 20 in it.  It was fully air conditioning.  Thank God as the bright sun shown down into the glass structure and would have been like a giant people pressure cooker if not.  This is the world’s largest observation wheel (ferris wheel for us simpletons) and rises the 28 attached pods 42 stories high for a 30 minute ride.  At its highest point, the panoramic views are unrivaled… the funky boat hotel called Marina Bay Sands, the Singapore Grand Prix Circuit, the Supertree Grove at Garden by the Bay, hundreds of shipping boats and so much more.   

I will tell you, it rocks when you get to the top.  It wasn’t enough to turn my stomach, just enough to give me pause.  My mother would have been on the floor cursing our existence though.  As we descended, KH and I both agreed that our next visit will be at night. 

My kids seem to eat every five minutes these days, so they were hungry by the time we got to the bottom.  I guess they are tiring of our continuing rotation of noodles, rice and unidentifiable meats as they immediately pointed at the Boston-themed bar in the corner.  You can take the boy out of New England, but you can’t take the New England out of the boy.  But you sure can mix in some Singapore to make ‘em really interesting.  We’re giving that our all!