Singapore Day 4

Last day. Gotta make it count. A little rainy, not great for the beach. Lonely Planet urged a visit to the Singapore Science Centre. As always, LP was right-on. After some confusion over the busses, we arrived at what may be the best Science Center I’ve ever seen. It’d be a tough call against the Dallas Science Place whereas the DSP may periodically win with their individual presentations, the SSC conquers by sheer size and amount on offer, and their presentation is still better than most.

They featured an interesting fountain park that helped kids play with / in water in constructive ways, but no exhibit seemed to captivate Eiji or the other throngs of children visiting from all over Asia as much as the chick hatchery in the back corner of one of the less-austere wings. At any time, you were sure to see a chick emerge within 20 minutes and Eiji would’ve gladly stood at the Plexiglas dome all day if time had allowed. Another mesmerizer would be a Rube Goldbergesque contraption at the front door where wooden balls rolled through all manner of chutes, wheels and spoons, bouncing off angles and counterweighing other devices therein.

Okay, closing time. Head back toward the hotel, but not without one more trip to a mall. At this last mall, we took in a last-minute feature of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which was a masterpiece for anyone under 12. Mami managed to wiggle out of that one. I also tried this ice sago that I was seeing everywhere. I couldn’t communicate well-enough with the vendors to know what the multi-colored beads-in-slime was that topped the ice cream, but it turned out to be a delicious tapioca with tropical fruits and pet milk. Fabulous!

The flight out the next day was smooth and quick, but all three of us were sad leaving. Since then, hardly a day goes by that we aren’t trying to come up with a way to put ourselves over there. We agree we’d like to live there. The culture, atmosphere and people are great and it’s so international that Eiji fit in like we’ve never seen in Japan or the USA.