Tuesday Sandy had to work so Mickey, Shannon and I went to Sentosa Island. It is small island off the southern tip of Singapore. It is only separated from the main island by a quarter mile or so. It is mainly given over to resorts, tourist attractions and recreational activities. It has two golf courses and a bunch of other "attractions". Some are interesting. Some are just tourist traps. Sandy, Shannon and I had gone there on our preview trip in November and we thought Mickey might enjoy some of the views of the city from there.

We took the MRT (subway) to Harbour Front, and from there we had several options to get there. You can walk over a bridge. You can take a bus. Those are boring. You can take a monorail, but the best way is to take a cable car. It extends from the upper floors of a building on the water over to the highest point on Sentosa Island. It has quite a view from the cable cars and is pretty exciting when you are hanging way up there. In the other direction, it continues up to the top of Mt. Faber, the highest point on Singapore island (a whopping 500 feet or so). Of course we paid extra so we could ride in the glass-bottomed cable car. When we get a view, we want all of the view!

The start is a little different. Most cable cars start from the ground and climb gradually. Since you are at the top of a tall building when you get in, you start by going over an edge and all of a sudden you are instantly several hundred feet above the ground. It is pretty exciting! After that we of course needed a break. It was a very hot and humid day. We got cold drinks and relaxed at the top of the lookout to enjoy the view of Singapore harbor and the city. Although it was sunny, it was very hazy. So we couldn't see very far into Indonesia, or up to Malaysia in the north.

The first thing Mickey wanted to try was the luge. It leaves from the top of the hill and follows a track down to the bottom. You ride in these little cars that go by gravity. All you can do is break and steer. Most of the people we saw were pretty chicken, and went down really slowly. Then Mickey and Shannon raced. Mickey was blowing by everyone - until he crashed. From the bottom there was a chairlift that brought the people and cars back up to the top of the hill. Mickey and Shannon did a second run so I could get better pictures. I was in perfect position on the biggest corner, but when Mickey crashed again I was laughing so hard that I messed up the pictures. So I didn't get any from the second run.

We hiked down to near the beach along a "nature trail". It had a bunch of phony dragon relics along the trail. They even built an artificial water fall and cascade. At one point they had fake snakes that looked like they were about to attack you. We were very brave at this point taking pictures with the fake snakes. Little did we know what we were in for later. Then we went to Underwater World. They had a lot of interesting displays of reef fish, crabs, shrimp, lobsters, coral, etc. The culmination was a long tunnel underground that was actually beneath their largest tank. The whole thing was made of clear acrylic so it was like walking along the bottom of the sea with all these fish swimming along. Some of the specimens they had were pretty impressive.

We did a few other things. We walked over to the Merlion statue so Mickey could get his picture taken with it. The Merlion was invented by the Singapore tourist board about thirty years ago. It combines a lion (Singa - pura is literally lion city in Malay) with the body of a fish, since the sea is so important to Singapore. The Merlion is very popular with tourists, but the locals are kind of cynical about something invented for a tourist marketing campaign. There are two Merlion statues, one on Sentosa and one in Marina Bay downtown. We also took an open air bus around the island and finally got to eat lunch at Subway (hey- so we're not adventurous when it comes to eating!).

At the entrance to the Underwater World there was a guy with a huge albino python that you could take your picture with for a couple of bucks. The snake seemed huge even though he said it was only a baby. Mickey and Shannon thought about doing it, but didn't have the nerve. All the while we were going through Underwater World they were talking about it. When we came out, Mickey decided to go for it. I couldn't be outdone, so I did it too. Shannon wanted to, then didn't want to, then did, then didn't. Finally she tried, but couldn't get herself to take the snake. Mickey helped out holding the head, and then she finally got it. The snake was really very docile. It just required mind over matter.