Singapore Botanic Gardens

Near the heart of Singapore, lies a beautiful garden that offers free entry to all who wants to enjoy the flora and fauna. I walk through these gardens often, so this post will be updated with new pictures sometimes :D

On the 4th July 2015, our beautiful botanic gardens was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site! I am so proud!! :DD See the article here

Getting here

Click here, for the awesome botanic gardens webpage on telling you how to there!

I personally find that going to the bukit timah gate is the most fuss-free route, because you can never go wrong when the gate is just in front of the MRT entrance! 

Just hop on a train to the Botanic Gardens station along the circle line :) 

This entrance is also closest to the pond, where there are ducks and black swans, and large areas for you to have a picnic or play some games. 

Notes

• There is limited shelter in this area, so if it is raining or it might rain, try not to come :X
• There is not much food options within the Botanic gardens area. There are some small shops outside the Bukit Timah Entrance (walk along the main road in the same direction as where the cars are travelling) but there are really limited choices.
• DO NOT attempt to walk from the Bukit Timah Entrance to the Tanglin Entrance which is near Orchard road with the hope of continuing your shopping after that UNLESS you really want to. It is a long long walk. 
• Wear comfortable shoes. I've seen too many pretty ladies struggling with their heels while walking around the gardens

There are quite a lot of trees and flowers and animals in the gardens as seen in the pictures below, the key is to just be observant and enjoy :D

If you need it, the map of the botanic garden is the image below! :D The garden is quite big actually. So plan out how much time you would like to spend here and then decide where you'd like to walk 

That's all for now! Till the next post :)

Last Edit: 26/4/15

S.E.A Aquarium @ Resort Worlds Sentosa.

Hello hello hello~ finally had the chance to go to this awesome aquarium.

It was honestly very very big with many tanks and aquariums. I was very impressed by all the marine life! I think that if you come here... Take time to admire the beauty of the marine life and also read the displays.

Don't go on a rampage of taking photographs on your phone/super big DSLR till you forget to admire the actual beauty of the creatures. I saw so many people only looking at the creatures through the screen of their phones and cameras, then walking away without actually looking directly into the tank. What a waste :(

Anyway, there's a lot to see there, some pictures below!
I'm not going to spam photos, just enough to give you an idea :D

Look at all the pretty colours!

Some places you must explore are the big domes and hidden small crannies for you to crawl into and see some of the creatures closer. Just try to explore every single area of the aquarium and don't miss anything out! I didn't get to see the dolphins coz they were being fed at the far end of the pool or something. And there were no turtles and octopus haha.

Also people have some manners please! Take your picture and move on. Don't stand there hogging the whole display to yourself for a good 5 minutes. Also, don't stick your selfie stick past ppl who are at the front of the display. It's super rude. Like my dad take pictures halfway then got one selfie stick photobomb. Grrr! Wait for your turn la!

Date and Time
We braved the Sunday crowd because we has no other free day to come together but the crowd was manageable. Except for the touch pool which was obviously crowded and had a long snaking queue.

How to get there
This aquarium is pretty close to Universal Studios, all within the same area!
Take the Sentosa Express train from Vivocity (Habourfront MRT) and alight at waterfront station.
Alternatively, take 500m walk from Vivocity to RWS. Check out my previous blog post on how to go to Sentosa!

Price
I find the ticket slightly too pricey. $38 per head is kinda high for me.
Then again, the place was so big and there was so much to see that I guess it was worth it. I was quite tired after the whole thing coz actually have to walk really far one hor. It wasn't a short walk at all!

Actually, there is another underwater world located at another part of sentosa. In comparison, this aquarium definitely has much more to see, so I'm not sure how that underwater world is surviving. The last time I went there was 2012. There was less to see but still a good experience along with the dolphin lagoon show :)

I saw this on twitter by whales_org, and I felt quite sad actually.


As much as keeping wild animals in captivity is educational, and the S.E.A Aquarium was participating in shark week to encourage more people to not eat shark's fin, I also wonder how do we balance the fact that these animals are meant to be in the wild. It's like locking me in my room permanently for the rest of my life. I might turn insane :/

But with this random thought aside, I do recommended visiting this aquarium! 2 hours should be sufficient to explore the whole aquarium :D Just.. don't drive to RWS and park there ._.

4 Fingers at ION Orchard

This is as close as I can get to Kyochon Chicken in Seoul.
Argh I miss it so much haha so I had to settle for something similar...

4 FINGERS!

Sorry I was so excited for this I totally forgot to get a picture of the store front.

The food

I'll let the pictures do the talking

18 piece meal with Kimchi Coleslaw (that was really nice omy tian) and seaweed fries.

Honestly I was only here for the chicken because the fries are kinda meh, but the kimchi coleslaw was amazingly good :O:O:O Surprise surprise.

You can have a mix of flavours soy garlic and hot. I personally don't like the hot flavour so I'll stick to the salty soy garlic one nom nom nom. Chicken is considerably smaller than what you'd get from popeyes or KFC but I still think flavour wise this is the best and the closest I have found to taste as good as Kyochon Chicken!!

The Price

This meal cost us $19.95 after a DBS card discount. Kimchi Coleslaw (that tiny container!!) cost us $3.50. So price wise this is really expensive in my opinion but I really like it argh

Waiting time

Queue for food took about 10 minutes, slightly longer coz the people immediately in front of us never ate at 4 fingers before and were blur like sotongs lolx.

Food was came really quickly. Our buzzer rang within 4 minutes O_O Last time I had to wait considerably longer, almost 10-15 minutes. 

The Venue

We braved the Saturday dinner crowd and there was a long queue to buy food and a number of people waiting for seats. If you come alone or in a pair you would probably be able to squeeze and share tables with others coz all the tables are 4 seaters. For a 3-person group like us, I had to wait a little longer and act a little faster in order to grab a seat. 

So if you don't like the crowd, come at a less crowded time! Otherwise, the music they were blasting made my dad really happy. Michael Jackson sia. ahaha

The Visuals

Ahhh my appreciation for good packaging must be mentioned. From the use of red white and black... and the decor of the place... yup I really like it here.

And did you notice the mess tins they served the chicken in? Haha wonder why. 

Details

The branch I visited was at ION Orchard B4, which opens 11am-10pm on Sun to thurs and 11am-11pm on Fri and Sat.

There are outlets at Plaza Singapura, Westgate and Changi Airport Terminal 3 :>

Stuff from Korea

Such a wonderful title haha! xDD
But I thought a title such as "top 5 things to buy" and "top 5 steals " is not a good idea cause these kinda things are subjective, no? And this is not really a haul post because I honestly did not buy much.

Ok... first thing first I must say clearly that I wasn't going for quantity in Korea.
I just wanted to get stuff I really wanted and would use rather than waste money getting lots of stuff which would end up being sold on carousell back in Singapore -.-

Beauty Products
So I didn't get any masks, make up, BB creams, powders, etc.
The ones I bought are all in the picture, save for 1 nail polish that I forgot to put in the picture.
The small samples at the top right and the 2 face masks were all free. Which I already mentioned in my day 2 Seoul post how I got them... and how some of the store ppl were really stingy about lolx.

These blemish clear patches work just as well as the nexcare acne patch sold in Singapore. In fact, they were even thinner than the ones sold in Singapore. And much cheaper. I think this pack of 24 was about S$3? I do regret not getting a bit more haha but it's ok la.
These were from Missha!

Lots of nose strips sold at different brands. I've always liked the face shop ones but I decided to get some from the Saem also... which were no good -_- ah well. Heng I only buy 1 box.

And this interesting thing called the oxygen bubble mask! Something new that came out in the market recently. Where after putting the gel on your face, it starts to bubble and supposedly bubble out all the impurities from your face :O
Eh in anycase, I like this bubblemask very much coz it's fun to use and smells so so so good <3

If I may just say something, yes a lot of things you can't get back in Singapore, but I highly recommend NOT to buy so much (or of a large quantity) unless you guarantee yourself that you would use everything till it's completely used up.

No point going there to get an item which is $10 cheaper than in Singapore, but because you bought too many other things to try, you end up not finishing the product and throwing it away once it expires (you do know that these expire... right? :/)

So as you might have noticed from the post above, I did regret not getting more of some good stuff, but I was also happy I only bought a little, coz it turned out to not be good. But it's all ok, at least I can easily account for each item I buy and assure myself that what I bought I am using well.

With that said, innisfree is not substantially more expensive in SG! Check out their stores at Plaza Singapura and Takashimaya.

Accessories

Ear studs were affordable and pretty there! About $1.20 per pair?
The watch cost me $6 from Gotomall. I didn't like the skull bracelet which my dad bought so I'm selling it huhu.
I didn't buy much accessories cause I really think I have enough at home.
Accessories just never die... Like I barely throw out my accessories :/

Bags

As mentioned in my day 1 post at Ehwa, look out for the 10,000 won bag shops!
I bought these 3 bags for 10,000 won each, or about $12. I really like all of them, and honestly there were a lot more to choose from which I didn't get because they just don't suit my style.

A lot of satchels, cute sling bags, and other clutches. Nice but I won't use soooo I didn't get any of those. I love the clutches I bought! Got studs and slings and look like snake skin buahaha

Shoes

First Birkenstock look-a-like shoe is from a brand called Le Bunny Bleu at Lotte Mall, Seoul Station. My goodness I walked in, saw the pink and black shoe and I immediately wanted to get it. Hehe.
It cost about 39,000 won after discount, which is pricey la but I like it a lot. I've been wearing it a lot but it's not as hardcore durable as I'd like (how to fight with sneakers, which I live in).

The second pair is a canvas sneaker shoe with heels, very common in Korea. Cost me about 30,000 won and again it was pricey but I liked the shoe!

Hence my conclusion... SHOES IN KOREA ARE EXPENSIVE! WHERE ARE THE CHEAP SHOES WHERE? Ok fine there were some at gotomall selling for 20,000 won but they looked really...... urgh nvm.

Yeah so I ended up buying some shoes in Seoul cause the designs were much nicer than all the shoes I see in Singapore. I convinced myself that if I didn't spend about $50 for a pair of shoes that I liked in Seoul, I'd come back to Singapore and not get any shoes, coz I don't like the designs I see in SG (which btw, shoes are not cheap also).

Artbox
Haha... I'm sure there are other stationery shops around but I seem to only be able to find Artbox everywhere. I think I went into the shop at least 4 times, making purchases each time? Haha

From mousepad to stickers to letterwriting materials to post-its to notebooks.. THIS MUST BE MY DREAM JOB if I ever wanted to work in retail. I had to avoid buying the whole shop. Coz every item $1.20... it adds up one hor T.T

I bought a ton of letter writing materials because I write that many anyway. A bit more pricey than the ones sold in Daiso but THE QUALITY BETTER LEH

Stickers used to be cheaper in the past so I'm not sure how come it became more expensive this time I went to Seoul.

Food/Snacks

I'll end the post with this pathetic, opened soft candy bag. Hehe when you're there just buy lot of food to try ok? Eat loads and just have fun trying food.

Also... don't waste your luggage space buying seaweed. It takes up a lot of space actually. I bought 24 packs and then felt I was very stupid to waste the space coz Singapore also sell the seaweed what... AND DOES IT TASTE DIFFERENT SAM? DOES IT? NO RIGHT? haiz okok. Singapore does have some good korean stores that sell things from Korea so just go and buy la :/

I wanted to get kimchi for a friend but I'm so noob I really couldn't find it at all:/

Alright that's all for the Korean Series for now!
I do have 1 more post I want to do but I will upload it when I have the time to sit and blog again.
Thanks for reading!
Try lots of new things when you go to a new country, and enjoy yourself!