Gardens by The Bay, Singapore

Another stop we made in Singapore was the Gardens by the Bay located on Marina Gardens Drive. Upon arriving, we headed straight for the audio tour around the gardens using a medium sized open air buggy and costs $5 per person. The audio tour gave us sometime to rest, listen, understand, take cover from the sun and soak in the beauty of the garden. The garden is divided into various parts. The highlight for me would be the 2 dome shaped conservatories "Flower Dome" and "Cloud Forest", the Supertree Grove and the Web of Life.

Web of Life - Really love the animal shaped bushes or hedges.

The Supertrees!. Standing tall at a height of 25-50 metres, the trunk of the trees are planted with real living plants, while the unique branches branching out from the trunk actually helps harvest solar energy. Awesome! At night, there is a Garden Rhapsody at 745pm and 845pm where the trees come alive with a colourful display of lights. Sadly, we missed the show as we were headed for shopping by then :D. We spent around 3 hours at the Gardens exploring.

The OCBC Skyway $5 admission, we didn't get to try this, but it is said from the skyway the view is spectacular.

Marc Quinn's Planet- Floating baby sculpture which looks hugely heavy, yet appears weightless. Stares in awe! Read more here.

There are 2 dome shaped conservatories the " Flower Dome" and the "Cloud Forest". We went for the Flower Dome first. The Cloud Forest was smaller than the Flower Dome and and can get very chilly at times. I enjoyed the cool weather in the conservatories unlike the burning heat outside, thus, spending extra time in both. :D Entrance fee for both conservatories is $28.

Dome shaped conservatory

The Flower Dome was filled with plants from all over the World. At one corner you see palms, another would consist of cactus and bulbous plants, there were so many types of beautiful flowers. It was a magnificent hideaway. I just stood at a corner of the conservatory and enjoyed the view. To capture the moment, i felt like a professional photographer?, trying to get the best shot, taking almost 100 photos just in this conservatory. haha! Never thought i had a thing for plants photography :P

The view 

Various types of Cactus

Bulbous plants or were they trees?

Owls ( my current interest)

the view from a different angle :)

The year of the Horse. neyyy~

Here a unique 3 petal flower :) reminded me of a 3 leaved clover. Hopefully it brings goodluck too!

The 1000 year old olive tree

Plenty of colorful magical flowers :)

Horses made of wood can be seen decorating the whole conservatory in conjunction with the Year of the Horse.

The second conservatory the Cloud Forest. Its main attraction would be the indoor waterfall and the cloud walk.

Indoor waterfall :)

The multilevel walk where you can enjoy the scenery

Lost World at the topmost floor

The secret garden snails :)

Before entering the secret garden, there was a short video about how humans have changed the balance in nature (changes in weather). It was a wake up call. They also have a presentation on how Gardens by the Bay actually use green technology  to function, from the rain water collected to water the plants, the solar energy to light up the super trees, the leaves as manure or burnt to create energy.

Overall, i enjoyed the Gardens very much, as it was just a stress free, peaceful place to soak in the beauty, away from the bustling rush in the city. It was my cup of tea, hopefully its yours too. :)