Of Experiences, Adventures And Travels: Amazing Race and Half-Day City Tour

I went for an Asian Conference during the weekend and brought the delegates for an Amazing Race on Friday night, followed by a half-day city tour on Sunday. We went to three destinations each. For the Amazing Race, the first destination was Marina Bay Sands, where we had to locate the Marshals there for further instructions.

We flagged off at seven fifteen and took the train there, since we could only take public transport - bus, MRT or taxi. Since it was quite a walk to Marina Bay Sands from the nearest train station (Promenade), we decided to take a walk past the Youth Olympic Park and the Helix Bridge before going into Marina Bay Sands itself.

Youth Olympic Park

Night View of Marina Bay Sands

Tried to capture the water, but was too blurry :-(

Inside the Helix Bridge

When we reached Marina Bay Sands, we spent some time trying to locate the Marshals. as they were at one of the bridges at the indoor river right at the basement. When we finally found them, our task was to take a photo with three Caucasians inside. Luckily, at that moment, there was a Caucasian guy who walked past with his two young daughters in tow, so we quickly grabbed him to take a photo with him and his girls. He was rather obliging!

So we ended the first task, and were given instructions to go to our second destination - one of the Indian temples at Little India. Since Deepavali was coming, we were quite fortunate that Friday night the lights were lit up, giving a more glamourous feel to the place.

At Little India

It was quite a feat finding the temple, because almost every few shops in Little India, there was a temple. Still, it was not as hard as we thought, because the temple happened to be the one nearest the row of eating places. We just had to go straight, turn left and walk straight from Little India Station (Tekka Market exit).

When we found the Marshal, he gave us five dollars to buy five items - Indian dye, sweet, crackers, henna and the little thing to put on the forehead. Luckily we managed to find all and so were given instructions to proceed to our third destination - Chinatown, where we took a train to Chinatown station.

When we reached Chinatown, we had to find a herbal tea shop, which was at the corner of People's Park Complex. Our last task was to complete a jigsaw puzzle. However, there were a few glitches, namely some of the pieces were missing, so we were not able to complete it. Still, the Marshals let us off since we had more or less completed almost the whole puzzle, save for the missing pieces.

We were also asked to find four "time reversals", each one giving fifteen minutes off. The first was a travel brochure of Mykonos, the second was a gambling chip for ten dollars, the third was a fully inflated balloon from McDonalds, and the last was a receipt from 7-11 for an item that cost exactly sixty-five cents.

We managed the get the last two (the balloon and the receipt) but not the other two, so we could only get half an hour off from our final check in time. Still, it was fun, albeit tiring. Come to think of it, it was pretty fun touring around like this. I should do this more often from now on!

On Sunday, we brought the delegates on a half-day city tour to Marina Barrage, Pinnacles at Duxton and Merlion Park. It was a hot day, and upon reaching Merlion Park, I could tell that most of the delegates were too tired to move anymore, so they all started sitting in the shade.

Still, it was a great time bringing them around and letting them enjoy some unique spots on this little island. I took many photos for keepsake too!

Our first stop - Marina Barrage - is actually a dam, a man made reservoir to help in the water supply of Singapore. Our second stop - Pinnacles at Duxton - is the first DBSS public housing project, to have HDB flats right in the middle of the central business district and Chinatown, as well as to have condominium facilities in the premises of the flats. Hence, there is a running track, sky garden, playground, exercise place, everything, except a swimming pool and tennis courts.