Gardens by the Bay, Singapore — My Own Chinese Brocade

We visited the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore and really enjoyed our day there. We entered via the Dragonfly Bridge and were treated to some beautiful views, including the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, the Supertree Grove, the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest, and the Singapore Flyer in the distance.

Singapore Flyer, Supertrees and Flower Dome

The Supertree Grove was an interesting place. The main area has 12 large man-made “trees,” inspired by trees of tropical rainforests. The trunks are covered with plants and flowers to form vertical gardens, and they also collect rainwater and generate solar power. There were many beautiful orchids on and around the trees. The largest tree, in the center, has a restaurant in the top. Two others have elevators to enter and exit the Skyway Walk.

There is a strip of restaurants nearby where we had a local Singapore lunch of chicken rice at the Hill Street Coffee Shop. This area, as well as the whole park, had many interesting plants and flowers. Pictured below are a huge Staghorn Fern growing on a tree trunk and a Cannonball Tree.

The Skyway, at 22 meters/72 feet above ground and 128 meters/420 feet long, offers great views of the park and beyond. I don't like heights in open places, but did fine on this walkway.

Supertree Grove with Cloud Forest Dome in background

There were numerous areas in the gardens, and we didn’t even make it to all of them, but next, we visited the Cloud Forest. I think the Cloud Forest Dome was my favorite and I will do a separate post and pictures for it.

We also wandered through many smaller gardens. We spent a good amount of time in the Sun Pavilion with the succulents, because there were quite a few small lizards who seemed to call this home and they cooperated quite well for photographs!

Then we walked along the waterfront towards Satay by the Bay. Again, the Marina Bay Sands could be seen in the distance. You can also see the three Supertrees that were part of the "Golden Garden" which we never made it to.

Along the way, we passed Kingfisher Lake, which had three big, beautiful kingfisher statues. Can you see them in the picture below?

At Satay By the Bay, there were at least 20 hawkers (vendors selling inexpensive food) selling quite a variety of Asian food. We tried another local Singapore dish, fried carrot cake. This has no carrots as our American minds would think, but uses white daikon radish. We had the white carrot cake, which means no soy sauce, with bacon. I’m not convinced it actually even had radish in, supposedly some times they just have small rice cake pieces. But, it was good and we even had more a couple days later at the bay front!

As we walked back, we had some beautiful views of the city harbor front just after the sun went down. Our last stop was the Flower Dome, which was named the "World's Largest Glass Greenhouse" in 2015 by Guinness World Records. As this is mainly lit by the skylights, it was quite dark inside, still enjoyable, but we couldn't get many pictures. I’m sure seeing it in daylight would be an entirely different experience. There was a large Chinese garden area which still had Chinese New Year decor up.

On the way back to the Metro station, we saw a bit of the “Garden Rhapsody,” the evening light and music show of the Supertrees. I honestly think I preferred them in their “natural” look, not with all the bright colored lights!

Overall, the Gardens by the Bay was a very nice place, and we could have easily spend more time there in order to see it all!