Welcome to our first travel post. But before we start, here’s wishing you a very very happy new year…May you have a prosperous and fruitful 2013.
We were in Singapore during New Year’s eve for the first time (in spite of living here for 3 years), so we decided to see the Singapore fireworks at Marina Bay. We celebrated our last New Year in Hong kong watching the fireworks and it was a wonderful experience as more than 15,000 visitors gathered around the tower which was lit up to invite 2012. The fireworks were part of the building and everyone seemed to have loved it. Here are a couple of pictures…
People always draw comparisons between Singapore and Hong kong, both are emerging economies of South Asia, both are similar in size and foreigner intake. Both have a chinese orientation and both want to make a mark on the world with infrastructure and tourism. So our expectations from Singapore fireworks were set by the experience we had in Hong kong.
Plan was to leave from home at 9:00 PM and try to reach Marina Boulevard by 10:00 pm. But the Mrs was not ready even by 9:35, so we ended up taking a cab. On the way we saw signs which said that private vehicles were not allowed around the marina bay area and hence we were dropped off at marina bay sands itself. The instructions we found on the internet were very confusing and when the cab couldn’t drop us at a specific point, all we could do was follow the herd. As a result of which we were not aware of any concert arranged. With us being dropped off right at MBS, we missed the entire concert and were directly at the fireworks viewing deck. So in other words we were waiting for the fireworks 2 hours in advance with nothing else to do.
Crowd was sitting at premium locations and we had no choice but to stand behind, with the crowds building behind us. Expected crowd was 25,000 and with our HKG experience, we had really high hopes, but the actual fireworks did not commence until 12:00.. so basically we were left bored with no entertainment but to look at others. The government in HKG had made sure people had things to do when they waited during the countdown, like intermittent light shows or other things like small fireworks. But here, there was nothing, the count down was basically a painful wait.
The actual fireworks lasted for only 8 mins, and it was over before we were even started enjoying it. It was good but Mrs thought it was nothing spectacular. I guess we count the whole experience rather than just the fireworks. Here are a few pics.
We didn’t manage to take many descent shots as it was very crowded. Nonetheless, we had fun. Strolled around Boat Quay for some time and took the last train home.
GetawayJournal 