Sentosa Merlion

Here on Sentosa Island, this is one of the five official Merlion statues in Singapore. It is the tallest and the only one with viewing decks.





After the ticket gantry, we walk through a path decorated with an under-the-sea theme. At the end of it, we arrive at a lift lobby with mini golden Merlions. We insert the gift card (which was issued during the ticket purchase) into one of the Merlions and it will "spits" out a golden souvenir coin. Then, we take the lift up to the top.



The Mouth Viewing Deck is only a small viewing area, where only a few people can enjoy the outside view at any one time. The Prosperity Bell is located in this area too.



The Head Viewing Deck is right on top of the Merlion statue and we can see 360 degrees view of Sentosa Island.


The cute Merlion mascots key-chain selling in the store on the first floor.

Sydney Tower Eye

KB's friend recommended that we buy the attraction ticket online before we fly to Sydney, we bought the combo pass for 5 attractions online for AUD 63. If you were to buy the tickets over the counter, the combo would cost AUD 99... buy them individually online would be AUD 170 and buy them individually over the counter would be AUD 189! The combo pass can be bought at any of the 5 attraction's website. Anyway, I chose to buy from Sydney Tower Eye beside it is next to our hotel and I'm pretty sure that we'll go there on our first evening at Sydney.

Greedy me wants to see both the day and night view, so I checked the sunset time and made sure we get there slightly before that time. After the official sunset time, we had to wait for more than 40 minutes for the sky to go totally dark.

Looking east

Looking south

Looking west

Street lights lighted up

Looking north

Taipei 101 (臺北101)

Taipei 101 (臺北101) is currently the world's second tallest building. It has 101 floors (above ground)... hence named Taipei 101. As of now, there is no metro station nearby, but there will be one in the near future. For our first few days in Taiwan, we stayed in Home Hotel, where we can see Taipei 101 from our room.

View of Taipei 101 from the ground floor

The ticket booth for the observatory is located on the 5th floor. Just opposite the booth, are the lifts that go directly to the 89th floor, where there's the 360 degrees view of the surrounding. Unfortunately, the outdoor viewing decks are closed. I'm not too sure if it was due to their preparation for New Year's eve countdown or because it's the winter season.

Ticket counters

Looking westwards

Looking northwards

Looking eastwards

Looking southwards

Taipei 101 models sold in the attraction shop

Send a mail to someone from Taipei 101

Wind damper plays an important function in this skyscraper, to reduce movement of the building due to wind. And hence their mascot - damper babies:

Red damper babies all over the shopping mall

Red damper baby welcomes you to the observatory deck on the 89th floor.

The yellow round thing in the middle is the actual wind damper.

up on 1-Altitude

By night, 1-Altitude is an al fresco bar, but during day time, it's a viewing gallery on the 63rd floor of the former OUB Centre. There's no shelter and there isn't much shady area too. It was really sunny on the day we visited. Thankfully, the strong winds and some cloud coverage that made it more pleasant for us.






The perimeters of the rooftop is fitted with glass panels that are quite tall, but it's still possible to hold the camera high above the glass to prevent reflections in the photos.

Singapore Flyer

The tickets to the Singapore Flyer is expensive in my personal opinion. However, Groupon recently had an offer for discounted bundle tickets to the Gardens by the Bay and the Singapore Flyer. The tickets are open date, so we just have to exchange the Groupon printout at Sea Wheel Travel for the actual tickets.

Many, many, many high-rise housing estates.

The view of Gardens by the Bay.

Marina Bay Sands and the other city buildings.

View of the Marina Bay Floating Platform.

John Hancock Observatory

The observatory is located on the 94th floor of John Hancock Center.

Looking south from the observatory.

Navy Pier in the east of the observatory.

Beautiful coastline looking to the north.

Looking east where the low-rise residential homes are.