Day 30, part 2: more Gardens by the Bay, Hawker mkt dinner

We visit the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest. Amazing. Stupendous. Extravagant. I need a new thesaurus of superlatives to come close to describing the sense of being there.

Like a Bird of Paradise flower, only small and simpler colors. 

The first thing inside the done is a small pagoda entrance. Every Chinese visitor takes a picture there. 

Statue by Yayoi Kusama, the same artist who has a signature use of polka dots to convey a sense of innocence. The same Japanese artist whose polkadot-wrapped trees we saw in Melbourne.

The Flower Dome send to be a multi acre some enclosing a garden with varied topography, ramps leading up and down and all around. There are desert cactus and succulent gardens, Australian and African boabab trees, Italian olive trees. Ultimately we are told that it represents all the world temperate zones at the Mediterranean latitudes (North and south). Mediterranean, southrrn California desert, Chile, South Africa, some Australia, etc

Then down on the ground level in the center are flower displays. 

Lush displays of succulents. 

Xeriscape.

Old Man of the Andes -- the cactus, not me. 

A view down towards the central display. 

Rampant colorful blossoms beside a bubbling stream (with dry ice smoke) 

More floral extravagance. We start getting ideas for Alban's wedding.

Crazy level of floral decision here. 

Orchid upon orchid, going on as far as the eye can see. 

Just when you think they have done everything possible with flowers, you see this display. Wow! 

Now we are wiped out, so we exit and stop for 15 minute break with ice cream. They could install those massage chairs here and it would be okay. 

Now it's time for the Cloud Forest. They are misting on the even hours and we enter just after 4PM, so it's going full force as we enter. The waterfall is on and the misters are jetting. 

Now you take an elevator up to sixth floor, climb stairs up to the top level and ramp down through the cloud forest mountain.

Everything is done at such a grand scale that photos get lost in the overall enormity of it all. 

Uniquely colorful.

A wall of pitcher plants, carnivorous plants with no insects to eat in this very manicured environment. 

Another Chihuli display. 

They have a whole display of carnivorous plants including this small terrarium of Venus fly traps.

At 7 or 8 stories up you walk this internal catwalk under the dome around the cloud forest mountain packed full of plants. Mind boggling. Who designed this? Who is the gardener? How big is their staff? 

There are so many plants in such profusion on the way down, with the scale just overwhelming my ability to capture them. I walk down in awe. 

I wish I could bring my mother to see these places, she could spend days here.

We walk & metro home, shower nap and rest for a while, then head out for dinner. 

Lau Pa Sat is a 130-yr old hawker market in the old Chinese area of town. 

At dinner. 

The vibe inside

Yes, they have quack on a rack.