Island getaway = Island: Get away!

hehe. just a little creative punctuation inspired by eats shoots and leaves, introduced by mel during one of the last few funny email strings from my days at the factory.

but really. that's what i felt on my first (and god willing, only) trip to sentosa, singapore's very own island getaway.

erm. well.

marlon and i decided to finally end the mystery and go touristy with a saturday afternoon trip to sentosa. clad in jeans and armed with just a little woven handbag (no bathing suit, no towel, no salbabida), we took the mrt down to harbourfront, where we boarded the bus to sentosa. upon seeing all the excited singaporeans decked out in their you-can't-out-hip-me beach finery (complete with beach volleyball, ipod and cooler), i briefly wondered whether i should have dressed up for the beach, and why i, a certified sun worshipper, wasn't the least bit excited about this as i usually am about other beach trips.

after the bus went down one road, turned a corner, crossed a 250-meter bridge, and i saw a sign welcoming me to sentosa, singapore's very own island paradise, i figured my instincts had just warned me that dressing up for this place wouldn't be worth it. i mean, hot damn, i could have walked to said island paradise. me, the nutella-snacking poolside potato who doesn't get out of the house until late afternoon.

maybe i'm just a manila girl – i usually expect paradise to come after two hours of city traffic, a three-hour ride on a bus with either a rooster or a cavan of rice on board, fending off a dozen feisty vendors of various local delicacies, and at least three bouts of furious haggling (give or take a bumpy tricycle ride). so if paradise is only a fifteen-minute mrt ride and a two-minute bus ride away, how paradisial can it possibly be?

at its best, sentosa is a miniaturized distillation of its parent island – safe, convenient, not particularly unattractive, manicured to the point of artifice, and full of very thin people wearing scanty expensive clothing. at its worst, IMHO, it's a godawful place to go if you want a relaxing beach weekend.

ang dami dami dami dami daming tao. i can barely count the number of times i nearly got trampled by hordes of indian families and japanese tourists. even the beach is super crowded, because nobody seems to want to go into the water, which is reminiscent of manila bay breakwater in its lack of ocean appeal. and the queue for the buses (three bus lines take you to various attractions around the island) is rather what i imagine lining up at a soup kitchen during the great depression must have been like.

much to the delight of my nerdy boyfriend, we only had time to visit underwater world, which was at least fun and can take up a whole afternoon. the best part of the visit was the glass tunnel, where we watched sharks and stingray swooping all around us and feeding. such swift and lethal creatures – they left me awestruck.

marlon, lost in fishie heaven

currystrumpet meets giant arrowana

animal, mineral or vegetable?

fish, driftwood or turd? (pardon my french)

dugong = my future, if i don't give up my nutella habit

before and after: currystrumpet gives her stingray dinner a loving pat