We were really dragging when we got up this morning with only about 6 hours of sleep and a long day yesterday. But we had a great tour today – The Mysteries of the Orient. This was basically about Feng Shui and how it has influenced Singapore. It was fascinating.
Our guide told us that 4,000 years ago only the Imperial family in China used feng shui to guide their lives. Now in Singapore, it is a very important element in the construction of many of its buildings. And it is not limited to the buildings. Singapore did not want to become a “concrete city,” so it took extra steps to make sure there was a balance of green garden areas along with its tall buildings. It was obvious as we drove around this city for two days that this balance was created. Trees line streets, there are parks everywhere, and as part of the government housing, there is a neighborhood park and play area for children for every building. Feng Shui is considered to be a calculated science rather than a religion.
Feng Shui is based on the concept of balance. Female and male balance can be found in the Yin (black) and Yang (white). In the physical world, balance is sought between the 5 elements of fire, water, metal, wood, and earth.
At our first stop we looked at a building that
each. It is a very prosperous bank. While you can’t see it in this picture, it has a huge entrance (to allow lots of money to come in.)
The 2nd building we saw was another bank. In front of it was the river and the bank was on the curve of this river. (Curves, not straight lines, are important to let energy flow.) The building itself had lots of symbols for balance, but the metal bird in front of it was the most interesting. The bank paid $1,000,000 for it! 
The tail is an open palm (to receive money). The legs are sturdy and won’t fly away (so you can be confident about putting money in the bank.)
Those are just a couple of examples. It is easier to understand it when you can see the whole picture in front of you. But I wanted to try to give a sample of what we saw.
We stopped at Mr. Yong’s shop where we all received red fans with our names written on them in Chinese. We also went to a Feng Shui gallery in a big mall in which everything is related to Feng Shui! There we learned more about this science and were shown the compass which is used to calculate auspicious days, the placement of items in your home to create harmony and balance, etc. And this changes every year based on the movement of the earth. Doug saw this as a professional decorator’s nirvana since colors and placement needs yearly updating and changes!
Our last stop was Suntec City, Singapore’s main exhibition and convention center and home to the largest fountain in the world, the fountain of wealth. The center was built to resemble your left hand. All five elements are included in this center. Supposedly, you need to walk around the fountain 9 times to absorb its energy.
We left the tour at this point and had lunch in the HUGE food court in this building. There were food cuisines I had never heard of before. We ended up with Thai food. We then took a taxi to China Town so we could take more time to explore all the little stalls. It was lots of fun. We took a taxi back to the cruise terminal and learned more about the negative side of Singapore from our driver (one of its residents). He didn’t like the restrictions on freedom of speech the most. He enjoyed his visit to the USA where we had so many more freedoms.
With only about 45 minutes before we had to be back on the ship, I spent about 10 minutes in a special spa. Here you put your feet in this tank with lots of little fish in it, and they eat the calluses on your feet
This tickled so much as they nibbled away that I didn’t think I’d last the whole 10 minutes. But I got used to it and enjoyed it – and my feet felt so smooth and soft afterwards!
Back on the ship we went to the sail away festivities and had the Singapore Sling we missed at the Raffles Hotel. Then had an enjoyable dinner with our regular table – probably because we all has so many stories to share about our two days in Singapore.
We really liked this city and would enjoy coming back because there is still so much to do and see. We felt like we really maxed out our time here – it’s just a fun city with lots to explore. In fact, it was our favorite city so far on this trip.
We were so tired that we were both asleep by 8 p.m. And luckily for us, we gained an hour during the night, so we got a really good night’s sleep!
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