Tuesday 16th Universal
Studios & Night Lights
What a great day! We rescued a
Vietnamese lady who was looking for the MRT – just said “come with us” and took
her to the station, showed her how to buy a ticket, rode with her to Clark Quay,
told her where the attractions were and gave her our map. We went on to
Harbourfront and the Vivo centre – a favourite stamping ground. We stocked up
with delectables from one of those Asian bakeries for lunch and strolled out to
Sentosa island.
Foreigners actually get a discount
here, which is a change, but you do even better paying with Mastercard – 10%
off and free entry to the maritime museum. We started just absorbing the
atmosphere in Hollywood then watched street performances by Sesame St and some breakdancers,
then made our way to Waterworld – a big stunt production set around a
futuristic “atoll” in the theme of the Costner movie which still holds the
record for the biggest financial failure of all time. The show was excellent
after we got over being told to arrive early only to be herded into an area in
full sun and left there for 15 minutes.
Lots of characters about
Dancing friends
Waterworld explosions
The plane coming towards us
Booooooom
The outdoor auditorium was divided
into a wet zone, a splash zone and a dry zone. We went dry. (No really – you would
never have guessed it with a pair of thrillseekers like us but we did). They
started with 3 guys coming out with buckets and huge bicyclepumps which could
spray jets as far as the back of the spray zone. They had a lot of amusing
tricks which always ended up soaking the victims in the front half of the
audience. This made for a very good crowd warmup, particularly for those of us
who were dry at the back. The actual show was a cracking good display of
special effects and stunts with a lot of high falls, bangs and flashes and
intruding boats and airplanes.
Then there was the Donkey show from
Shrek – an ingenious animated performance with the image of the donkey on
screen interacting with a host in the studio and with members of the audience.
The donkey’s lips matched what the voice was saying, which was an amazing
technical achievement given that he wasn’t following a script but ad-libbing
about unpredictable things that happened.
Donkey Live
Then there was a 4D performance of
a Shrek adventure, which featured chairs that shook and bumped in synch with the film, emphasised by puffs of
wind, sprays of water coming from the back of the seat in front and even
brushing against the back of your legs when spiders were about. We wore 3D
glasses, which created an amazingly realistic impression of spears pointing
right at us and dragons blowing fire into our faces.
On to a Spielberg-hosted show in a
sound studio, illustrating the impact of a Category 5 hurricane in a New York boathouse. Very
realistic, complete with a ship running in through the wall. Another theatre
performance of Monster Rock featured actors made up as the 7 most famous
monsters doing modern sing and dance routines.
Then it was on to the rides. We were
never going to consider the outdoor roller coasters – 2 of them entwined and
running in synch. The red one had seats placed in a typical train vehicle with
about 8 cars in a chain each containing maybe a dozen victims. That was just a
high level high speed rollercoaster. The blue one was really nasty – people in
individual seats hanging underneath the rollers, grouped 3 or 4 abreast and
maybe 20 or 30 longwise. They spent about half the time upside down or
corkscrewing. The two tracks wound round each other and the effect would have
been to create near collisions at very high speed and way up in the air. No
thanks.
We did go on the indoor
rollercoaster (The revenge of the Mummy) which flashed in and out of total darkness (apparently . . .
although it wouldn’t matter if {hypothetically} you had your eyes closed). I
had ridden this one with Warren 2 years ago and didn’t remember it as being so
violent. I ended up with my neck and back feeling jarred and J was a bit
bruised as well. (her bites are still
livid and itchy but at least there are no fresh ones today ).
Egypt
We also went on the Transformers,
which we thought was a simulator – well it was somewhat but the vehicle also moved
about on a track. We were wearing 3D glasses and the effect was awesome – sooo realistic.
It felt just like being smashed about by a giant robot and dropping from a tall
building but you were still sort of aware that in fact it was an illusion
created by tilting the vehicle sharply, showing objects flying towards you on a
screen and blowing strong puffs of wind into your face while the vehicle shakes
and jars with impacts. I preferred that to racing around on a rollercoaster.
We did the Madagascar crates ride twice. Very cute low thrill water ride through scenes from the movie.
We watched the street show of ”I Like to moof it moof it” from Madagascar,
which was pretty short and not that good. I was done with rides for the day but
J finished off with all the kiddy rides – junior rollercoaster in Far, Far Away Land and the Jurassic
Pterodactyl. She also did the Jurassic Park wet water ride and the Flyer, which were both pretty exciting for her.
The Flyer
These spit water on you just when you think you have finished being wet
On the way out we dropped into
another restaurant (such extravagance) before we walked back to Vivo and caught
the train to Clark Quay, followed by a brisk walk down to the Merlion to watch
the sound and light show across the water in front of Marina Bay Sands (the
building shaped like a huge boat up on stilts). The show was underwhelming but
it was only 8pm and J thought it might be better from the other side at 9.30.
So we took quite a long walk round the bay and across the bridge to MBS where
we sat in the food court and had a choc muffin and a cold drink. We strolled
out through the incredible array of designer shops – Prada, Louis Vuitton,
Gucci etc etc and took a place on the gentle steps on the waterfront facing
back towards the lights of Singapore City across the bay. Very pretty just for
that - and then the show started.
It was quite stunning – a very
memorable performance apparently put together by Australians. They sprayed
sheets of water up into the air and then projected images and film clips onto them
as though they were white sheets. The pictures were extremely clear and there
were three main areas each about 20 metres apart, with great gas burners
blowing flames up into the air from in front and laser lights from both sides.
There was also music and effects such as streams of soap bubbles wafting in from
the left.
Guy on right was singing
Fantastic images
The concept was to put on a display
with lights and water – the two elements that are essential for Life - and to make
the show a celebration of Life. It was all very clever and very beautiful and
very apt in a stunningly beautiful setting on a balmy warm night – one of the
great highlights of our extended holiday experience.
We then faced another long walk
back to Clark Quay to catch the train home. We were well tired but feeling very
satisfied after a really enjoyable day. We talked about what we will do with
the $30 million OZ Lotto draw tonight. We had been extremely lucky with the
weather – there was a quick and light shower while we were in one of the indoor
shows so we didn’t even notice it. The weather was bearably very warm
throughout the day. I had opted to hide the money belt in the room and go
walking in tracky pants and my new crocs, which was very comfortable. The new
tread is pretty secure unlike the old slicks which can be treacherous on smooth
wet surfaces, which abound in SE Asia.
The Lotto has jackpotted to $50
mill so that will be a good start (and premature end) to J’s return to working
life.
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