{"id":1064,"date":"2010-09-14T09:55:52","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T09:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2011-03-18T19:47:06","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T19:47:06","slug":"shouldnt-parks-be-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/archives\/1064","title":{"rendered":"Shouldn’t parks be green?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Having lived on and off in different countries in Asia since 2000, moving from one country to another for short periods of time to renew visas (i.e. the visa-run) is a fact of life for lots of tourists and foreigners. Last week my tourist visa to Indonesia expired so I took a short (i.e. one night) trip to Singapore. The city is like a second-home to me so when I arrived, I wanted to see something that I haven’t seen before. A quick trip downtown and I couldn’t miss the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino<\/a>, Singapore’s newest controversial source of revenue.<\/p>\n

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The feature you’ll notice is the roof of the hotel which is marketed as the “Sky Park”. So without much hesitation, I wanted to visit the park especially for a escape from the urban chaos I’ve been living in Jakarta. After walking over the very cool looking bridge from the mainland to the Hotel, I soon realized that getting to this park wasn’t as easy as I thought. I entered the hotel hoping to catch an elevator up to the 50+ floors to the park, but was quickly stopped by a stern looking security guard.<\/p>\n

“Where are you going sir?”<\/p>\n

“Uh, I want to go up to the SkyPark”<\/p>\n

“Hotel guests are only allowed beyond this point – you’ll have to go around the corner and pay at the tourist entrance.”<\/p>\n

“Pay? How much?”<\/p>\n

“$20”<\/p>\n

“I just want to go to the park. You have to pay to go to the park?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, $20, around the corner.”<\/p>\n

I was a bit hesitant to go especially when parks are usually free. But I figured it was a good opportunity to see what a $20 park would be like – it must be fantastic, filled with fairies, trees, wildlife, etc. After reluctantly letting go of $20, I rode the elevator to the top and got out expecting a lush forest with walking paths. Here are some photos – you be the judge.<\/p>\n

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This is the only green space and tree-lined walkway in the SkyPark.<\/p>\n

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The pool is the main feature in the SkyPark, but it’s only open and accessible to hotel guests. Tourists and visitors get to watch from behind a fence. The hotel really makes tourists and visitors feel like they’re welcome!<\/p>\n

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The view from the observation deck for tourists and visitors without any benches or covered areas to enjoy the view.<\/p>\n

Summary: While I wouldn’t call the SkyPark anything close to a park, if you have to pay $20, I’d wait until the restaurants and bars are open to enjoy the view of Singapore with a drink in hand or for dinner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having lived on and off in different countries in Asia since 2000, moving from one country to another for short periods of time to renew visas (i.e. the visa-run) is a fact of life for lots of tourists and foreigners. Last week my tourist visa to Indonesia expired so I took a short (i.e. one … Continue reading Shouldn’t parks be green?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124],"tags":[3,39,89,88,58,8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1064"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1965,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions\/1965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincentfung.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}