On our way to Malaysia via Singapore
While Queenie was half-way across the world for the duration of the mid-year school holidays, we decided to take The Impossible Princess to Malaysia for a couple of weeks and then meet up with Queenie in Singapore on her way home.
Our flight from Melbourne to Singapore arrived at 9pm, and our onward flight to Penang wasn’t until 11am the following day. So rather than stay at the airport, we took a short taxi ride along the Eastern Parkway to a hotel where we could have a comfortable night’s sleep.
Good morning, Singapore!
I think airports are fascinating places. Apart from the fact that the world’s people, cultures and their baggage all come and go, criss-crossing each other and each other’s territory, the airports themselves often contain most interesting artworks or installations or facilities
Changi Airport in Singapore is well endowed in the interest department. In the transit halls there are amazing displays of orchids, and out in the check-in area of Terminal 1, there is a newly installed kinetic art piece which consists of 608 bronze droplets suspended on wires. The droplets are controlled by computer software and go up and down, forming patterns and shapes. It’s totally mesmerizing. The piece, which is the largest kinetic art work in the world, is called Kinetic Rain and you can see a video of it in action here.
Then, inside the transit area, there’s a fish spa place. How could we resist?
After our initial eeeewww reaction to the idea of a fish spa in New York in 2008, we braved up to the experience in Langkawi in 2010. We now consider ourselves veterans of the ichthyological pedicure.
We jumped right in feet-first so to speak. It is a totally bizarre experience. The toothless Garra Rufa fish (Doctor Fish) swarm around your feet, sucking off the dead skin (eeewwww). I’ve read that it is a myth that they eat the dead skin, instead they slough the skin off, supposedly foraging for some micro-organisms that they really want. I’d imagine there could be some risk of infection if you had open wounds, but we didn’t, and what the heck, it seemed like fun.
