The one area that is chargeable is the National Orchid Garden<\/em>. Even this is only S$15 (11\u20ac, \u00a310), so less than half the price of the rubbish observation deck from yesterday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And a million times more impressive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was in school, we were told that an orchid was a flower, singular, and so rare that because we\u2019d never go to tropical South America, we would never see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Orchids were described to us as some almost mythical plant that we\u2019d only see in textbooks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bull. Shit. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, as I grew older I realised that orchids were a broad species and found all over the world. But still, learning about the numbers, distribution, growing and propagating methods, and the sheer variety of them was eye-opening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you know:<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so on and so on. I took so many pictures I\u2019ll put them all in a separate gallery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Really, I could have spent more hours here than I did, taking photos of hundreds of different varieties that I didn\u2019t know the name of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, a) my phone was dying in the heat (the chilly \u201cCool House\u201d was a blessed relief) and b) I had to find stamps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Singapore\u2019s national postal service has the most \u201c1980\u2019s C&A Skiwear\u201d brand logo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the MTR station was near a mall with a branch in it, I thought I\u2019d try my luck with stamps there. They had a vending machine that had a couple of options and, seeing no other outlet, I tried it out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Result: minus S$5.20 and plus zero stamps. The error message was in Chinese so after tapping every button on screen I gave up and went to the counter. \u201cOh yeah. You\u2019ll need to ask for a refund via this website [points to QR code],\u201d like this happens regularly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd we only print standard POS stamps here. You need to go to the GPO where they have a philatelic shop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Off I traipse. And the GPO shop is rather nice. You browse the stamps, choose what ones you want and quaintly write down the codes on a piece of paper like you\u2019re in Argos, and then someone fetches them from a cupboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I rather went overboard so I hope I\u2019m not fuelling my mother\u2019s habit again. Maybe I\u2019ll drip-feed them to her over a few months \ud83d\ude05<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tomorrow morning I head back to Changi T3. There I\u2019ll board a Singapore Airlines Airbus A380, and I\u2019m not ashamed to say that that aircraft is part of the reason I\u2019m even in Singapore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I figured that airlines were phasing out usage of the A380 and really only Emirates and SingAir were still committed to them. Seems there\u2019s been a post-pandemic revival in fortune and some are being brought back into service by (e.g.) Lufthansa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyhoo, here\u2019s my chance to fly this super-big-boy plane. And with wifi, so my last post for this trip may be from 10km straight up. <\/p>\nLet\u2019s Talk About Orchids<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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(seriously)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![](\"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/img_3996-577x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSingapore Post<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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And That\u2019s Almost It \ud83d\ude2d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n