Yesterday, Megan, mom and I went to two islands of Singapore that were just 5km away. We went there by ferry and there were only three other people on the ferry besides us. The ferry left at 10:00 in the morning and came back at 1:00 in the afternoon.

The first island was called St. John's Island. A long time ago there used to be an old jail on the island but now it is a campground. The island also has a beach, but the swimming area wasn't good because the boundary line was only up to your ankles or less because the tide was low and the water was gross from seaweed and the ships that were anchored by the island. We only spent 15 minutes on the island because there wasn’t much to do there and we would have had to stay there for over 4 hours until the next ferry came to pick us up.

We went to the second island and that one was alot nicer. It was called Kusu Island which means Tortoise Island in Chinese. Kusu Island has a Chinese temple called Da Bogong
Temple, Malay shrine called Kusu Kramats and a huge turtle sculpture. Legend goes that a turtle saved two shipwrecked men and to thank the turtles they built statues of the turtle on the island.

We walked out of the boat and saw a wishing well. We couldn't put any money in it because the workers were moving it to a different spot on the island. After that, we walked and found a place where they had live turtles!!! So we fed them some crackers and went on to the Chinese temple. There were a few deities there but the two main ones were the Merchant God and the Goddess of Mercy. We looked and took pictures. After that, we came to stone stairs and the sign said we had to walk up 152 stairs to get to the top. After stopping many times we finally made it up. There were wishes written on the painted yellow rocks at the entrance of the shrine. Everyone wrote their wishes on the rocks hoping that they come true. Some of the wishes were "I wish I get 100% on all of my exams" and "I wish I had 4 iPods!!" Most of the wishes were about getting good grades in school. People also pray for blessings for wealth, marriage, fertility, good heath and harmony. The shrines are also popular for couples wanting to start a family.

Then it was time to leave so we got back on the boat and headed back to Singapore.