Traders Hotel, Singapore, 01 18 25 N, 103 49 43 E.A really good flight, which left on time and arrived on time.It was interesting flying over that vast expanse of Australia knowing we had driven on some of it, we eventually left Australian shores just west of Darwin, before our flight across the various seas to Singapore. I tried to get photographs of the sunset over Indonesia, but wasn't to successful, could have done with opening a window! We were amazed at Changi Airport that, although the plane (Boeing 777-200) was not full, the majority of the passengers were on transit through to other destinations and we had both passport control (which always has a bowl of sweets on the counter), baggage collection (our 4 holdalls were already on the carousel) and customs almost to ourselves and after stepping off the plane at 8:10 pm, we were checking in at the hotel at 9:00 pm.The main highway into Singapore City was quiet and enabled our taxi driver to drive most of the way at 100 kph, which means an excess speed “pinging” warning system was annoyingly sounding for most of the journey.He was also showing us the various sights as we came into the city and telling us what we should eat, the only trouble was he was speaking quickly and with the noise and the language we could hardly understand what he was telling us, we just nodded our heads and agreed.Jenny was also pleased to receive some emails wishing her a Happy Birthday and we managed to contact both Rhiain and Michael by way of“Messenger” andthere is free internet at the hotel so hopefully we will be able to get the websiteup to date in the next few days.
Tuesday 20th January 2009
After the travelling yesterday all we wanted to do today was relax, despite going to bed late last night we were still awake too early, by the time we adjust to this time zone we will need to adjust again for GMT.We enjoyed our first breakfast on the 17th floor, with views across the city, (our room is on the 15th floor with views over the pool area) electing on this stay to have B&B instead of room only, there was a good selection of fruit so we are continuing our habit of Australia by having it for breakfast, although we did have bacon and eggs this morning as we were both hungry.The pool here is fantastic and also as a spa, every time we got too warm we had a swim, sat in the spa, then went back underneath the shade umbrella and read our books and that is all we have done until 5:30 pm when we returned to our room, had a shower and went to find something to eat.Success straight away in the Shopping Mall next door to the hotel, they have opened a food court (it wasn’t here in 2005) and every cuisine from around the world seems to be catered for, we plumped for whitebait and potatoes wedges tonight (from Australia) and will probably try some of the more “exotic” dishes during the next few days if we don’t go into the city centre proper.
Wednesday 21st January 2009
We decided after breakfast to walk along the length of the famous Orchard Road one of the top retail and entertainment centres in the world. It was quiet to start with as most of the shops and malls didn’t open until 10:30 pm, the first stop however was at the information centre where a lovely Chinese lady sorted out all the brochures we needed to make a decision on where to visit, she even gave us a cotton carrier bag to carry them in.Every camera shop we past had a man sitting or standing outside beckoning us in to buy a new camera or lenses, I had some fun with one guy, he told me what I needed and I told him I already had it, actually there is something I need, but I dare not go into a shop in case I spend more than I intend.We didn’t visit each mall as we are only staying 8 days and we would need 8 weeks, such is the size of them, all air-conditioned too.We did intend to walk all the way but by late morning our feet started to tire.This is a wonderful city-country to see people of different races living in harmony, with the majority being Chinese, with large populations of Indian and Malay, for instance we went to a Starbucks and the lad serving was Chinese and the girl Indian, I had a great chat with the lad about football (he was a Liverpool fan) and Jenny was speaking to the girl about our travels.We found the Singapore Airline office in one of the malls so we went in to see if we could book our seats for the flight home, we can only do it 48 hours before, but the good news is we can check-in there, so Sunday we will walk back to Orchard Road to do it, we only need to off-load our baggage then at the airport.We did make one purchase while we were shopping, we went to the “Apple” Istudio and bought a kilo of apples I treated myself to an 8gb Ipod Nano, (and it is my Birthday Saturday) should be able to store a few records on that.Question, should I attempt to sort it out before I come home?Or, should I wait for our daughter to help me?It looks a bit complicated to me!The pool beckoned when we got back so we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, reading, listening to music, plus, having the occasional swim to cool off.One of my favourite places in Singapore is Chijmes (Chimes) a historical building complex which used to be a convent, but has been restored and now houses both indoor and el fresco dining, shopping and entertainment, I first went there in 2001 and visited it again with Jenny in 2005.We agreed to try “Table” a Thai restaurant I won’t go into detail on what we eat, except to say we really enjoyed the meal, even if they had run out of “Singha” beer (Thai) and I had to make do with Asahi (Japanese).
Thursday 22nd January 2009
Last time we came to Singapore one of the highlights was the Botanical Gardens, ideally situated only about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. Today we decided to go again, so we finished breakfast, collected our things and walked to the gardens.We noticed straight away that they had made it even better, with a new visitor centre, food court, and water garden.We picked up a map and walked first to Swan Lake, which contains . . . .Swans, Mute Swans at that, common European Mute Swans, well I guess they are unusual here and we don’t see turtles in our lakes, do we?After a very pleasant walk we arrived at the “National Orchid Garden”, the botanical gardens are free, here we had to pay the exorbitant sum of $1 (about 50p) each to see them.We didn’t come here last time (perhaps we couldn’t afford it, we were under 60 then and it would have cost us $5) and perhaps we shouldn’t have come this time, we spent most of the day there.We came out for lunch (that’s another story), we decided on the “light lunch” from the menu, soup, gourmet sandwich and tea, it is now 7:55pm and we are still not hungry!After the “light” lunch we went back into the Orchid Garden for another look around before we came to the conclusion, that we would not have time to visit the rest of the botanical gardens today (our feet were again getting tired) and we would see the rest of it another day we therefore walked back to the exit, via a different path that we came in by and returned to the hotel, again spending the late afternoon, until the sun disappeared behind the tall building, at the pool.
Friday 23rd January 2009
After breakfast we walked to Orchard Road to catch the SIA Hop-on, run by SIA (Singapore International Airlines) there are 2 bus routes that run around the city and visitors can do exactly what it advertises, you can hop on and off all day at the various points of interest, we had kept our boarding cards from our flight from Australia so the daily fare was only $6 each.The single-decker air-conditioned coach was interesting, it looked like a old vehicle, until you stepped on, then you could smell the “newness” of it.Our first “hop-off” was at “The Esplanade”, we then had a short walk to “Boat Quay” for a 45 minute ride on a Bumboat (originallya small boat used to ferry supplies to ships moored away from the shore) now used for tours around the Singapore River and various other attractions.A short walk afterwards brought us to the waterfront and Merlion Park, the Merlion is the emblem of Singapore and a large Merlion statue with water spouting from its mouth sits at the entrance to the river. Jenny had a chat with a family on holiday from India, who insisted that she had her photograph taken with them, while I took photos of the “squirting beast”.After an iced coffee and a sandwich at Marina Bay we walked to the bus stop and “hopped-on” the SIA and “hopped-off” in Chinatown, it is very busy this time of the year as the Chinese New Year (the year of the Bull) is celebrated over the next few days, it was fascinating walking along looking at the various stalls, especially the fruit sellers, we didn’t have a clue what some of them were, the smells and aromas were what you could say, interesting???We “hopped-on” for the last time and “hopped-off” again opposite our hotel, why didn’t we “hop-on” opposite our hotel this morning, instead of walking down to Orchard Road”?Don’t ask me, I asked Jenny the same question!We had a couple of hours at the pool before we showered and changed for our evening meal, Korean was our choice tonight, I had Pul Koki and Jenny had Toechi Koki, which means Beef Meat and Pork Meat respectively, we don’t know what else was with it (although we did recognise rice and cucumber) but we both enjoyed it.
Saturday 24th January 2009.
First of all a very happy birthday to that special person in my life . . . .. myself!We went back to the Botanical Gardens today, Jenny had it all organised, she had highlighted on the guide where we went on Thursday and we more or less started where we left off then, walking to the farthest end of the gardens and working back, eventually arriving back at the Orchid Garden and we again went for a walk around there, they had also opened the mist house which was closed for the special exhibition “Butterflies in Spring” (I keep forgetting now we have moved back into the Northern hemisphere we are back to “normalseasons) to be organised. We thought it was real butterflies, however they were silk butterflies interspersed within the display ofbeautiful Orchids, not really our thing, my mother would have liked it though. I did “muscle” in to a photograph with a beautiful bride, trouble was Jenny insisted that the bridegroom was in the photo as well.We called in the Mall adjacent to the hotel on the way back for iced coffee’s at Starbucks, the conversation with the lads behind the counter, one Asian the other 2 Chinese, went something like, “Are you on holiday?” Jenny “yes”, “Where are you from”,Jenny, “England”, “whereabouts?”, Jenny “The Midlands”, what football team do you support”? Me, “Aston Villa, how about you?” All three almost in unison answered, “Liverpool”.We then proceeded to continuethe topic of football whilst they made our drinks, another lady joined in, she was a Glasgow Rangers fan, we all forgave her, she was from Scotland. No prizes for guessing where we finished up this afternoon, yes you’ve got it, the pool and I fell asleep (must be my age) on the sun bed.I had a lovely surprise shortly after we returned to our room.The bell rang, usually it is for laundry service, towel change, or the bed to be turned down, today?A very pretty hotel receptionist singing Happy Birthday and presenting me with a chocolate gateau and card signed by the manager, great.For our birthday celebration we decided to dine at Ah Hoi’s Kitchen and try their special Sri Lankan Chilli Crab, poor crab, there he was minding is own business in the aquarium, within a half hour he was being eaten, he was delicious, we did have a laugh because the waiter gave us bibs to wear, he must have heard what messy eaters we are, a pick and a pair of nutcrackers completed our table setting, plus a bowl of water to wash the our fingers in, we ended a lovely evening by eating the chocolate gateau when we returned to our room.
Sunday 25th January 2009
I knew it, just as we have got used to the 2 hour difference in the time zone and we didn’t do our usual trick of waking too early, we will soon be changing to GMT, we overslept this morning, but at least we were still in time for breakfast!We sat on the sun beds around the pool after brekky, a free Singapore newspaper gets hung on our hotel room door handle each morning, so I read parts of that, well at least the UK sports page and also an article on the UK economy, almost made me jump in the deep end of the swimming pool without my arm bands on.Before lunch we got on the SIA Hop-On Bus, (at the hotel this time) and hopped-off at Paragon Mall.This is the stop for the SIA (Singapore International Airline) Shop, but we were a bit early, so we went to the istore first to buy a protective case for my new iPod nano which we bought on Thursday.We went down 3 escalators back to the SIA office and were there at 1:00 pm (47 hours and 55 minutes before our flight, you can only reserve seats 48 hours before, how about that for timing?).We got a ticket (like at the “deli” counter at Tesco) and sat down (that’s a lie, our number came up before we had chance) and went to the check-in desk.I knew which seats we would like so told the girl, to which she replied, “that’s a 3 seat configuration, would you like a 2 seat” I wasn’t sure because the child that I am, I wanted to, a) sit by a window, and b) sit at the rear of the aircraft, so the wing doesn’t obstruct my view, (I know what you’re thinking, what does he expect to see at 39,000 feet?), the girl then produced a diagram of the seat lay-out, I thought the upper-deck was for “posh” people, but evidently the new A380 “Super Jumbo”carries economy (that’s us) passengers “up stairs” as well, so we chose 2 seats at the back, up a ladder.How civilised was that?No queuing at check-in at the airport, just hand our luggage over when we arrive and we don’t need to get to the airport hours before.After lunch at “The Coffee Club” we walked the rest of the way along Orchard Street to Raffles Hotel and then along the road to Bugis Market, when I first came here in 2001 with Ford it had a fantastic atmosphere, we eat the most delicious food at a restaurant that normally, without experience, I would not have eaten in, sadly (and all to familiar) the developers have taken over and “modernised” it and it is not the same anymore, the restaurant we eat in is no longer there, replaced by small town houses and “proper” shops”. We Hopped-on the SIA Tourist bus and went back to the hotel, to late today to go to the pool (we did go this morning) and while I have been writing this, Jenny has pulled out all the stops to make sure we eat well tonight, she went to the Mall adjacent to the hotel and bought back 2 “Big Mac” and fry take-aways, would have preferred last nights Sri Lankan Chilli Crab but never mind, our last night tomorrow and we are re-visiting the restaurants in Chijmes.
Monday 26th January 2009
Our last day and we decided just to relax at the pool, the weather was a bit cloudy but still very warm, we didn’t venture into the pool until after lunch, Jenny having gone to the Mall for some fresh bread rolls and some cheese, we thought the supermarket may have been closed for New Years Day (Chinese, year of the Ox, not Bull as I wrote previously, it was a load of. . . . . bull, the information that Jenny gave me) but it was open.I played with my new ipod, loaded some of my record tracks, then while I was lying on the sun bed managed to turn the volume up to maximum, then didn’t know how to turn it down, I must remember to read the instructions at some stage.The sun did eventually put in a late appearance, but soon disappeared at the back of the high buildings, nevertheless we still stayed at the poolside until 6:30 pm.We had already decided to re-visit Chijmes and after a shower and change got a taxi to Bridge Street, Bobby’s was our chosen restaurant, another place I had eaten at in 2001, we both had the steaks, which were cooked to perfection, we also both indulged in a sweet, I had a Chocolate Volcano and Jenny the Cheesecake, we didn’t linger in the city after eating as we have still some packing to do, so we hired a taxi and were soon back at the hotel,To-morrow we need to be up fairly early to get to Changi Airport, having already checked-in (see Sunday) does mean we needn’t rush to much.
Tuesday 27th January 2009
Changi Airport, Singapore.Wow, we thought that the previous terminals we have been to in Singapore were the best we had seen in the world, butTerminal 3 which opened about 12 months ago is “out of this world”, it was worth going there just to use the toilets!We went to the GST refund desk first and the pretty customs girl did the necessary paperwork for us to receive the cash when we went through to departures, we were also offered sweets which were in the dish on the desk, a nice touch.We then left our 4 pieces of luggage at the drop-off desk before walking through immigration, security etc. again, a “no stress” experience compared to the UK and the USA.We wondered around the many shops which included, Ferrari, Burberry, FIFA, to name but three, before arriving at the electronics store where we made a few purchases.We had a very comfortable flight home arriving 30 minutes early, the A380 “Super Jumbo” is a wonderful aircraft and the individual in-flight entertainment screen kept us amused with all the computer games, films, and music channels and the 14 hour flight went very quickly.I immediately fell in love with the beautiful Singapore Airlines air cabin crew (all 4 of them female), Changi airport and the Singapore Airlines flight was so trouble free and certainly makes air travel easy.
All images on this website are copyright of Alan and Jennifer Morris and may not be used without prior written permission.
Last time we came to Singapore one of the highlights was the Botanical Gardens, ideally situated only about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. Today we decided to go again, so we finished breakfast, collected our things and walked to the gardens.
First of all a very happy birthday to that special person in my life . . . .. myself!
Our last day and we decided just to relax at the pool, the weather was a bit cloudy but still very warm, we didn’t venture into the pool until after lunch, Jenny having gone to the Mall for some fresh bread rolls and some cheese, we thought the supermarket may have been closed for New Years Day (Chinese, year of the Ox, not Bull as I wrote previously, it was a load of. . . . . bull, the information that Jenny gave me) but it was open.
