One of the upsides of travelling on a flight that leaves at 2.30am is that you have the whole day before, and then a good part of the night, to get ready. Thus I was able to make up the bed with clean washed sheets, vacuum and mop the floor, and paint the bathroom. Well, maybe I didn’t do one of them, but I could have if I’d wanted to. Perhaps. In actual fact, I was still taking up Pat’s new trousers when Helen arrived (early) to take us to the airport. (Thank you for the lift Helen.)
The 7.5 hour flight passed smoothly. Emirates have literally hundreds of movies, games and audio selections to choose from in their inflight entertainment to keep us occupied. The sun was coming up as we approached Singapore, and the fluffy pink sunrise clouds, green islands and sparkling blue sea looked quite magic.
We made our way to our hotel by Singapore’s train system, and were very impressed with it - fast, smooth, quiet, efficient, easy to understand and squeaky clean, with not a scrap of rubbish or graffiti in sight. Our hotel, the Mandarin Orchard (selected and booked by Pat) was in the heart of the Orchard Road shopping district – very convenient! Lucky our bags were quite light and empty when we left home.
One of the downsides of taking the 2.30am flight was that it took us most of the day to recover. Uncharacteristically, it took longer for me than it did for Pat. However, we did manage to make happy hour from the observation deck of our hotel, then join in with all the Orchard Road activity that takes place after dark, when it becomes cooler.
Pat relaxing at happy hour on the observation deck of our hotel. In the background is the new Marina Bay resort, due to open shortly. It consists of three separate towers, joined by a ship-like structure on top, designed to reflect the shipping in the harbour it overlooks. We found the architecture of the many new buildings very innovative.
Singapore balances high density living with large green spaces. There are many trees planted in every street.
High density living.
Even so, each building has its own character.
Window shopping, Orchard Road, Lego giraffe.
Window shopping, Orchard Road.
I would have bought this sparkly bag for Debbie, but it was beyond my price range.
Dinner at a “steamboat”restaurant.
The steamboat concept, which we didn’t have, is to receive a powered hotplate on your table which keeps a large bowl of water either boiling or hot, I couldn’t quite see. Then you order items from the menu which you steam yourself. It was very popular. I had ordered congee (rice porridge) with sliced fish, preserved egg and parsley. Pat, in his normal cautious fashion, suggested that it might not be a good idea to order preserved egg, seeing I didn’t know what it would be like. In this case, that turned out to be very sound advice. My drink is coconut milk, served in the shell.
I want a lego giraffe :)
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