Our big trip began in Singapore.
Dom drove us to the airport and both the trip to the airport and the flight to Singapore were uneventful. We clearly had a tailwind behind us as we landed in Singapore earlier than scheduled. However, when we landed we had to complete an electronic landing card, which it turns out we could have done before we left home. However, trying to be quick and do it on one mobile, we tried to complete a joint landing card. Unfortunately, Teresa’s was online landing card was not recognized by the electronic passport gate, and she therefore had to do a new landing card - whilst I had no idea whether she was being deported! They did let her in, and the delay was not a problem as it meant that we did not have to wait for our bags, and our ride to the hotel was ready when we were.
A hotel was very near the river, and also not far from Chinatown. It meant that as soon as we had showered and changed, we were able to walk along by the river, where there were many outdoor riverside restaurants, all with people outside encouraging us in to eat. We had a lovely meal sitting right next to the river, watching the boats go by, before getting some sleep.
On Tuesday, we decided to go to Gardens by the Bay. This is a big botanical, which includes man-made “trees” that you could go up and look around the gardens, with a walkway between two of the trees to get a wider view. There are also two giant glass houses, a bit similar to the Eden Project In Cornwall, one with flowers and other plants, such as cactus, and the other set up as a cloud forest. While we were at the top of the “mountain”, the cloud forest was misted to make us feel as if we were back in the cloud forest in Costa Rica – it probably made the trees feel the same too.
Our original plan on Wednesday had been to go to the zoo, and then to go to the night safari in the evening, something which we had both done before. However, we also wanted to look around Chinatown. As the weather was not brilliant, we decided to visit Chinatown and leave the zoo to later. As it turned out, we spent most of the day in Chinatown. By accident, we found the Buddhist Tooth Relic temple – something that I felt we needed to visit following the tooth extraction that I had just before we left on our trip. Whilst it did not appear it, the temple was very new - built within the 20 years or so since I was last in Singapore. As well as the main temple building, there were another four floors of exhibits, including an orchid roof garden which included huge drum that worshippers could hold and walk around with to rotate it and to use as a counting mechanism to check they had done the right amount of worshipping. We then had a – rather spicy - meal watching the world go by and the rain fall down.
In the evening, we went back to Gardens in the Bay for their light show – something that they do twice each evening. This was a free show where the metal trees were lit up in different colours, with different flashing lights, along to music. We watched the show again the next night from the other side of the river, and can certainly say that it was much better being under the trees rather than watching from a distance.
We were up reasonably early on Thursday morning for a trip to Sentosa Island, meaning we had to get the MRT [tube). It did take us a little time to work out how to get a ticket - you couldn't - you had to buy a prepaid card, similar to an Oyster card. This was about the only thing in Singapore (other than some ice creams) that you were not able to buy using a credit card, so it was a good job we had a little bit of cash from our last visit. At Sentosa, we managed to find our way past Universal Studios and the Sea Life centres and to dodge the showers to get a swim in the sea, before getting at the monorail back to the mainland. By this time we were getting very hungry, and so went to a food court. I had rice with two typed of chicken – roasted and steamed. Although it was clear to see the difference in the cooked chickens that were hanging up, I could not say that there was much of a difference when eating them.
On the Thursday evening, we went to the Singapore Flyer, a big wheel similar to the London Eye. We started with the interactive tour that was intended to give a brief history of Singapore. This was very disappointing. However the Flyer itself was very good, giving us clear views over Singapore, including over the start-finish straight of the Singapore Grand Prix circuit which appears to be permanently in place, as well as being able to workout the route for the rest of the track.
At last day in Singapore saw us visiting Raffles Hotel – a bit too early for a Singapore Sling this time, before going to the observation deck on top of the three tower hotel overlooking the marina. We later found out that a fourth tower is being built to extend the already huge hotel. As it was raining so hard when we arrived that we decided it was not worth going up, we had another excuse to visit a food hall to have a hot skillet with a mound of rice, raw beef for Teresa and raw salmon and chicken for me which we then mixed with the rice to cook in the skillet. By this time, the rain had (almost) stopped for us to go up to the observation deck for our last look over Singapore.
It was then back to the hotel to be picked up [eventually] to be taken to the airport for the eight hour flight Sidney, and the transfer for the three hour flight to Auckland. There was a bit of a delay on the Sydney to Auckland leg as we waited for a lift to bring some wheelchair passengers on board, and this delayed our arrival in Auckland a little bit, but we were able to pick up the car, with an upgrade to a Qashqai, and made it into a hotel in Auckland for the New Zealand leg of the trip.
