Life, The Universe & Everything

So I’m now back in Perth (for almost a week) but I’m still keen to try and record the trip and it was great fun, so with the help of my photos (which helpfully record the date and location) I’m going to try and record the best parts of the trip (at least that I remember).

Monday was day one of Sentosa. After breakfast we caught the MRT down to HarbourFront and purchased tickets for the cable car to Sentosa. One return ticket let you board the cable car once at each station. We first caught the cable car up to mount Fabre and then back down across to Sentosa. The cable cars weren’t as comfortable as I remember and they definitely weren’t as good as the Disney Skyliner. They didn’t have air conditioning either so they weren’t super comfortable. (All of our trip was hot & humid, but this day seemed especially that way). It probably also didn’t help that both Elise and I were feeling decidedly queasy and needed frequent trips to the toilet. We’re not sure exactly what it was that caused it but we both felt unwell for a period which didn’t make the day a whole lot of fun.

We went down to Fort Siloso and did the skywalk there, which gave a good view. There was also some interesting information about how Singapore was used as a defensive base. It would have been good to do more of it, but we didn’t really feel up to it and certainly none of the longer walks without easy access to a toilet! We then went to a Seven Eleven, partly to escape the humidity and have air conditioning for a while, but also to looks for drinks. They didn’t have Powerade of Gatorade, but we managed to find a Singaporean equivalent which helped to make Elise and I start feeling better. We then took a long loop on the Cable Car and then took the monorail down to the beach station where we had booked tickets to watch a night time light and water show.

We had about 3 hours to kill so we sat around, watched a water canon show accompanied by music which was good light 5 minute entertainment. Andrew and the kids ordered dinner and I had a lot of chips after finding they didn’t cause any further stomach issues. By this time we were both starting to feel a lot better. Wings of Time is a laser, light, projection water show that was fantastic. It foes for about 15 minutes and has a story line as well as looking fantastic. We jumped on the monorail as an easy way to get home and went to bed.

It almost the middle of Day 2 (or the third day of travel – at least when I’m starting this post. Edit: It’s now Friday, so I’m way behind but not giving up yet!) The flight was uneventful, I dozed a bit, food was fine. I was pretty tired so I didn’t make any really progress in getting things done or watching TV. I read a little bit of my book and listened to some music. We landed on schedule and it took a little while to get through immigration, but nothing too bad and our luggage was already on the carousel by the time we got out. We had organised a transfer to the hotel, but unfortunately they never showed up. We spend a fair but of time waiting but in the end we got frustrated and decided to just take a taxi. We then had the issue that there was 5 of us and Maxi’s can take a while to arrive. In the end we split into two taxis. They took two different routes to the hotel, but they arrived pretty close together and the fare was less than a dollar in difference.

The hotel is nice, without being amazing. It’s almost $250/night so it’s not cheap, but then again no accomodation in Singapore is. My experience so far is that Singapore is fairly expensive, probably more so than the US. Although, this trip is slightly different – travelling with friends I’m probably less likely to cut corners on cost. Anyway checked in with no issue. We were all pretty tired and had agreed on room service for dinner. I’m on level 9 and my friends are on level 25. My card won’t let me up to their floor so we met in the lobby and then headed up to their room for dinner. Then it was time for a bath & bed!

We agreed on a relaxed start for Sunday and met on floor 4 for breakfast. The hotel that we’re staying at includes a (buffet) breakfast which is pretty good. We then headed off to do the Flower Domes and Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay. They were great – it was cool to see indoor flowers. The biggest thing I noticed when we walked in was the lovely fragrant scent of them all. They were beautiful to look it, but I can’t write a lot about it – they were flowers! We had lunch athwart is probably a typical (Singaporean) fast foot joint. Then we saw the cloud forest, it was avatar themed which was a bit of fun and there was an amazing indoor waterfall.

After that it was on the MRT (Singapore public transport) back to the hotel. I must say Singapore public transport is great. You can scan on & off with your credit card, so no extra card needed. It also covers the whole city really well. (Though that’s probably easier when you consider Singapore is the size of Bunbury and there’s not a lot of urban sprawl).

Edit: Oops – I forgot the other thing we did until I started adding photos to this post. After the cloud forest it was actually the MRT down to the water where we had a bum boat tour booked. We organised that then ducked into a nearby bar cafe to have a cold drink and some cooler air and a break from the humidity. The boat tour was good, we got to go up and down the river and hear some history about the areas we were passing by. We also got to see the Merlion (which was good – more on that later) with some decent photos. After the boat tour we headed back to the hotel!

We decided to have the buffet dinner at the hotel. The food was good, but it wasn’t cheap. We also realised it was a halal hotel which meant no port at all and also no alcohol with dinner. 14,694 steps later and 10.33 km it was time for bed.

Here are some pictures from Day 1 – you can expand them to see the full photo by clicking on the image!

So I wasn’t wildly successful in finishing off writing about my US Trip. It’s probably too late now, but I did take some notes so maybe I’ll do an abbreviated version of the highlights at some point. At any rate I’m off again on another trip (i’m not counting the two 48 hour or less work trips to Melbourne).

This one is to Singapore, with my friends and their two daughters and it’s purely a holiday. We’re there for 8 days so it should be a great time. I’m not going to make any promises, but I am going to try and blog about it. We’ve just taken off and we have WiFi for the first our of so while we’re still in range of the Satellite that covers Australia.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Singapore. We went for Mom’s 50th when I was 11 but I only have a few memories of that trip. I also spend two days there in 2005 on our way back from the FPS US Trip but we were so shattered after all of that travel that I don’t think we did that much. So I’m excited to experience it again as an adult, it should be good fun.

Qantas Club pays off again – flying international lets you into the Perth International Business Lounge which was a nice place to spend the 2+ hours before our flight. It was a good time to be there too. With no other scheduled international flights this morning the lounge was pretty empty which is always nice when there’s less crowds. Being the international lounge, we even managed a sneaky glass or two of champagne for breakfast. The coffee wasn’t great, but other than that it was a good experience.

Well that’s all for now, stay tuned for Singapore adventures.