Goodbye Singapore

Well would you believe, our time in Singapore is up already and tomorrow we head off to cooler, but not too cold we hope, England. The temperature was around 30 degrees, but the humidity was extremely high due to low cloud and an occasional shower. Today we went on another bus tour and saw Little India but it was very crowded as it was a Public Holiday. We had a wonderful time standing on the side of the road waiting for a bus and watching how Asian traffic works. It was a 4 lane road and we noticed a cyclist riding down the middle, going the wrong way!
People were double parked and tripled parked, people were parked in parking zones and people came out of side streets and drove right across to the other side of the road. With all this going on, the traffic ran smoothly and no-one got upset. Do you think we could learn something from them? Later in the day we decided to face the elements and head to the upper open level of the double decker bus instead of the lower level which was air-conditioned and we agreed we should have done this before as the views and photo opportunities were better. Never mind we have a pretty good idea now what Singapore city is like.

Some facts to record about the place ….. it is very clean and tidy and the gardens are beautifully manicured. The population is 4 million, about the size of Melbourne. The city has 260 shopping malls, many of which have over 100 shops, so shopping is a great past time. Here there is a special tax on used cars, therefore you never see an old car. anything over a couple of years is exported and you need a permit to purchase a new car which can cost you up 10,000 American dollars for the permit only. This is done to try an control traffic congestion. The bus services are amazing, with buses coming at very regular intervals and taxis are quite cheap. When traveling around the city there was hardly one street in which construction was not taking place, either repairing, replacing or building new buildings. The architecture is amazing, with the most unusual and exotic designs which you will need to see to appreciate and they were also setting up for the Grand Prix in a couple of weeks. Much the same as in Monaco where the cars race along the streets. We think Singapore was well worth a visit and have had a good time. Sorry we can’t include some of our amazing photos at this stage. Don’t know when next we’ll post as our battery is now running very low.

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more adventures and trials

Late start as we got over jet lag. Had morning tea downstairs but at $14 for one cup of silver service tea we won’t do that very often. Found a nice little shopping centre close by with an interesting food court which is quite cheap. Still no photos I cannot believe we left Australia without downloading from the new camera, have sent an SOS to Craig hope he comes up with something soon. Jumped on a different bus today and saw many new sights. There is an Indian section, a Chinese section which we walked through and Mum had to be very firm with a stall holder who tried to sell her a watch, but Mum never buys the first one she sees unlike me! Got some good photos of the area. We then jumped on the Sentosa bus to an island about 500 meters off shore, which I had memories of visiting 20 odd years ago. It has changed and is now a theme park, but we found an old WW2 military hospital that externally had not changed and internally had changed to a very well presented history of Singapore. We found this very interesting. It was getting late and Mum was getting agitated as she turns into a pumpkin after a certain hour and the bus driver said the last bus left at 7pm so at 5.30 we set off to catch the next bus to the mainland. It turned out that what the bus driver meant was the 7pm bus was the only bus out, so when we got back into town there were no buses running to take us home! So we stayed in town and had a Japanese dinner then caught a taxi (which are very cheap ) home. This weather seems to drain you so was then ready for bed. Last day today. Let’s see if we can get on top of our little challenges. If I don’t find out why we cannot charge the IPad, we won’t have a blog for much longer as we are getting low. Looking for ideas Craig!!!

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takeoff we are on our way

Had a great trip over the 777-300 is a great plane and seat no 51 was ideal for comfort and service, did not sleep much and with strong tail winds we landed at 5.20 local time. It was still dark so we hung around the airport for some time until it was light. Mum busted her watch trying to change time, I think she is after a new watch! The hotel is quite good , service is very Singapore i.e good. weather was ok in the morning but very humid in the afternoon.Used a hop on hop off bus to tour the city doing only one off at the botanic garden to see their orchards and boy were they worth seeing will see if I can drop a photo in. Am having big problems with the phone card as GMAIL keeps coming up and wants my password and do not have any idea what it is and cannot get passed it have put my old sim back in so hope one of my tech expert children will come up with a nice SIMPLE solution. Must get ready now and go out to explore some more.
Having trouble dropping photos individually from the camera so will try again later .

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Farewell for now

Well the Day is finally here and you are about to head off on your adventure.

We wish you all the best and hope you have a fantastic trip. Can’t wait to read about all your adventures. Remember the key to a good blog is to post often, so fill us in any chance you get. We will be watching.

Good luck and see you again soon,

Lot’s of love,

Craig

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