In need of a trip overseas for a “visa run”, a trip to Singapore seemed like a fun idea. A nice place it is too, we had a good time.
Good time that is in Singapore, although getting there and our first experience of an Asian low-budget airline left a bit to be desired… I’d forgotten how ruthless Chinese women can be when elbowing you out of the way for a seat. Once we did get the seat, poor Paul’s giraffe legs jammed into the back of the seat in front the whole way. Not very comfortable of course and the warm beer (with ice cubes, how nice) was less than comforting. By the time we’d escaped from the bus-station-esque “budget terminal” at Singapore Airport we were thoroughly scarred - thank god the hotel had sent a Merc to pick us up. I don’t think we would have coped well with trying to find a cab at that point.
Anyway, dramas aside, Bangkok’s fabulous new Suvarnabhumi Airport is a winner and of course a vast improvement over the horrible old one, which someone told me the other day is 97 years old. The upgrade is well overdue obviously! Suvarnabhumi is huge though, bring your rollerskates in carry-on baggage is my suggestion.
We arrived pretty late on Friday night so it was just a quick room-service snack (in lieu of dinner on the plane) and off to bed. Saturday morning though, we hit the ground running and started our Luxe Guide tour of Singapore. We found great shops, interesting food and a couple of stunning art galleries before it was time for refreshments, the obligatory Singapore Slings at the place which started it all, the beautiful Raffles Hotel.
 |
 |
 |
|
A bit more shopping for the afternoon, although I must say we were very well behaved and really didn’t buy very much, and we headed up to the highest place we could find to check out the view. Well let me say that was hardly very impressive, as Singapore at the moment is covered with a revolting haze (and has been for a couple of months) which is the result of the annual burning-off of vast amounts of forest in Indonesia. Needless to say, the Singapore government (along with Thailand, Malaysia and other impacted countries) is trying in vain to make the Indonesian government put a stop to this; the subject of air quality is front page news in Singapore every day. |
Saturday finished up with a trip to Chinatown and lovely dinner and a nightclub which turned out to be a non-event. However we did have one of those wandering-around-in-strange-town midnight adventures instead.
 |
 |
| Having had a big day on Saturday, Sunday was a bit quieter. We went for a walk up the street and saw another “Love” sculpture, just like the one we’d found in Tokyo; it turns out there are several of these around the world and the original’s in Philadelphia. Guess we’ll have to make a pilgrimage to all of them one day. |  |
 |
The final pleasure of our Singapore weeked was lunch with friends Richard (who’s now living in Singapore) and Sarah (who happened by coincidence to be in town at the time). Nice to see you both again! |
Back to Bangkok and back to work….. ah well it was fun while it lasted!
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
You must be logged in to post a comment.