An early start saw us on the Aerobus to Barcelona airport by 7am. It was only a 25 minute ride at that time of the morning. Because we'd already checked in online, it was very quick to drop off our bags, and the Singapore Airlines check-in person was exceptionally nice. We opted to find a bit of breakfast before going through security, but unfortunately made a bad choice in the few bits we sampled, topped off by my tipping my small cardboard cup of coffee all over the table. We cut our losses, got ourselves through security (after both of us being body searched and me being drug-tested) and through border control. Not the slightest hint that our month over the allowed 90 days was any issue.
We found a small eatery 'on the other side' and I could try again with a coffee, my last cortado for a long long while. We didn't actually have that long to wait until boarding. It's always with a pang of jealousy that one has to walk down the aisle past the business and premium class seats before getting to economy class. Probably most of the expats we know in Céret travel by one of these upmarket versions, but it's never been in our budget.
The flight to Milan took just under 2 hours, and it was perhaps only 2/3 full. The seat next to us, plus the three seats in the middle block adjacent were all empty, and we were eyeing up how to drape ourselves over them so we would perhaps be able to lie down during the next leg. Those travelling onwards to Singapore had to stay in the plane for the 1.5 hours it took for the plane to be serviced. Alas, the captain then announced that boarding was commencing, and the plane would be at full capacity for the long leg to Singapore and could everyone please return to their allocated seats. Oh!
We took off at 1:30pm, arriving under 12 hours later in Singapore. The flight went well. We watched a few movies but tried to get as much sleep as possible.
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| Flying in above Singapore harbour |
Given the time of afternoon/evening, that didn't work well, so we arrived at 8am Singapore-time feeling fairly whacked. The whole day was ahead of us. It took an age to get through the border security, mainly trying to negotiate our way through an intermittent airport wifi and slow/unresponsive online immigration form that we hadn't realised we had to complete. Obviously many others were caught out as well. By the time we filed through to collect our bags, there weren't many still circulating on the baggage belt. It didn't matter because we weren't in any hurry.
Jumping on the metro train link into the city was pretty straightforward.
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| Everyone, everywhere, is always on their cellphone. |
Exiting the train into 30+ heat and tropical humidity took our breath away. Dragging our bags for 15 minutes to find our hotel on the edge of Chinatown was hard work, but looking upwards at the amazing buildings offset that significantly. Innovative design, especially incorporating large scale greenery in exterior spaces on the tall commercial buildings is definitely eye-catching.
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| The JP Morgan building, just off Raffles Place |
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| Building with outdoor greenery |
It was a welcome surprise to find that our room was ready for us, when we squelched our way into the hotel reception. It's a nice big room, and therefore substantially different from the one in Barcelona! With just a short break we headed out to find a bite to eat. We are spoilt for choice here in Chinatown, and it was just a matter of choosing an eatery that took our eye. John had researched a whole range of highly rated Asian eateries, but there are so many virtually outside the door that it wasn't necessary to go and seek any specific ones out.
We got caught out a little with the spiciness of one of the dishes we tried, with John displaying impressive drips of sweat off the end of his nose at one point. There didn't seem to be a moment to waste so we set off to explore Chinatown, but soon found ourselves flagging under the hot sun and high humidity. One of our aims for the afternoon was to find an optician because one of the arms of my reading glasses had been threatening to separate for a number of weeks, and I'd decided that I was going to buy some new glasses with progressive lenses. We figured they'd be a lot cheaper in Singapore than in NZ. After Googling the top rated opticians closest to us, we found one of the best ones only 5 minutes walk away. Unfortunately they needed 7 working days to produce the glasses, so that put paid to that option. I'll have to get them in Nelson after all.
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| Street art in Chinatown |
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| Street sculpture |
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| Chinatown |
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| Interesting juxtaposition |
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| Buddha Tooth Relic Temple |
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| Inside the temple, monks preparing for a special event |
We were starting to drip badly by this stage, especially John, and although we wanted to adjust to the local time as quickly as possible, we realised that we badly needed to have a nap. John avowed he could no longer contemplate living in a hot and humid Asian country. Back to the hotel room where we crashed for three hours. Going out to find a meal at 7pm was so much cooler, and darker! Just two minutes walk away were a number of streets lined with little eateries, so we picked one and enjoyed some simple Chinese fare. The area was humming with all the locals out dining, with the European tourists glaringly standing out by their height and fair hair. I felt quite tall too!
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| Night-time dining on the streets near our hotel |
Back home to the Hotel Bencoolen, a number of glasses of fresh cool water from the cooler by reception and upstairs to shower and bed. We were asleep just after 10pm. Astoundingly, we both slept all the way through until 11am! Even my Fitbit agreed I'd been asleep for 11 and a half hours. We can't remember ever having slept longer in one go. It was a great way to catch up.
It did rather put paid to our plans to get to the huge Gardens by the Bay complex at an early hour to avoid the crowds we expected. An Avatar special event had opened in the Cloud Forest a few days earlier, and we expected it to be crowded. Rather than breakfast at the hotel we thought we'd see what else we could find, and ended up with 2 delicious bowls of Vietnamese pho. A great brunch.
Gardens by the Bay has 5 special paid attractions as well as dozens of special garden areas. We were forced to pay for the Avatar special event in order to get into the Cloud Forest, an extraordinary man-made but very natural 7-storey tower completely covered in plants. The initial Flower Dome greenhouse was excellent, with displays of interesting plants from around the world. Favourites were the immense and ancient olive trees, and the selection of worldwide baobabs.
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| Inside the Flower Dome |
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| Some Supertrees and the amazing Marina Bay Sands Singapore hotel |
The Cloud Forest was amazing, and despite our expectations was not crowded at all. A vast mountain of rich tropical plants, in our opinion not enhanced by the many Avatar creatures and plants inserted amongst them. Not necessarily worth the 60 NZD price, but well worth the original 30 NZD price before Avatar got in the way. The whole Gardens by the Bay is amazing, with its amazing artificial Supertrees, and a great array of themed gardens. We probably spent another two hours wandering around most of the various sub-gardens before we'd had enough.
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| The Cloud Forest |
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| The Skyway in the top of the Cloud Forest |
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| A fun children's play area |
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| Many sculptures in the gardens |
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| The main Supertree Forest |
There is a sound and light show every evening at 7:45, but there was no way we were prepared to wait the 3 hours until it started, so we headed back to the hotel for some coffee and tea, and then out again for a latish dinner. We'd been hankering for a good Japanese meal since our trip of 2019 to Japan, so we chose Japanese for dinner. There is a great set of restaurants in Chinatown Point and our chosen Nanbantei was excellent. I had a yakitori set, Karen a chicken dish. Karen's was good, but my set was fantastic, bringing back good memories of similar meals in Japan.
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| Japanese set meal at Nanbantei |
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A Jaume Plensa on the way home
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Sunday morning dawned pretty warm. Yesterday was mostly overcast and the temperature in the mid-20s, and not nearly as humid as the day we arrived. We were well and truly thankful for it, otherwise we could not have spent the 5 hours+ wandering around the Gardens by the Bay. Our plan for today was to check out some of the nearby shopping malls, partly because they were air-conditioned and partly to see what the shops were like. The first order of the day though was to see the temporary exhibition of a T Rex dinosaur skeleton at the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall. Unfortunately, after we'd found the place, which was not too far far away from our hotel, it was only to discover that the exhibition had just ended. It was a shame but we continued to wander around the colonial area that the theatre was in. The old buildings, and English naming of the streets, e.g. St Andrews Road, clearly declared the colonial heritage of this part of the city.
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| Sevens rugby being played at the Singapore Cricket Club grounds |
Over the next few hours we wandered around and between 3-4 shopping malls, mostly on the hunt for an ice-cream! Breakfast had consisted of a Vietnamese pho again, which was filling but a little lacking in ergs. Our hopes of finding an ice-cream vendor anywhere were unfulfilled and we had to buy an expensive ice-block at a 7 Eleven instead. It's clear that gelato does not feature in any significant way in the daily diet here. By contrast, perhaps 60-70% of the shops in the malls we went into were restaurants, selling similar themed Asian food. There were extremely few clothes, shoes or shops of that ilk. Anything else were mostly electronics stores.
We found ourselves back at our hotel by 2pm, and it was rather nice just to put our feet up. We'd walked 12km+ yesterday, and had racked up quite a few km again today. After a rest we went out for our last evening in Singapore. The temperature was very balmy and pleasant. We found our way into the heart of Chinatown and sat down for a beer and to watch the world go by.
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| Inner Chinatown |
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| Calligraphy stall |
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| More street art |
Since we were seated at a Thai restaurant we decided to stay there for a meal. It was starting to get dark by 6pm and many people were starting to eat. John chose a Tom Yum, a red curry soup, with a medium level of hotness. The first mouthful turned his face red. He persevered, saying it was delicious, while proceeding to drip desperately for the next 45 minutes as he paced himself through it. I ordered a Thai green papaya salad and a plate of green waterspinach with garlic. Similar to John, but not as aggressive, the dishes were full of chilly, even the salad. We needed some steamed rice as a 'leveler'. It was all very nice, and a great way to end our Singapore adventure, and definitely a memorable one.
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| Chinatown at night |
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| The big and the small |
Back to the hotel for our last sleep on foreign shores. Tomorrow we jump on the plane back to New Zealand and home.
