Last full day in Singapore

 We were up early this morning and had another series of conversations about Hector before we left the hotel around noon.

We “metro’d” up to the Singapore Botanic Gardens and while initially I wasn’t overly impressed, it wasn’t long before I realized I had been mistaken. The place is huge and there were many walkways through this UNESCO Site leading to the Orchid garden which was over 1.3 km away from the park entrance (part of the 20,000 steps today)

While the park itself is free it costs money to get into the orchid garden. Because we are tourists it costs  more money than citizens (as it should be), but because we are over 60 we pay a seniors rate which was a very nice $3 each!! What a deal!

Inside this garden area were a huge selection of various orchid flowers and there were climate controlled buildings as well for those plants needing cooler temps. All in all it was a photographers dream location!

Oh course we needed photos of ourselves as well

With the orchid garden being completed we again “metro’d”; this time to Clarke Quay. Located along the SIngapore River this area was originally the main business district of Singapore “back in the day”.

Our original idea was to walk along the river walk all the way down to Gardens By The Bay (where the three hotel towers are-about 3 kms.). As we meandered along the river Caro thought it would a good idea to enjoy a meal at a riverside restaurant. I wasn’t hungry (this hotel has an incredible breakfast buffet so I had eaten a lot about 9 AM) ,but I “manned up” and did my duty by obeying her “request”. LOL.

What a great meal we had, so “good call” Caro!

After that “snack” (URPPP!) we continued along the south side of the (probably over a km) enjoying wonderful views (and the weather was toasty at 31 degrees).

We actually ended up turning around and walking back up along the north side of the river and catching the metro from the one we had originally gotten off from.

Back at our room we had a shorty recovery break before washing a load of laundry, thus giving us 30 minutes before we had to return to put the clothes in the dryer. When we leave the hotel we are usually heading straight to the metro however this time we headed in the opposite direction and we found the area to be super interesting with many small Indian and oriental shops located on a very busy road. Too bad we didn’t do this earlier

Sunday

 Another difficult morning as we got back in touch with family members both in Mexico and Canada.

It appears that Lisa will head down to Orlando and will meet Fernando coming up from Mexico City. Together they will clear up any bills and get Hector back to his home in Puerto Morelos.

Once we had completed all our communications with numerous family members we headed out for the afternoon and early evening.

Naturally we took the metro everywhere . Our first stop was Gardens By The Bay. We got off the metro and walked through the magnificent Marina Bay Sands hotels (the three in a row with the common terrace 50 some stories high at the top)

A very short distance from there are the Gardens By the Bay. In this beautiful park are a number of stops we went to. The first is called The Flower Dome. It is a magnificent conservatory and is massive! There were numerous photo opportunities and we really enjoyed walking around.

From there we used the second part of our entry ticket (which cost about $63 each). It was called the Cloud Forest and had in it a Jurassic Park exhibition. It too was really well worth the money and as with the Flower Dome it was incredibly well done. The waterfall in the photo below is 115 feet high and is one of the highest indoor waterfalls in the world.

I could have taken a hundred photos between the two buildings!

Gardens By The Bay was where we went on the night tour with the lit up artificial trees so we wandered over there to look at them in the daytime, and after that we walked through the garden pathways enjoying 31 degree warmth while we meandered back to the metro station.

On our night excursion the other day Caro and I almost missed the end of the tour because we got lost in a maze of restaurants. We decided to head back to this same spot in late afternoon to sample some different kinds of food. I had the following item

Caro purchased some skewers of shrimp for sharing and she had a plate of fried fish

Interestingly I find the restaurant prices very reasonable here however the government really taxes alcohol. A bootle of Bacardi is more than twice the price of Canada and a beer at the restaurant we went to today cost $14.

A couple of photos of nice buildings in the city (and there are lots of beautiful office towers here).

Upon returning to “our “ metro stop we headed over to the ocean (probably 15 minute walk away). It was beautiful and there were many people enjoying the afternoon/early evening. I counted over 75 ships waiting to go into harbour!

And because Caro always does this when we are at the ocean here is the latest photo.

The hotel next to us had a group of men with super high end car parked out front and in the back. Porsche, McLaren, Lamborghini, Ferrari’s. It is hellishly expensive to bring a car like that into Singapore. Earlier when we were at the BYD dealership in the Suntech buildings downtown the sticker on the car window said the car had a $90,000 tax to purchase (and of course the car was expensive to begin with).

Another day is done and we are simply relaxing for an hour or so before going to sleep (and I can hear the high end cars firing up and roaring away down the street).

A stressful day

 This morning Caro received word that Hector (who had been completely out of touch for over a week and had us very worried) had been found in a hospital in Port Canaveral Florida (where he had boarded a cruise a couple of weeks ago). What followed was quite a few hours of communication with family members in both Canada and Mexico on the situation.

We got out the door about noon and proceeded by metro to Chinatown. It was interesting to walk around as almost all of Singapore’s 6 million people also chose to be there along with us! We enjoyed the sights and sounds of these streets and we made both snack and souvenir purchases.

Once we finished walking that area we took the metro up to Little India (an ethnic area full of Indian shops and services). This area wasn’t so interesting to us and we didn’t stay long.

We then went back to  our “Thai” restaurant in the Suntech complex in downtown. What a great meal we had!

A metro ride back to our area (called Marine Parade) and a bit of shopping and we were done for the day (quite early for us actually).

Hop on Hop off

 Today was a complete day of Hop on Hop off buses.

This morning we caught the metro and about 30 minutes later we were in the general area of the Big Bus company (open topped double decker touring buses).

We purchased 2 day passes and a 3 1/2 hour night tour.

The first tour (the yellow route) took us over a large area focussing on a general overview of the important sites here. We went right beside the famous Marina Bay Sands triple buildings topped off with a common terrace for example. This city sure has some stunningly beautiful sky scrapers!

The first tour took 1 1/2 hours and as we were up top, unprotected from the sun, we were hot and thirsty upon completion so we took a break and went into the Suntech building shopping centre. Caro had wanted sushi so we went into a place and it was interesting. The sushi ordered was delivered on a tray moved by automatically by magnets(?) on a rail to right beside our booth. We didn’t even notice it as we were not looking to our left but looking over to our right. Our order taker had seen that the food had arrived but we didn’t realize it so she came over and showed us what to do.

The next photo is Caro in a BYD electric car (China). They are beautiful looking vehicles.

Next on our ”bus”day was the Red Route. This hour long trip around specific ethnic areas of this city gave us our ideas for tomorrow’s travels. We will be doing Little India and Little China as these areas are “must sees”.

After that tour was done we went back to out hotel (probably 45 minutes door to door) for a break for relaxation before our night on the Hop on hop off escorted tour. 

We first stopped at a location on Marina Bay that had decent photo ops.

Our second stop was an eating area with MILLIONS of tiny restaurants. The tour included sampling a couple shish kebob style meat sticks and then 5 minutes afterward to tour the VERY busy area. Naturally we explored only to get lost in the maze of people and establishments. OMG we just made it back to the bus before they left (2 people were left behind!)

Our last stop and the reason we were on the tour was to see the famous Garden Rhapsody held at the Gardens at The Bay.

It was beautiful.

The first photo is taken by me as we lay on the cement pathway along with hundreds of other people looking straight up.

The last three photos were taken by our tour guide from a different spot near where we lay. He took these on another night.

The night ended with us catching the metro back to our hotel area,

Landed in Singapore

The flight left at least 40 minutes late however as I wrote this while flying over Japan we appear to be ahead of schedule (probably built in extra time for the flight to allow for jet stream winds to help or hinder the overall time needed).

I was surprised to see the flight plan had us going up past Alaska, down the east coast of Russia, then over Japan.

The plane is full. Caro and I chose aisle seats opposite each other. It is working out fine. We can stretch our legs easily

We arrived at Singapore feeling pretty good.  We made it through the automated immigration quite easily and after collecting our bags we walked to the famous part of the airport called The Jewel. 

On our way to the Jewel was this neat wall.

The waterfall was supposed to  start in an hour so we sat down at a Japanese fast food place. The ordering and paying was all with our cell phones and was a pain!, however we managed to get an order placed with help from the restaurant workers. 

Note the people starting to accumulate around the base of the waterfall.

An hour later:  what a beautiful experience watching the big waterfall start! Really beautiful. Our videos and photos don’t quite show how amazing it was. 

With that over with we made our way to the metro and were on our way to our hotel. It took about 45 minutes to get to “our” station and a further 15 minutes to find our hotel. We were early for check in so we just waited in the work station area of the hotel while our room was being prepared. 

After a short while getting our things sorted in our room we headed out to the streets to see what was around. Eventually we made our way to a shopping Centre as I had overlooked bringing a pair of cut-offs on this trip and it is 30 degrees and very muggy!

It was a neat buying experience for the cut-offs. At the self service check outs in the clothing store there is a bin located at each of the check outs so all you do is toss all your clothes to be purchased into the bin.The individual dollar value of each purchase instantly comes up on the pay machine with the total to be paid. Wow! No individual scanning of items.

We stuck around in the mall to kill some time and then we purchased fast food from two of the many food court restaurants. Our first impressions of the food here are not that great however I am sure things will get better.

Singapore Feb 3/26

 Lisa took us to the airport in the afternoon (Thanks!)

The airport was really empty so we were through check-in and security in 15 minutes!. One new thing for me is it is no longer a security requirement for me to pull my CPAP machine out of the bag which is awesome.

The flight to Vancouver  was good. The fellow beside me is also going to Singapore so we may see him in the next few hours at the boarding gate.

We had a free entry into the Plaza Premium lounge courtesy of my Mastercard so we went there for supper and an “adult beverage”. We are really thinking that in the future when we have a long wait it would be a good thing to get into a lounge ($US32 each) rather than sitting in a restaurant near the boarding gates. We think the value we get by being here in the “relative” quiet with food and drinks in a comfortable chair is a good way to pass the time. 

Homeward Bound

We walked a lot yesterday!!

Time for new shoes.

Our air bnb had a constant low level smell of urine and sewer gas ( which “really” bugs Caro). During the day we left the window cracked which solved the issue but at night the smell got strong enough to bother Caro. Last night the same thing. We had contacted our host earlier in our six night stay and he has tried in the past to find out the issue ( which he says is “occasional” ). Hmmm OK I guess but if we had been in a hotel we would have asked for new accommodation. 

After a light breakfast in a nearby hole in the wall cafe we finished getting ready and by about 9 AM or so we were on the metro. 

The airport is very busy. Air Canada had us together in row 60 of a Boeing 777ER which was fortunate as we only booked yesterday ( and the flight looks to be fully packed). I made the comment that the airport was so efficient. We were through security in no time and on a way to our gate. 

Here is where it got lousy. Our gate got changed three times and at our final gate it became quite funny (to me). We  got there as zone two was loading (so the high priced tickets were already through the check-in). We,in zone 3, were ID checked together with zones 4,5, and 6 at the same time and we then proceeded down the stairs to a small, very cramped holding area with “everybody” waiting for “people mover“ buses. Too funny!

Anyway the flight left 30ish minutes late as the airport is just too small ( and seems to have just one runway) so the controllers had to slot us in as best they could. 

We arrived in Toronto in good time, but the airport is large so it took a while to get around. I couldn’t get my new passport to work in the  immigration,customs machine. Turns out  I have to hold it down quite hard on the scanner in order for it to read properly ( but at least now I know).

We were 30 minutes late taking off but it was a fantastic takeoff because this Airbus A321-200 has both a tail and belly camera. What fantastic views as we rolled down the runway and took off. So COOL!

Mike and Hannah picked us up. Thanks!