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Published: November 13th 2007
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Day 213 (24.10.07)
Today we were leaving behind the rigours of staying in a hostel and were going for a slice of the good life. We were off to Raffles Hotel for the night! This was a wedding/xmas present to us from Mark's parents - a massive thank you goes to you both - we had an incredible time.
We spent the morning wandering around the Chinatown area of Singapore, interested to see many of the bits and bobs that we saw on stalls in China all that time ago. We had a lovely wander around this colourful section of the city and treated ourselves to a couple of new lenses for our camera whilst we were still in Asia where the prices are cheaper. We are gradually learning to use the features on our new camera and wanted to have a little more kit to experiment with!
As the afternoon hit us we caught the metro back to our hostel to change and collect our bag for our night in Raffles. Raffles, if you don't already know, is a beautiful colonial style hotel named after the founder of modern Singapore and famous the world over. Dressed in our
almost-finest (we were saving the real finest for dinner that night!) we arrived at the hotel and on check-in were introduced to our personal butler who would take care of us for the duration of our stay. He led us to the Palm Court section of the hotel and our suite for the night which was fabulous. We felt extremely lucky to be spending the night somewhere so special.
After settling in and taking a walk around our bedroom, bathroom number 1, bathroom number 2, lounge dining room not really believing we were staying here, we headed to the Raffles Courtyard to sample the must-have Singapore Sling cocktail designed here in the early 1900's. As we watched other tourists heading in to do the same thing we couldn't help but feel a little smug that we were staying - something that still hadn't sunk in fully.
Another drink in the long bar, obviously put on our room bill 'because we could', we spent a couple of hours doing nothing but relax and chat soaking up the surroundings that transported us back to the days of the European upper class in the early 19th century. The Long bar is
steeped in tradition and is said to be the specific birth place of the Singapore Sling. One of its other traditions that has gladly stood the test of time is the nuts on the bar. Instead of neatly throwing the shells away you are encouraged to follow the tradition of throwing them on the floor adding to the nut shell debris that crunches under your feet as you enter. A wonderful tradition and long may it continue!
From the long bar we dusted off the rest of the stray nut shells and went back to our suite where we booked dinner at the exclusive Raffles Grill restaurant (very posh French inspired menu and not a beefeater steak and chips in sight as the name may suggest). Having successfully booked a table for the evening with our butler we grabbed our swimmies and made our way to the rooftop pool for a quick pre-dinner dip. It was amazing floating across the pool with the neighbouring towers and skyscrapers lights coming on - quite beautiful!
Back in our suite we took our time to get ready with a 'swim' in the bath and taking full advantage of our double sinked
Drinks in the Long Bar
birth place of the Singapore Sling bathroom. Suitably groomed and attired we had another pre-dinner Singapore Sling on our veranda before we walked over to the restaurant for dinner.
The food was out of this world - almost definitely the best we have ever had. That combined with the stunning surroundings, romantic atmosphere and live pianist made it a very special night and a true indulgent honeymoon evening, something we will probably never do again and guaranteed to be an evening we will never forget! Wow.
Making our way back to the room, we arrived to a note from our butler who had written us a note of congratulations for our honeymoon and had given us some Champagne, strawberries, red roses and chocolate as a present. A wonderful end to the day.
Day 214 (25.10.07)
Waking early in order to have a pre-brekkie swim in the pool we then ordered breakfast (which was included in our reservation) in the suite. When this arrived it came as a feast covering all of your breakfast options. Amazing.
Relaxing in the suite we made sure all our things were packed (including an extra soap or two from the bathroom) before checking out at the
latest possible minute. As you may have gathered we loved our stay at Raffles and given half the chance would love to come back (some day). Thanks again Mum and Dad 'Hayward' it was an amazing stay!
People leaving Raffles usually ask for their Merc to be brought around to the front or at least get a taxi. We on the other hand left through the main entrance and walked to the MTR - classy!
Back to our Hostel we dropped off our bags before leaving for our second Raffles experience. This time we were to learn about journey of Sir Stamford Raffles himself in colonising Singapore and return to our cherished hotel for afternoon tea. The luxury continues!
After meeting up with our fellow tour members, a fantastic group of all ages, we stopped off at Raffles Landing Site where our guide talked us through his landing and plans for the city which are still clearly visible today. Moving on to the Asian Civilisations Museum we looked more into history of life on the river as well as other Asian civilisations and cultures - you could have spent all day there as it was really informative
however we had an appointment to keep at Raffles and breakfast was starting to wear off!
Briefly stopping at the Raffles museum where we were fascinated to see old pictures and marketing from its first days we went over to the Tiffin Room for afternoon tea. It was (as you would expect) an excellent meal again.
The trip continued with a boat trip down the river and a visit to the Pewter gallery.
We would like to wholeheartedly to thank Mr Cross and Family for sending us on the Footsteps of Raffles trip - we're sure they will not only be pleased that we expanded our knowledge of Singapore's colonial history, but that the day was filled with a suitable amount of 'pomp and circumstance'!
Back on our bus we went back to the hostel to get some well earned rest before our flight to Australia the following day. It really felt like the end of a very happy chapter of our travels. However we were now on our way to Australia. This in itself always seemed a long way in the future - it wasn't until that night we sat back and thought of all
the exciting things we had ahead of us and that tomorrow we would be landing in Perth.
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