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Published: March 11th 2010
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What a day! We started with breakfast in Chinatown - good old dim sum, which I’d really been looking forward to and which John ate with good grace, bless him. (I’m saying that in case we get the opportunity again!!) (eg, in Hong Kong!!).
Chinatown was also a mix of old ‘shophouses’ that have been renovated and give such a wonderful ambience. We visited a wonderful old Chinese temple, supposedly the oldest Holkien building in Singapore. We then jumped in a taxi to go to the building where the phone would be. It wasn’t. (to cut a long story short, it was eventually brought to our hotel at 11.45pm) (phew!).
We then walked down to the Malay quarter, Arab Street, and visited the old Sultan’s Palace, looked at the Mosque and again wandered around the renovated building (notice a theme here?!). I really just love these areas where the skyscrapers haven’t been allowed in and they’ve retained some identity of their own.
The colonial district was next on our itinerary, and we were off to Raffles, a place I’ve always dreamed of going. John says ‘why?’ - my answer ‘if you have to ask why, there’s no hope...’.
Now, I’m going to have to break from the travelog to give the kids a small test ...
Try to imagine John’s face in the following circumstances:
- When I tell him I want to drink a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar at Raffles
- When he finds out Singapore Slings cost £12.50 each
- When I tell him I don’t like it after first sip (only joking, haw haw)
- When I say I’ll call the waiter over for a refill when I’ve finished (also only joking, but I was enjoying myself by now...)
- When he found out we had to pay 10% service and 7% Government tax on top
As I told him, you only do it once ... he said I was blinking right there!!
We spent quite a while walking round Raffles and in their museum, so I feel we got our money’s worth
Back to the travelog, and we were off to St Andrews Cathedral, very pretty and white, numerous cenotaphs, and of course the cricket club. With barely a glance at the supreme court opposite, we decided time was getting the better of us and we were quite tired from all the walking and needed a swim, so we’d get a taxi back to the hotel, even though it was quite close.
No taxis around, but an old, frail chap turned up on his bicycle rickshaw. We said he’d never get us both on (the seat was tiny), he insisted he could - and although it was quite expensive at £5, we thought ‘well, it is another tourist experience’. Firstly, we needn’t have worried about whether he could manage both of us - at the sight of any slight incline he struggled so much John had to leap off and PUSH. He kept stopping at almost nothing and insisting John took a photo, although I’m sure it was just to get his breath back. (John just took to clicking the camera, even though we knew the memory card was full). At one stage we were cycling the wrong way up a 3-lane one-way street straight into oncoming traffic. Taking into account the sheer embarrassment factor, the discomfort (John almost on my lap), the time it took, the blazing heat in the middle of the road, the fact John walked (and pushed) more than he rode, I was not the happiest person when he pulled up quite a distance from our hotel and told us how we could go the rest of the way ... by walking! He then tried to charge us £15 for the pleasure! Needless to say, there was an exchange of words and we paid £5.
After an hour’s cool down in the pool, we were off again on an organised tour that had been recommended to us - the Night Safari. We sat on a little train that took us round a zoo showing us all sorts of animals ‘in the wild’. We saw everything from lions, giraffes, elephants, hippos, rhinos, down to hyenas and jackals and lots in between. However, we couldn’t help thinking it might have been better in the daytime, as John may have been able to take some photos ... and as you should know by now, its all about the photos!! Sorry to report Carol, still no sighting of an orang utan.
There was also a short show for us tourists, which involved some lads playing around with spears and fire. I’ve got to say they were most impressive, and when they blew out fire, you could feel the heat right at the back of the arena.
So there you have it, Singapore in a nutshell. Here’s another place that we really didn’t allow enough time. We knew we didn’t want to hit the shopping plazas of Orchard Street - very fine they looked too, with every designer you could name, but I hadn’t expected there to be so much ‘culture’. There were several museums that I would like to have had time for. The one warning I would give is that it ain’t cheap - on our tour bus there was a certain amount of grumbling over prices. John has been waiting ’til we got here to buy some more memory, and he was staggered to find it was cheaper in England than here.
Another observation: whilst we in the West are keen to ‘get back to basics’ and turn our noses up at the global conglomerates, we are rather amused that those in Asia embrace them - eg. Whilst we were keen to ‘eat local food’, the McDonalds and KFC were doing a roaring trade for the locals - we were particularly amused by the number of expensive cars with ‘McDonalds Drive Thru VIP’ stickers in their front windows as if these were a status symbol to be proud of!! Ah bless!
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Daughter dearest
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Singapore Sling
Pops' reaction: Serious hair ruffling, sat back with arms crossed, disbelief turning to a horrified look... Did I miss a stage? xxxx