Blogs from Singapore, Asia - page 13

Since our return from Cuba it’s been four weeks of UK TV; wall to wall soap operas, reality shows and a damp climate. The time had come to leave all that behind once more. We both managed the biggest smile when we knew we’d hopefully be rid of the biggest soap of them all – Brexit!! The only reminder we may have in the weeks to come is when we meet non-Brits and, once they realise where we are from usually start the conversation by politely asking: ‘What do you think of…’ We are going to be away for four weeks first flying to Singapore via Warsaw on LOT Polish airlines. Why LOT? During our original research we found that flying LOT, business class was not much more than flying British Airways, Premium Economy. ... read more

We disembarked from our cruise in Singapore and opted to spend 2 nights here before travelling home. A great way to end our trip. We dropped our bags at our hotel, bought a 2 day subway pass and headed immediately to The Gardens By The Bay. We arrived around mid day and decided to do the indoor options first to escape the heat for a bit ( FYI Singapore is 137 km from the equator. It’s hot!). While there’s lots to explore in this park we started with the Cloud Forest and Garden Dome. Both are monstrous indoor greenhouses that are very cool (both figuratively and physically); they showcased vegetation from all over the world; everything from Cactuses to Orchids to Baobab trees to Venus Fly Traps. We then wandered among the enormous outdoor grounds until ... read more

We were so wrong. Me and my wife never considered Singapore as a must see destination. With our limited resources to go on travels, we always thought why would we visit another mega city, when in fact we live in one, and have easy access to maybe one of the world's best known mega city, Tokyo, which we are not a big fan of. But then, I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to go Singapore to attend a work related symposium. I was not so thrilled though that my original 7 hour flight to Singapore from Osaka was changed to more than 12 hour waiting/ traveling time, with a Tokyo stop. Osaka's international airport is still not operational as it was destroyed by the biggest typhoon to hit our city in the last 25 years. ... read more

If it was not Sunday when we arrived in Dubai (I think it was, just) it was definitely Sunday (local time) when we departed Dubai at 2.40am Unlike on our journey over we were not able to walk from our arrival gate to our departure gate, we needed to take the train between terminals. Even after the time spent travelling between terminals we were able to spend a little bit of time in the Emirates Lounge. We took the opportunity to drink plenty of free mineral water and walk around a bit before facing up to the longest sector of our journey, the 13’15” leg from Dubai to Melbourne. During the night? I’m not really sure that it actually was night because we were flying towards the sun, but all the shutters were down and the ... read more

After a good lounge breakfast, I made my way to the bus stop across from my hotel, ready to head down to Chinatown. While waiting at the bench, I heard three loud cracks of thunder. Awesome. And I was smart by sitting on the bottom level of the open top bus- a few minutes after boarding, a few women came running down. Loved it! Good start to the day. The bus let me off right across from the Smith Street Food Center of Chinatown. It was still early at this time, around 11am, so most of the stalls / restaurants were just getting started. I walked down the street to see if anything looked particularly interesting, but in the end, I wound up in the restaurant of a girl who was forward, but friendly. It was ... read more