Days 26 & 27 - Friday and Saturday 24 & 25 March - Singapore

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We landed in Singapore at breakfast time and eventually got ourselves through immigration and security and all of that, with Shannon keeping a text checkup on our progress. We emerged from the airport just one hour after arrival, and caught a cab to our hotel, which is just down the road from Shannon and Aaron’s apartment. Shannon came down and joined us and we sat and chatted for a couple of hours before taking the time to shower and freshen up. Shannon took us to the area behind the buildings across the road, where we found a food market. We decided on spicy duck with noodles for lunch $3.

Then we trundled down to their home with our cabin bags where we chatted some more with Aaron until the children came home from school. We all changed into our good gear and headed off in a 6 people "Grab" (the Singaporean version of Uber) for an early dinner at Lavo, the lovely Italian Restaurant and Rooftop Bar at the top of the amazing Marina Bay Sands Hotel. The views were incredible, the food, which we all shared around the table, was amazing and the company very special - it was wonderful. After dinner we went downstairs to the connecting walkway to go over to the Gardens by the Bay and the amazing Supertrees for the free Garden Rhapsody show that plays twice each evening. The theme for our show was "Journey through Asia" (e.g. in May they're doing Opera, apart from May 4th-7th when they're doing Star Wars, Musical Theatre including Phantom of the Opera in July, Christmas in December - changes every month), and the lighting is just spectacular. Then we exited the park and went back to our hotel in another large grab.

On Saturday we had a lovely breakfast at our hotel (included in our tariff) and then Shannon and Aaron joined us when we had packed up. We trundled back to Shannon and Aaron's home after checking out and spent the day with the family, just resting and relaxing, lunching, a couple of games of mahjong, exploring the public areas of their apartments (the spa, pool and entertaining areas on the 11th floor), monitoring the NSW state elections, and Shannon cooked us a wonderful Japanese curry for dinner.

Then it was time to head off to the airport, check in our luggage and head to the lounge for some Heidsieck before boarding our flight at 11.30pm heading home to Sydney where Jessie and James picked us up at lunchtime on Sunday.

P.S. We have been to Singapore twice before, and just wanted to be with the family doing normal stuff. And we've certainly been to all the tourist spots in the United Kingdom in the numerous trips there that interest us and so concentrated on the family villages this time.

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