Singapore and Home

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Our tour began with a drive around the Civic District past the Padang, Cricket Club, historic Parliament House, Supreme Court and City Hall.

First stop at the MERLION PARK for great views of Marina Bay and a picture-taking opportunity with The Merlion, a mythological creature that is part lion and part fish.

Then a visit to THIAN HOCK KENG TEMPLE, one of Singapore’s oldest Buddhist-Taoist temples, before driving past Chinatown to watch craftsmen at work at a local handicraft centre.

Next stop, the NATIONAL ORCHID GARDEN, located within Singapore Botanic Gardens, which boasts a sprawling display of 60,000 orchid plants. It was a beautiful and exotic place, but seen one orchid seen them all. Keen gardeners would have been in their elements. I enjoyed riding around the streets more so, seeing the sights and buildings.

Our final stop was at LITTLE INDIA which boasted “overpowering senses, strong, heady scent of spices and jasmine garlands, followed by the treasure trove of silverware, brassware, ethnic jewellery and colourful silk saris, dazzling to behold”, but as we alighted from the bus, we all took one look at the place and decided to pass.
We caught more taxis to Clarke Quay for lunch, then the girls descended onto Orchard Road to check out the shops and the men did their own thing. Lots of shops but couldn’t visit all the shopping centres, we opted for the nearest one Paragon and looked in every shop listed below:-
Starbucks Raoul Coffee Club
The Body Shop Raoul Ladies Nue Shoes
Spageddies Guess Geox
New Zealand Natural Marciano GG<5
Paragon Market Place Miu Miu Ness
Watsons Furla Giordano Junior
Breadtalk Pois Made by ProjectShop
Crabtree & Evelyn Calvin Klein Jeans Celio
Gucci Metro Eye Couture By Philip D Izaac
Maxstudio Novo U.R.S. & Inc
Hugo Boss United Colors of Benetton World of Sports
Hogan Sisley Mizuno
Tod's Aliya Aussino
Ralph Lauren Ben Sherman Adidas
Prada Miss Selfridge Muji
Nike Pan-West Early Learning Centre
Norther Opticians KingKow Fox Kids
Images of China Guess Kids Action Hair Salon
Andana @ Orchard Toys R Us

Not really, but almost all of them. Julie really wasn’t interested in shopping, all the travelling was catching up on us all, but it would be our final fling, so Lynne and I managed to twist her arm which resulted in Julie buying the most merchandise. Well, she started off buying first but we all got into the swing of things pretty quickly.
The men had arranged to meet us outside Raffles hotel for 4.15 pm, I have to say, they weren’t very punctual. Their excuse was the taxi driver didn’t know where Raffles Hotel was situated and took them the wrong route!
Our taxi driver swung into the main driveway, but stopped before we got to the Maharajah on the main door. We waited for the men, in a side bar, people watching. Private limos kept pulling up with classy people stepping out, even some foreign diplomat with a foreign flag flying on the car bonnet arrived, but we didn’t recognised anyone.

Raffles Hotel is one of the world’s great 19th century hotels, having been the retreat and source of inspiration for many writers and movie stars, including Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad and Charlie Chaplin. Having been given a SGD 160 million facelift, the hotel looked very charming and grand. I knew it housed bars and restaurants, but I didn’t realised it accommodated numerous shops, 70 in total, including top brand names like Tiffany’s and Louis Vuitton.
We all sat outside in the courtyard and all sampled a sip of the Singapore Sling right where it was created. It was very refreshing and didn’t taste as intoxicating as the recipe stated:-
1 oz gin
1/2 oz cherry brandy
4 oz pineapple juice
1/2 oz lime juice
1/4 oz Cointreau® orange liqueur
1/4 oz benedictine herbal liqueur
1/3 oz grenadine syrup
1 dash Angostura® bitters

I didn’t risk trying another as we were flying home in a few hours time.

Our hotel was only walking distance from Raffles, so we had a leisurely stroll back to the Rendezvous for a last minute drink. We were collected for the airport in no time. More trouble at booking onto the plane, they had no record of Lynne and Chris on the flight list, bearing in mind we all booked up together even had the same reference number.
Qantas hadn’t let us down all the way from London and back and no way was Singapore branch going to spoil the last leg of our trip. It was sorted eventually and we all had a wonderful flight home.
I have never sat still for so long or watched so much TV, but the flight was really wonderful, the food was tasty, lots of drinks available and the staff were amazing.
When Lynne, Chris, Bob and I walked out of departures, there waiting for us was our airport transport driver waiting with ….. yes another sign 'Mr & Mrs R..............', but only Lynne and Chris’s name on it this time. I could live with that, after all the laughs we have had. UK was so cold; we jumped into the warm car and was whisked home.

There ended our holiday of a lifetime!

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