Blogs from Singapore, Asia - page 3

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 ... read more

We are moored for two days in Singapore. Here are some facts about Singapore. In addition to its main island, the nation of Singapore includes 63 additional islands, most of which are uninhabited.Singapore is among the 20 smallest countries in the world, with a total land area of only 682.7 square kilometers. The United States is about 15,000 times biggerSingapore is one of only three surviving city-states in the world. The other two are Monaco and the Vatican City. The electronic landing cards (required by anyone going ashore) have been causing much trouble. Largely because people didn’t follow instructions and partially complete them before embarking. The result has been massive queues seeking help. Happily we followed instructions and things went easily. On entering the terminal we were waved through to one of the checking positions quickly ... read more

After breakfast on January 4th we got a Grab to the bus station for our overland journey to Singapore. We travelled through the green lush countryside to the border. The cheap alcohol I bought in Langkawi for my cocktail making was getting more expensive as I had to pay customs duty 😉 We finished the journey in the north of Singapore and got a taxi to our hotel,The Scarlet in Chinatown. Perfectly located with a handy indoor food market near the end of the road as well as Maxwell MRT station.Chinese New Year is celebrated on January 22nd this year so the shops are busy and the streets are being decorated in preparation for the year of the rabbit. We were given a corner room which didn’t have windows as the street is on a hill ... read more

Bonjour à tous, J'espère que vous avez bien respecté, cette loi sexuelle singapourienne, que je vous ai dévoilée hier. Si non châtiment corporel, c'est la loi. Exactement comme l'importation de chewing gum, un américain prit en flagrant délit a eu droit à une bastonnade. Ne pas tirer la chasse dans les toilettes publiques même punition. Singapour est un état hyper réglementé, où les mouvements de chaque personne sont observés et dictés par le gouvernement. Si je devais rester 1 mois ici, à mon retour j'aurais probablement les félicitations de ma toubib, pour la perte de poids. Le soir c'est galère pour trouver à diner. Hier au soir je me suis pas mal écarté du quartier, pour enfin trouver ce qui ressemblait assez bien à ce qu'on appelle un "restaurant", avec des assiettes, et non pas dans ... read more

Note: We are home as of Thursday, 3 November, but still catching up on posting the last few days of this holiday! Today is the last day of our holiday and we have almost a full day with our Qantas flight not leaving until 7.40pm this evening. When we checked in we managed to negotiate to have our rooms for an extra hour, checking out at 1.00pm rather than noon. But that doesn’t mean we are sitting around in our room until lunchtime. Oh no, we’re off to the Singapore Botanic Gardens planning to concentrate specifically on the National Orchid Garden. We rode the MRT again which delivered us to the gardens by around 9.00am. After entering we checked the map to get our bearings and work out the most direct route to the orchids. The ... read more