Friday 2nd March

Late boarding and taking off. A reasonable flight. Quite a few empty seats. Reasonably smooth for most of the way but seat belt signs on a couple of times for turbulence. Looked as though we would be on time at Singapore but we had to circle for a while and eventually landed about 30 mins late. Raining heavily. We went to the SIA Stopover desk and were given vouchers etc but had to

 wait about 20 mins for the bus. The bus went to a couple of other hotels first, so by the time we actually arrived and checked in we were quite a lot later than we’d hoped. On the plus side, our room (and presumably the rest of the hotel) seems to have had a make-over. Everything is now much lighter, both in decoration and illumination.

Les popped to the shop and bought beers, water, milk, juice and biscuits while Anne unpacked some bits. As we were tired and it was raining we decided to eat in the Fern Tree Cafe - the first time we’ve eaten here apart from breakfast. It seemed very nice and cheap compared to Australia. We seemed to be the only people not having the buffet. Anne had fish with vermicelli soup and Les had fried noodles with prawns, octopus and pork. The meals were only $15 (less 20% discount for hotel guests) but a small Tiger beer is $10 [At that time S$1 was roughly 50p]

Back to the room for an early night, although our body clocks were 2.5 hours adrift.

Saturday 3rd March

The SkyPark at Marina Bay Sands

Awoke around 8am. Got ready and went down for breakfast - again the only people not having the buffet. Managed to get out and get the 10.07 SIA Hopper (free this time) round to the Singapore Flyer. Grabbed a fruit juice in the Flyer then walked out and across the new Double Helix footbridge to the Marina Bay Sands complex.

Amazing shopping centre etc. Had a look round this and then found our way up to the Observation Deck on the 56th floor. Great views all round but especially good to be able to see the progress on the new Marina Bay Botanic Gardens. Had started to drizzle by this time.

Returned to ground level and took the MRT to Esplanade (had to do part of it twice by mistake). Went into Marina Square shopping mall where Anne found her Crocs.  Went into the Food Court and had a really cheap lunch. Anne had garlic squid with steamed rice and soup. Les had rice with crispy skin pork and duck, also with soup. Really cheap at $6 each.

Decided we’d got to Sentosa and walked to the Sentosa Rider bus stop by Suntec City but the next bus wasn’t due for 45 mins. Instead we caught a cab to the National Museum of Singapore and spent the rest of the afternoon there until just after 5pm. We had a cup of tea and shared three small cakes before setting off back to the hotel.

Bit of a problem. Couldn’t find a cab outside the Museum. Went to nearest bus stop which showed the 64 going to Havelock Road. Waited for a while and when one didn’t come we walked down to Orchard Rd and tried to get a cab there. Still no luck but found a taxi stand and waited there and eventually a free one came.

Got back to hotel a little after 6pm and went to petrol station to stock up on water.  Downloaded photos etc. and logged onto internet to check-in for flight.

Eating out on Robertson Quay

Went out to eat about 7.15. Had thought about walking down to Boat Quay but decided to have a quick look first at the new places opposite at Robertson Quay, just upstream of the bridge outside the  hotel. Several new places here. Some were cafes that were just closing but there are several new restaurants including a Swedish one (starters include herring 6 different ways). We found one that was doing tempura fish and chips. Anne had this while Les had Javanese lamb rack - essentially two very thick lamb chops with a sticky coating. We washed all this down with a Tiger.

It was nice to be able to sit and eat alongside the river and have the sun go down, but without having to walk down to Boat Quay. It was also somewhat quieter but we noticed lots of locals eating there.

After we walked a little further upstream to a new footbridge. There is a very large new Italian here called Limoncello. We crossed the footbridge and were at the restaurants at the base of the Copthorne. We came across what was obviously a meeting of the Singapore branch of Liverpool FC Supporters’ Club, with Match of the Day on TV. Took some pictures for Rick.

Back to the hotel and downloaded all the photos and prepared some draft emails for sending tomorrow and Skyped Tracey and Niamh. Watched the news about the Australian flooding and in bed earlyish.

Sunday 4th March

We had decided to have breakfast in the restaurant. As we went in the lady stopped us and explained that for yesterday’s breakfast we should’ve had a 50% discount, as we were on an SIA Stopover. She gave us a corrected bill. We pointed out that we’d eaten Friday night. She promised to sort out the discount on this bill as well but they still hadn’t managed by the time we left the hotel later.

Inside Resorts World, Sentosa

We caught the 9.37am SIA Hopper. When we got to the Botanic Gardens, instead of just swapping drivers they told us there would be a half hour wait. We jumped into a taxi and paid $10 to go to Sentosa. The driver was very chatty and dropped us at the Casino as apparently this meant we could avoid the $6 per head entry fee. We walked around the areas we’d been to last time which are now pretty well all finished. After seeing the waterfront bits and looking at the completed work we grabbed a drink and then set off up to Imbiah Lookout. Again everything is now complete and much smarter than when we were last here, especially the area around the Merlion. Up at the top the dreaded man with the snake was there again, so we had to avoid him. Our Stopover vouchers gave us a free ride on the Sky Tower which saved us $30. Very interesting to see all the completed work from the top.

There are some strange looking new buildings to the east of Vivocity - curved tower blocks which seem to consist of steel frameworks. We found out later that these are 'Reflections' at Keppel Bay, apartments designed by Daniel Libeskind.

When we came down we treated ourselves to a Tiger Beer and set off back down the escalators. We caught the monorail to Beach and walked down to the water. It was extremely hot in the sun by now and we only stopped for long enough to stand in the ocean and have our photo taken.

Us in the South China Sea The last photo of Les's old knee!

Back onto the monorail and we went across to Vivocity. This is another huge shopping mall on five storeys. Although it does have some very smart bits it also has more regular shops and it’s evident that this is well used by all the local people. The first food court we went in was pretty well all Malaysian etc. with no concessions to English speakers. Also everything seemed to be hot meals - no snacks. We carried on looking round and eventually came upon a nice place on level 4. This was the Fig & Olive. Anne had a crepe (but not as we know it!) with fruit and Les had a sandwich of warm chicken, mango chutney and crispy lettuce - an excellent combination. Drinks were limited so we both had lime juice.

Carried on looking round the shops afterwards - an amazing array of electronic stuff in one huge store and lots of other small stores. Les managed to get some new Phillips earphones for the iPod and he also visited a Canon shop. Anne wandered around Uniglo and the Japanese equivalent of a pound shop.

We went out on the roof on the 5th floor - another Skypark - this has a lovely shallow but huge pool with lots of children running about and getting soaking wet. Obviously this doesn’t matter as they probably dry off very quickly.

It was hot and by this time we’d had enough so we set off for home, diverted by a few more shops, etc on the way to the MRT station. Our mistake was to take the Circle Line heading for Dhobi Gaut instead of taking the advice and taking the NS route (Les couldn’t face any more walking). This meant we travelled the whole length of the line. Our next mistake was to get out at Esplanade which on the map is next to the Raffles Hotel SIA pick-up. In fact it involves a very lengthy walk through shopping malls and up and down escalators and stairs. In the event we missed the connection so we stopped at the taxi pick-up at Raffles City. We thought we would have to wait ages as there seemed to be no cabs at all - just the odd one dropping off and most of those were on shift change and weren’t going our way. However somebody must’ve made a radio call (there was by now a long queue) as all of a sudden a whole stream of taxis started pulling in and we were able to get one back to the hotel.

Started preparations for tomorrow, downloaded photos and typed this. We also logged on to the internet and checked in for our flight.

As we were tired and Les’s knees were quite sore, we decided to eat in the hotel and have the buffet. It was okay but not as good as some we’ve had elsewhere. The choice was somewhat limited for Anne but she enjoyed the deep fried teryaki salmon and some of the lurid coloured dessert jellies!

Back in our room we made sure we were all packed except for toiletries and had an earlyish night, setting the alarm for 7am just in case.

Monday 5th March

Had to circle for half an hour at Heathrow, but through immigration and got cases quite quickly. Joyce and Bruce were waiting and we set off for home. Stopped at Fleet to eat and reached Wareham around 10.30pm. Straight to bed - will unpack, open post, etc in the morning.