Sydney airport was fab, loads of great shops and bars and loads of choices The hot food. Good as we had a few hours to kill there before our flight to Singapore. The flight was fine, we’d definitely pre booked good seats and the food was even okay too. We landed in Singapore at 2130 local time. The airport is really efficient so we were straight through and on a shuttle bus to the hotel. The driver was really nice, obviously wanting to practice his English and even gave us a little guided tour on the way into the city. The hotel looked amazing all lit up in the night and the city was heaving with people going out. We were staying at the Marina Mandarin Hotel, a 5 star hotel but we got a really good price and when we checked in we were upgraded to a premier room, 17 floors up in the very quick glass lifts over hanging the amazing atrium with the biggest chandelier we’ve ever seen! The room was really nice, the bed was huge and we had a balcony over looking the bay, across the the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Grand Prix track, what a great view day and night. You wouldn’t need tickets for the formula 1, you could watch it from the balcony.
Last Stop Singapore
On our first full day in Singapore we decided to go on a hop on hop off bus trip as we were only here for 3 days we wanted to see and do as much as possible and everything is quite spread out so this seemed like a good (and really well priced option). We first went on the heritage tour through Chinatown with its amazing decorations and Little India with its great colours and smells (and bad traffic). We also went around Marina Bay and got to see the huge Marina Bay sands close up. We really wanted to make the most of the end of our trip and as well as visiting as much as we could we want to relax too. Luckily the hotel had a gorgeous pool for relaxing in the afternoon heat and Atrium bar for a few evening drinks and a bit of piano music before heading our for the evening.
We had a lovely stroll along the waterfront esplanade, looking at the city all lit up, it looked so beautiful. We took a boat trip along the river and around the bay with a girl playing a cool looking harp. Then we walked back along the otherside of the river and stopped for food and a few drinks and watched a free live concert too.
On Sunday we did the city tour and got off at the famous shopping street, Orchard Road. The place was absolutely heaving with shoppers and it was so humid too. We went in a few of the millions of shopping centres. They were all huge and all went underground and were interconnected. It was lush and cool inside them, no wonder everyone came shopping! Singapore has all the great shops Cat loves too; Topshop, Topman, River Island, Mango, Zara, H+M, Traditious, Bershka, and, Tiffany & Co. She was in her element. After all that stress for Ste shopping the only answer was a little relax by the pool before getting dolled up and off to The Long Bar at Raffles Hotel. We both had the world famous (and very expensive) Singapore Slings. They were lush and to make up for the price Ste literally ate his weight in peanuts and took a lot of enjoyment throwing the shells on the floor. It was a lot of fun. We had some nice food and even managed to watch the Newcastle vs QPR match.
Our last day in Singapore was a little bit spoiled as we were both ill in the morning and didn’t start to feel better until after lunch. We did manage to get to the Marina Bay Sands and take the light up to the 56th floor observation deck for amazing views right over the city to the coast. The infinty pool hanging over the edge was a bit scary though. We also visited the very posh shopping centre and popped to Tiffany’s again and had some very swish afternoon tea at TWG Teahouse - very nice.
Our flight was at 23.59. We got to the airport around 2100 and there were hardly any queue’s no wonder its got the title of worlds most efficient airport, we were checked in all the way back to Newcastle and through to the departure lounge in a
matter of minutes. They even had a grand piano and pianist to entertain and relax. Our flight was on time, the huge Qantas A380 was really nice, especially the snack and drinks bar where you could just get stuff whenever you wanted. We landed back in Blighty at 6am and it was -2 degrees according to the pilot-freezing!!!! After 7 months in the sun. The only good thing was the lush English fry up we had in Spoonies for breakfast while we were waiting for our last flight back to the toon, now thats something we’ve really missed being away. It was really surreal being back in England and going home we we a little nervous, it didnt really feel like we’d been away for 7 months and it certainly didnt feel like we should be back yet. But time to get used to it, you can’t travel forever however much we’d like too.
Back to reality.
