SINGAPORE OCT 8-11, 2012

MARINA BAY SANDS HOTEL, SINGAPORE

SINGAPORE OCT 9-12, 2012

RENDEZVOUS HOTEL - PRE ORION CRUISE

Monday Oct 8 - Tuesday Oct 9, 2012    
FLY VANCOUVER - HONG KONG - SINGAPORE

FLYING OVER ALASKA

Well it had finally arrived - our flight across the South Pacific to visit the city of Singapore, then cruise through Indonesian Islands with the main focus being Borneo where we would visit Camp Leakey and get up close and personal with the orangutans!  When the ORION II ship arrived in Bali we would disembark for 9 days of enjoying fun in the sun and exploring the geography and culture of Bali.  Then we would fly home from Bali and spend 3 nights along the way to explore the modern City of Hong Kong.

CATHAY PACIFIC FLIGHT

The group of 13 of us meet at VancouverAirport - all friends and acquaintances from Sechelt, Nanaimo, Prince Rupert and Halifax - we were so ready!  We  left Vancouver at 320pm arriving Singapore the next day at midnight (after the long 13 plus hours flight to Hong Kong then a quick transfer for the 3 1/2 hour flight to Singapore)  At midnight when we arrived the very modern and clean Singapore airport, it was hot and humid - the palm trees were blowing in the breeze - beautiful!   Our private shuttle was waiting for us and we quickly loaded the suitcases (lots of them) into the bus and were soon at the Rendezvous hotel off Orchard Rd.  Within minutes we were registered and everyone disappeared quickly to the very comfortable rooms and welcome beds!

Wednesday Oct 10, 2012  -   HOP ON HOP OFF BUS AROUND SINGAPORE 

We were all so excited and ready to hit the town!  We were registered in rooms on the Club Floor at the Rendezvous Hotel - so first we all enjoyed a lovely breakfast and lattes, tea and coffee in the Club Room.  Some enjoyed the large breakfast in the Straits Cafe on the main floor.  By 930 we were all waltzing along the sidewalks, past the world renowned Raffles Hotel on our way to pick up the Singapore Hop On Hop Off bus and tour the city.

TEMPLE IN LITTLE INDIA

The bus is open air on top with the last few rows of seats under a roof - we soon sat in these covered seats since the sun was blazing hot and it was also humid.  The views up here are spectacular and we were soon laughing and clicking away very soon with our cameras.  There is commentary in English throughout the trip but at times it was hard to hear.  There is the red heritage  route which takes you through Little India and Chinatown, and the yellow city route, and the purple original route.  We took both the red and yellow routes and enjoyed every moment. This took essentially all day!

Singapore is a big modern city and country - on a fairly small island.  The city has been building like crazy over the last 20 years, a lot of which is on reclaimed land - what used to be a harbour when we visited many years ago is now covered in amazing modern buildings.  They have done an amazing job of keeping lots of the old colonial buildings and building the new structures around, on top and net to the beautiful old buildings.

RAFFLES HOTEL

It is truly a city worth touring.  Some of my favourite buildings are the original Raffles hotel which was named in honour of Sir Stanley Raffles (1781 - 1826) who is credited with being the founder of modern day Singapore.  Raffles was originally built on the waterfront as a 10 room hotel opened on Dec 1, 1887.  It now has 103 rooms and is now blocks back from the water due to land reclamation!  It went into receivership in 1931 during the GreatDepression and during World War II was used as a transit hotel for POW's.  Of course, one of its' claims to fame is the creation of the Singapore Sling cocktail and now served around the world.

The newest world famous hotel is the Marina Bay Sands built 54 stories high in 3 towers with a roof top structure that to me looks like a giant surfboard and pans all 3 towers with an infinity swimming pool on top and the exclusive Ku De Ta nightclub and lounge.

KAMPONG BOYS SCULPTURE

There are beautiful modern sculptures in various areas within Singapore but I always love the bronze of 5 Kampong boys jumping off the wall into the river and depicting when Singapore used to be a care free fishing village.

The other area in Singapore which everyone knows is Orchard Rd - this is the shopping street and has everything from the cheap Chinese imports to the most expensive designer apparel.  However, I must say that at the Marina Bay Sands they have now built a world class casino and shopping centre which is beautiful and has every name brand store that you can think of - all to enjoy in air conditioned comfort and along withe casino after a busy day's shopping there is also a free laser light show to sit outside and enjoy, or  a theatre with wonderful shows (Last time Terry and I were in Singapore we saw The Lion King in this Theatre).

So we all had a wonderful day touring Singapore and determining were we would come back to the following day to further explore.  Around noon we hopped off the bus and went for lunch at the RENNthai restaurant at Clarke Quay - it was so hot we really appreciated the air conditioned restaurant!   The green mango salad was amazing followed by excellent pad thai noodles and washed down with a very cold TIGER beer.

MERLION FOUNTAIN

After lunch we took the boat cruise down the river, into the harbour and admired the Marina Bay Sands hotel from vantage point of the water - it is truly quite spectacular.  We also saw the MERLION statue, a mythical creature resembling a mermaid with a lion's head and and fish's body.  The true name of SINGAPORE is SINGAPURA - coming from the ancient sankrit word SINGA which means LION, and PURA sanskrit word means place or state.  A lion was once seen on Singapure Island.

After lunch and the boat ride (included with the Hop On Hop Off bus ride) we walked the few blocks to the RENDEZVOUS hotel arriving shortly before 6pm - very hot, sticky and satisfied after a great day!  After a quick freshen up we all met in the Club Lounge to share a couple of glasses of wine and appetizers.  After the long flights yesterday and the busy day touring Singapore we were all very ready for a shower and early night in bed - what a great start to our trip!

Thursday Oct 11, 2012 - LITTLE INDIA, SHOPPING ORCHARD RD, 

We were awake early after hitting the bed around 9 last night, so time to catch up on email before heading down for breakfast in the STRAIT coffee shop just after 7 to meet Sue and Audrey - who had been awake since 3am! The breakfast buffet is very comprehensive with Asian and Continental hot and cold selections, with lots of fruit and coffee. It's a popular hotel and so a mix of business folks and vacationers.

CONDOM SHOP 

By 915am a group of us were in the lobby and ready to go shopping along Orchard Rd which is the main shopping street in Singapore - although don't ever doubt that EVERY street and alley in Singapore seems to be a shopping street!  The stores don't open until 10 or 10:30am so our first few blocks were window shopping and we had fun - especially gazing into the window of the HOUSE OF CONDOMS store - yes, that's exactly what they were selling!  The tropical foliage in Singapore rivals the amazing architecture, there is so much green everywhere, and so many very old trees - just huge and so beautiful.  In fact this morning another group were heading off at 10am to the Botanical Gardens which are apparently beautiful and have an orchid garden there as well.

We passed the Istana Domain which is where the Singapore President holds all his meetings and where important visitors to Singapore are hosted.  This has lots of security out front but the grounds are amazing right out to Orchard Rd - beautiful green tropical foliage under a canopy of beautiful old trees. I could have stayed for hours enjoying and looking at the plants and soaking it all in......

SHOPPING ON ORCHARD RD

But the stores were waiting and so we wandered on and shopped haphazardly, especially with 5 ladies and Terry!  Then 1 of the group remembered that she had forgotten to lock her safe and she had all her various currencies sitting in the open - Singapore dollars, Malaysian ringgit, Indonesian rupiahs, Hong Kong dollars - and of course Canadian and US dollars!  So she raced back to the hotel and caught up with us 45 minutes later, everything still safe in her room but now safely locked away.

The shopping in Singapore is varied from Gucci and Prada down to 3 for $10 accessories made in Korea.  We had fun and most of us bought a new pashmina in a wide variety of colours along with watches and hair clips! By 12 noon we were close to the top of Orchard Street and caught the Hop On Hop Off bus outside the Marriott Hotel back down to the Rendezvous Hotel - we're lucky since the bus stops right out front!  Next door is a 711 convenience store where we each bought a cold lime Breezer ($6.50 each)!  Mmmm good!  As Michelle says - you don't see any drunks on the streets in Singapore - booze is just too expensive!  It started to rain quite heavily as we walked across the street back to the hotel but 60 minutes later as we headed out again the rain had stopped.

LITTLE INDIA MARKET

We walked the 6 blocks to Little India and then wandered along Serangoon street which was all decorated for the Hindu New Year - "Happy Deepavali" which starts Oct 15 - so just a couple of days after we leave tomorrow Oct 12 on the ORION cruise to Bali via Borneo and Camp Leakey.  We wandered in and out of the various markets including the Little India Arcade - the amount of fresh flower garlands, saris, jewellry, shoes and everything else you can imagine was for sale at very economical (cheap) prices.  Michelle had a henna dragon fly drawn on her left shoulder - cost $5 and took about 2 minutes to do - very intricate and all done free hand by the lady in the store.  The artist said to not touch it for preferably 2 to 3 hours but that it would dry in about 20 minutes - it was beautiful.  There was one local Indian father with his daughter getting a very intricate design drawn onto her hand.

It was unbelievably humid and sticky and we were all sticky and bedraggled but thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Around 3pm we stopped into the Jungle Tandoori where we enjoyed ice cold Tiger (local) beer and a pina colada for Michelle.  The inside was air conditioned and decorated unbelievably well.  It was all iron wood chairs and benches, looking sort of like burlwood pieces, and fake green trees and bush everywhere along with Tarzan and Jane swinging form the trees and stuffed animals everywhere - leopard, tiger, panther, monkeys, elephant etc - not sure about the polar bear though!  It was a lot of fun especially when we scared the bejesus out of Michelle with the rubber snake and cobra!! 

INFINITY POOL MARINA BAY SANDS

We caught the 4:15pm Hop On Hop Off bus at the bottom of Serangoon Street and enjoyed the tour again but jumping off this time at the Marina Bay Sands Resort complex finished in 2010 at a cost of 5.7 billion (yes, billion) dollars - the largest most expensive resort in the world - it encompasses the amazing 3 tower 57 floors, very upscale hotel with the top structure that looks like a ship or surfboard complete with bars, restaurant, viewing platform and infinity pool!! and casino, massive shopping centre with indoor canal, food hall, skating rink, and outdoor entertainment centre - amazing!   

Since September this year they do not allow non hotel guests to view the infinity pool unless yo take a tour (maximum 50 persons per tour at 10am and 4pm each day) - we had missed the tour so decided to return tomorrow morning.  no one wanted to pay the $20 fee to go to the top if we were going to come back in the morning.  However, Terry discovered that we could get a free pass to the Ku De Ta open air lounge up on the 57th top floor so up we went and enjoyed the spectacular vies up there.  The cocktail menu was amazing - every drink $20, water $8 but we really enjoyed ourselves - Angry Bird, ?? were what we drank.  There is a dress code enforced at 6pm so we left then (we were all in sweaty shorts and t-shirts) and headed down to the shopping centre and food court.

COCKTAILS AT KU DE TA 54TH FLOOR

Linda and Carrie decided to go back to the Rendezvous but Jenn, Michelle, Terry and I carried on deciding to eat some local food and then enjoy the light show spectacular at 8pm in the events venue.  The shopping centre is amazing - every brand name you can imagine along with the Gucci, Versace, Jimmy Choo, Victoria's Secret, Columbia Sportswear, Pandora etc etc but there was also a very nice shoe store Charles and Keith where I got a great buy on a pair of tropical sandals!  Dinner was excellent, 3 of us had Indian with wonderful rice, nan bread, Dal and chicken curry and Jenn had rice, veggies and chicken from another counter.  All between $7.50 and $9.50 each.  The selection was awesome and really excellent food - hundreds of locals eating there - all the tables set around the ice skating rink but no-one skating while we were there!

THE LADIES IN THE GROUP ON THE RIVER CRUISE

After dinner it was outside to take photos of the night skyline of Singapore while we waited for the light show to start.  The show was amazing - good music and lots of fountains and big bursts of water using the water as a backdrop for regular camera footage and lettering - really well done - the theme being "what a Wonderful World".  Jenn didn't make the show - she was waylaid by the stores and arrived too late so had to make her own way home on the MRT train arriving shortly after us.  It was only about 3 stops requiring a change of train - easy to use system, the cost $2.20 on a card then your return the card to the ticket machine when you are finished and get a dollar back!

Back at the Rendezvous the rest of the group staggered back after a very full day themselves - they had even been at the same light show even though we hadn't seen each other!  Their morning was spent at the Botanical Gardens and they were enthralled and amazed at the Orchid Gardens for over two hours, so that sounds like an amazing attraction to enjoy.  Everyone I think fell into bed and hoped to get a good nights' rest!  Tomorrow we have a late checkout at 3pm so lots of time in the morning to do those things we haven't managed to do yet!  We have arranged a pickup on a 19 seater bus for 2:30 and boarding the ORION at the International Cruise Ship Pier is between 3 and 4pm - so a big day tomorrow! 

FRIDAY OCT 12, 2012

ORCHARD RD BY ISTANA

Well it has arrived - the big day that we have all been waiting for when we will board the ORION II and take our cruise all the way to Borneo to see the orangutans at Camp Leakey, the highlight of the amazing expedition cruise that we have been looking forward to for so long! Then after 10 wonderful days on the ship we will disembark in Bali.  But first we had one more full morning to enjoy in Singapore.

After breakfast in the Club Room we headed back over to Orchard Rd to view a couple of items we had seen the day before but had not purchased - today was the day!   We were the first customers in the store (the air conditioning was very welcome!) for a couple of minor purchases - stopping along the way on Orchard Rd to enjoy the wonderful (and sometimes colourful) sculptures along the sidewalks.  After our brief shopping excursion nwe caught the Hop On bus back to Raffles to participate in enjoying the world famous Singapore Sling!  Joan, Suz and Pete were already in the Long Bar at Raffles when we arrived - and Joan was enjoying her prize of a Singapore Sling that we awarded for the best suggestions of "free" attractions in Singapore - Joan came up with the Laser Light Show which we had all enjoyed at the Marina Bay Sands on the Harbour Front the previous night.

SINGAPORE SLINGS

ENJOYING RAFFLES LONG BAR

Today was also Clark & Linda's anniversary - and sadly Clark had been unable to join us on the trip due  to pressing business matters and had to cancel at the last minute - so we toasted Clark & Linda's Anniversary along with Raffles 125th Anniversary in true style - with a Singapore Sling!  After enjoying eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the floor in true Raffles style, we walked the 2 or 3 blocks back to the Rendezvous Hotel.  It took us very little time to finish packing, although most of us were so hot and sticky that another shower was in order before we went down to the Lobby to catch our shuttle to the cruise ship terminal!  We had all thoroughly enjoyed our 3 nights in Singapore and what it had offered us as tourists - we heard many comments that Singapore would be a city to come back to in the future!