Well, what a dreary flight to kick off our travels this time! An 11:50pm scheduled flight we deemed preferable to the previous 1:30pm flight to Singapore, as it meant that we didn’t need to get up in the middle of the night and waste a whole day in transit. We decided that an overnight flight would give us a better chance of sleep - but it wasn’t to be so...
We said our farewells to Julie at home as she came around to help polish off the cauliflower and sweet corn soup we had made out of the leftover vegetables from our farewell pot luck dinner. Probably not the best of choices of meal before a flight, given the turbo properties of cauliflower and corn. The ever efficient Super Shuttle picked us up spot on time at 8:20pm for an easy run to the airport and an even easier queue free check in, though the flight was running 30 mins late.
The 777-200 is not the most modern of aircraft these days and there was no USB port for my own music and seat room felt somewhat cramped. At this point, we agreed that facing a 10 hour flight in cattle class or a cruise, that it really was no contest.
They made good time and we were only about 15 minutes late at Singapore. If there was ever an airport that is good to arrive at, it must be Singapore as although many passengers were in transit (as last time), there was no queue whatever at immigration and we went straight through the smiling and friendly border guard to find our luggage already on the carousel. Straight outside and again, their very efficient taxi allocation system worked well and we were soon off to the Grand Pacific hotel – arriving about 7:45am. As check in wasn’t until about 2pm, we were offered a room with two single beds straight away or a wait of about an hour for a double room. We opted for the wait and sat in “Sun’s Cafe” the onsite eatery, for a coffee and an hour later, we were in our room. Excellent!
The room was fine, with dark oriental wood fittings. We parked our passports and valuables in the safe and after a quick wash change, we ambled out into the warm Singapore air. As we were only a few minutes from Raffles hotel, we headed there first, but at that time of the morning, a “Singapore Sling”, the drink made famous by Raffles, was not really on our list of things to do. We passed by a wedding reception (twice) and noticed a Maserati in the car park on the way out. On the way back, there was another there. Later, we saw yet another Maserati, so given the 100% tax on new cars and horrific tendering system, there are a few people around who buy fast cars but probably get less chance to use them than in NZ.
We walked past our hotel to “Bugis Street”, a real market area where we weren’t really tempted by the merchandise. We were tempted by the fruit drinks for a dollar and whilst Paula’s lime drink was nice enough, I tried the sour plum - and wished I hadn’t. Not really very sour at all and not a drink I’d want to try again.
We strolled around the area between Bugis St and the hotel for quite a while for somewhere to eat, but nothing much appealed and sad to say, we settled at “Nandos”, as even the McDonald’s menu seemed somewhat abbreviated! Not a cheap meal at all and once again, we wondered why we bothered as their food is always overpriced.
By this time, we were rather tired and had a nap before a swim. We met a nice couple from Hawkes Bay in NZ - the first of several nice couples throughout our stay at this hotel.
We opted to eat in the hotel and this proved to be a good choice as an excellent Nasi Goreng was only $14. (based on some money we changed, that equates to $14 NZ!) We crashed at about 9pm but I did manage a drink of decent coffee, thanks to one of the coffee bags I always carry.
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