Singapore and Home

Irene and I had a final walk down to the sea at St Helier's and then came the final stages of packing.

I also include pictures of the Millenium Falcon model that I had spent weeks making and has been left behind.

All too soon it was time to leave our lovely New Zealand family. Sally, accompanied by Zoe drove us to the airport. After the simple process of using e-passports to check in and drop off our bags there were the final goodbyes before we went up to airside.

The time in the airport went quickly and at 1.15 on Tuesday morning the plane took off. There was the usual movies and food before landing at Singapore. The landing was somewhat early in the morning. After a little investigation it proved cheaper to take the shuttle bus to the Miramar Hotel. At the hotel we were given the full VIP treatment as the bell boys unloaded our cases. Being so early our room was not ready and the bell boys recommended that we take the ‘hop on’ tour bus. This turned out to be good recommendation.

On our first trip around we did not make use of the commentary and enjoyed the sites of the city. The tour bus method, with map is a great way to get familiar with the layout and the sites of the city. Our trip took us along the famed ‘Orchard Road’ which is lined with up market stores and high priced apartments.

 We had decided that our stop off point would be the ‘The Gardens by the Bay’. This was arrived at by going between the towers of the ‘Marine Bay Sands’. The gardens take up a large area with a lot of water. It seems to be a mix between ‘The Eden Project’ with its domes and ‘Hamilton Gardens’ with its national themed gardens. Mostly it is free, but the domes are quite expensive to enter. We opted to go on the tree walk. This was only $5 and involved going up a lift in one of the towers and walking along a suspended walkway. At the beginning of the bridge there was a warning that people with heart conditions or a fear of heights should not go on. So, on we went. There are splendid views from above.

 There was also an aquarium and a variety of eateries. We opted for the MacDonald’s. Then we left to re-board the bus back to the hotel. However, we missed the stop and decided to stay on for a second circuit of the city. This time we plugged in to the commentary. We also went through the Botanic Gardens. The earlier bus did not so this as they were closed. There is a real mixture of old and new buildings. A lot of work is going on to build new ones, renovate anything worthwhile and demolish the rest. On the second time around the sun was far too hot and we opted to go below. This position was also to enable us to get off at the hotel.

Singapore Police Station

Once more we were greeted like VIPs and shown to our room. However, there was an incessant noise. At first I thought that it was the plumbing and then I realised that it was the sound of a hammer drill. I rang reception to find out if work was going on and then, without further ado, we were whisked off to another room.

We dined in the hotel. It was not too expensive as there was a 20% discount for residents. The same was true of the morning.

From the room there was a good view of the Singapore River which I photographed at different stages of fading light. Cities always look good at night.

After a good night’s sleep we caught a taxi back to the airport. He was very scathing about the presence of Chinese people who were buying up properties and inflating the market values. We had heard the same thing about the Chinese in New Zealand who appeared to be buying properties and never living in them. Property values both here and abroad seems to be a major concern.

Since we were last in Singapore they have built an amazing tunnel. Actually it is a network of tunnels. It carries a very long six lane motorway and there are even intersections to other roads in the tunnel.

Changi airport is an exciting place to be in an Irene went off to do some exploring. As we sat it began to rain. The gates were opened and we sat in the lounge waiting for over 30 minutes longer than the announced time. This was due to rain which slowed down loading the plane. But at last we were off through the pouring rain for a bumpy ride home, arriving about 45 minutes late.

I am very pleased with the e-passport which gets you quickly though immigration. However, there was small hiccup as we watched the cases disappear from the conveyor belt without seeing ours. Enquiry revealed that we were standing by the wrong conveyor belt. So now with bags on trolley we exited the airport and straight on to an airport shuttle.

There was neither the VIP treatment nor the temperature at the Travelodge but the room was comfortable and we had a good night’s sleep. We also had a good breakfast in the morning which included Linda McCartney’s veggie burger. Considering what was going to happen it was just as well that we ate well.

Getting back to the airport was no problem despite the shock of the freezing cold London air. We sat in Central Bus Station. Again it turned out to be good decision for Irene to have a coffee and me to purchase a bottle of orange juice and chocolate bars. When it came to boarding the coach we were met by chaos. Once more our coach had broken down and the station staff was busy trying to persuade a bolshie bus driver to take on more cases that he thought was safe. With trepidation I approached him with our cases and his response was ‘I am not touching them while the handles are up’. Calmly, as I was lowering the handled I said that I would gladly lower them if asked politely to do so. We boarded the bus and then some silly passenger said’ get on with it then’. We then had another bout of emotion from the driver. The bus finally set off going through Hemel Hempstead and at least three stops in Luton before finally arriving in Milton Keynes.

Then there was the disorganisation of transferring us to other buses. This time we refused to leave the barrier until we were sure what was happening. Last time we nearly missed the connection having obeyed the instruction to go into the building. Actually, it was not long before the bus arrived in Nottingham we transferred to the local bus. We started chatting with a man who was 96 with a 92 year old wife who he had been married to for 67 years. Then, to our surprise, our neighbour, Francis, got on. Apparently he had gone to a meeting a week early. He had parked his car near the Savoy cinema where we got off and transferred our stuff to his car for an easy ride home.

Amazing.

We thank everyone who has helped us with the journey, including those who gave us their support at home.

The Return Journey

On Friday morning the shuttle bus arrived and our lady driver happily loaded up our bags and we were off to the airport. The departure area is quite new and we had a brief, but pleasant wait to board. There was one hiccup; the check in clerk needed to have the credit card which we had used to book the flight. This was difficult since in the first place our cards had been changed after booking and secondly the card used to make the ticket date change was not ours. In every other case Ian had used my card to book things for us. The ticket office clerk was surprised that there was any issue about a sum as little as $27 and sent us back to check in and tell them to give us our boarding passes. We stood for a while in the front of a number of queues saying that we were not pushing in, before I realised that we were waiting at the a different airline's check in desks.

Auckland Airport

Piha Beach - Last View

As we sat in the lounge waiting for our row to be called we were approached by a lady working for the New Zealand government. She was surveying tourists to find out about their stay. We tried very hard to describe the events of four months. There was no way that we could remember everything that we did, let alone remember how many day there was between each of them. We even told her about tourist destinations like 'Crystal Mountain' that she had never heard of. We completed the interview as our seat numbers were being called.

We had some spectacular views of Australia and Indonesia as we flew on to Singapore.

Entering Australia

The Outback

Two Pictures of Indonesia

Arriving in Singapore

It was just getting dark as we landed and an air-conditioned taxi transferred us through the 30 deg evening to our hotel. The concierge recognised us and explained that he was pleased that he could provide us with a better room than we had previously. We went straight to bed.

Bakery Breakfast

In the morning we had breakfast at the bakery opposite before catching a bus to Eunos MRT station to catch a train to City Hall. The MRT is a fabulously better system than London Underground. It is cheap, efficient and clean. Every part of it works well.

St Andrews Cathedral
near the Raffles Centre

At City Hall we got a view of the Raffles Centre and St Andrews Cathedral before walking on to Singapore River. We passed a serious game of Frisbee football and a cricket match. Along the river are many of the oldest buildings of the city. While waiting to board the river boat we sampled some of the famous Singapore Sling which is a cocktail with something like the following recipe

2 oz gin

3/4 Cherry Heering

2 tsb Benedictine

2 tsb Cointreau

2 oz pineapple juice

3/4 oz fresh lime juice

2 dashes real pomegranate grenadine

1 dash Angostura bitters

Soda water

Singapore Slinger

Riverside Wedding

Mer-Lion

High Rise Garden

Science Museum

From here we walked to China town. Our reward was views of the Sri Mariamman Temple.

I needed a phone charger so I called into an electronics shop where I bought one. The sales man was sharp and proceeded to sell me a polarising filter. Eventually we settled on a price that I could not resist.

 

 

We had lunch in a large, colourful food outlet. We also found a MacDonalds for a cool drink in the afternoon.

 

In the evening we went next door for a Thai meal. The rice was served up in a hollowed out pineapple. The food was delicious, the one man who was waiter and chef was bit slow and one couple got too bored to wait.

In the morning we left for the  airport as soon as we were washed and dresssed. Having checked in had breakfast in Rock City.

There was time to explore the airport where we found a beautiful koi pond next to a large butterfly garden. There was a large variety of very colourful butterflies.

Koi pond with butterfly garden behind

Koi Feeding Time

The plane was delayed for a few minutes while we sat on the tarmac with a tropical storm of lightning, wind a rain preventing  take off. Then the thirteen hour flight began.

I sat next to a young man who was off on business. He had lived in Singapore for nine years and was married to a Singapore born wife and had a child. He explained some of the down sides of living in Singapore. We already knew that there was a death sentence for carrying drugs no matter how small the amount. To this he added the information that immigrants who commit a crime will have 15 days to leave the country with their family. There is no wonder that people are law abiding. However, this does not really explain the high level of politeness that we experienced. He also told us about the very high cost of motoring which involved a costly permit before even buying a car and that cars more than 10 years old must be scrapped. He was pleased with the low cost, very efficient public transport which he used. He told us that the deposit for his two bedroom apartment was twice as much as the full price of an average UK home. 'Council housing' was only available for Singapore born citizens on a low income.


The flight was one of the roughest that we have had. Meal service was so interrupted by turbulence that there was no time to serve the final light meal.


On arrival we were about to encounter the most disappointing moment of the whole trip; namely the UK border. In all our previous trips we collected our cases and walked out. This time we joined a very lengthy queue so simply show our passports. In most countries there is a shorter queue for residents. This time the slow moving queue also had European citizens. I felt sad for an Australian couple who had accidently gotten in the wrong queue. A 'helpful' officer left it until they were at the front of the queue before sending them to the back of a longer one. Returning to the UK should feel better that entering the USA.


Being hungry we found a cafe to have hot chocolate and a chocolate muffin before catching the shuttle to the hotel. We still cannot believe why such a well used, short journey should attract the high level fare charged.


The hotel was one of the best that we have stayed in. The staff were excellent, the room large and bathroom well stocked. It was a little unfortunately that our body was in the UK but we were still mentally in NZ. But, we did get a reasonable nights sleep. Getting up early gave us time to wash, dress and have a leisurely full English breakfast before taking the shuttle back to the central bus station. We bought lunch to eat on the bus and had time to read a bit before catching the coach. The coaches seem to have improved. They are very comfortable and have a monitor which cleverly shows the road ahead but then allows passengers to keep an eye on their cases when the side is open for other passengers to take their belongings out.


Being bank holiday Monday we had to wait a little longer than usual and take a bus with a longer route than usual. Joni was at the stop to meet us and drag a case home. We were back. After a brief time exploring the strange place called home we were grateful to accept Joni's invitation to go to his house and enjoy a tasty lasagne, cooked by him, before returning for the first night in our own bed in four months.


This is the last 'We are Kiwis Again' blog for sometime. I hope to make comments about our experiences on my 'At the Oaks' blog quite soon.