Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday 30th May 2007 - Aaaarrggghhhh, shopping!
Botanical Garden
Wednesday 30th May
Eventually went back to sleep around 04.30 and we awoke at 09.00and gently got ourselves back into the land of the living. It is absolutely throwing it down with rain and really windy so looks like a troublesome day for brolly owners. We are eventually ready to face the world about 10 and visit the 99 Centre just around the corner from the Excelsior. It is a mini food mall and offers many styles of food for incredibly cheap prices. Oh and by the way (btw) the rain and wind have both gone, and as we step onto the almost dry street you wouldn’t know it has been raining! The heat hits you like the curtain of hot air you encounter when going in and out of shops at home and the humidity envelops you like a hot wet towel! We choose a breakfast of fried rice, diced pork and cabbage, tofu and mince. SG$4.5 or £1.50 crazy price and a complete contrast to yesterdays dinner cost!
Off we go to Orchard Road and shopping heaven as referred to in my previous report on SG. We visited Tangs, one of the oldest department stores and Lu had great delight in sifting through hundreds of handbags all reduced in price in the great SG May June and July sale. We moved on to Lucky World centre which is one of the centres the locals are more apt to go as prices are a little lower and some of the outlets sell, shall we say “genuine articles of doubtful provenance!” We had a little success here as Lu had forgotten to bring the cable which connects her camera to the laptop to download her photos. We managed to pick up a USB adaptor for the memory card to plug into which in turn fits the laptop and lets you download the images. Even haggled him down SG$10! More window shopping in the Paragon Centre and then caught a #123 bus (you can also catch 77, 106 or 177) from Orchard Boulevard to the Botanic Gardens on Napier Road and spent best part of 4 hours very slowly walking round. The Gardens have an orchid cloning unit used to propagate and grow hundreds of thousands of orchids for display in the gardens and also for retail. The Orchid is the most numerous varietal plant in the world with literally thousands of types being grown. The humidity seems to have increased and the sun is out and fearsome. We dodge around in the shade as much as possible and in and out of the air con parts of the gardens. Take a great walk through the orchid gardens again but have to cancel the walk to the visitor centre as it is too far to reach in this humidity and have to walk back. Next visit we will only see the parts not yet explored! Visited Swan Lake which I missed last time and watched in fascination as one swan washed and preened itself in the slightly murky waters just in front of the great swan statue in the middle of the lake. Also discovered a turtle swimming around with only 3 legs! We expected to watch him swimming in circles! We caught a bus #174a or 174 back to St Andrews Church, North Bridge Rd and walked back to the relative cool of our room.
This evening we took the MRT to the famous Newton food hawker centre at Newton Circus on the Bukit Timah Road. Modern hawker centres are the result of the SG authorities rounding up all the original street hawkers and relocating them in cleaner and more hygienic centres with running water, gas and electricity facilities. Whilst obviously safer for the customers it has lost some of its original authenticity, charm and to a degree atmosphere. Now of course it is still a dining experience not to be missed and a good meal can be had from SG$2.5 or 80pence a course! We had tom yam soup (mixed seafood of prawns, mussels, squid and cockles in a lemon grass and oyster flavour) cracked black pepper crab, fried rice, pak choi in oyster sauce and SG style Chinese spring roll. We followed with mixed fruit platter of pineapple, water melon, pau pau, lychee, mango, apple, guava, star fruit, melon for SG$6 or £2! The experience of eating here is al fresco style but being able to sit anywhere and order from a variety of units. Most of our food came from The Ocean BBQ at unit 16 which is on the outside of the triangular courtyard arrangement of Newton and next to the bus and car park.
By now it is almost 10.30pm (but the centre stays open until around 5am!) so we head back to our hotel. We decide to have a cold beer nightcap at the mini food centre 99. 2 tiger beers of 633ml or over a pint is SG$10 or £3.60. We drank al fresco again at street tables watching the world walk past and feeling the humidity rise! It’s now 1.00am and time for bed. Sentosa island tomorrow.
Labels: Bukit Timah Road, Ocean BBQ unit 16 Newton Circus Hawker Centre, Orchard road Singapore, Orchids, Peninsular and Exelsior Hotel singapore, Singapore Botanical Gardens, Tangs Department Store
28th May 2007 - Off we go, destination Singapore
It's our plane looking in the window at us!
Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th May
Collected Ludy and drove to Andy and Carol’s house. We left just after 1.00 pm for Heathrow and Singapore International Airlines flight SQ319 to Singapore. I had booked the flight on line direct with SIA for £506 each to Manila via Singapore. We arrived nice and early and had a lovely surprise to see Ate Tess And Ate Matilda were there to wave us off. We booked in straight away but no upgrades this time as Raffles and First Class both “fully booked”. Oh well no harm in trying. LHR is really quite a nightmare for flying out from now since the anti terrorist measures were introduced. We were quite lucky as there wasn’t too many passengers passing through but during very busy times it must take hours to be processed through Departure control. We queued for approx 30 mins just to get through x-ray machines and body searches, and then you are required to take your shoes off and they go through a separate x-ray machine! We walked down to Gate 31 to board the flight only to find that there were no more than about 200 pax on the flight! So when we took our seats we prayed no one was going to sit next to us….. And they didn’t, so we could spread out over the 4 seats and be a little more comfy for the 12½ hour flight. Who needs an upgrade anyway! Took off 30 mins late due to Air Traffic control and made our way up through the bleak, grey and wet London clouds tand headed East o the warmth of equatorial Singapore.
Pre dinner drinks trolley was rolled out and a tiny splash of red wine was taken by me and a Singapore gin Sling (or 2!) by Lu. We had a choice of menu for dinner, roasted beef fillets served with roasted vegetables and mashed potato or, roasted chicken in hoi-sin sauce with chicken flavoured fried rice and seasonal vegetables including pak choi or, fish vindaloo with mixed vegetables and pilao rice. Not bad for economy! Oh and they insisted we had wine with the meal and that it should be refilled very regularly. I tried to refuse but to no avail of course. Watched a couple of films including the new one, Zodiac with Jake Gyllenhall. Pretty good film actually, despite the constant interruptions to refill my wine glass . Lu gave up about 4 hrs into the flight and slept fitfully for about 6 hrs. Lucky her, I managed about 3. During the flight I got to talk to the senior flight supervisor, Loy Ying Hian about life with SIA. He has been flying with them for 15 years but said there are some flight attendants and pilots who have been with them for 30 or 40 years! The current average though for flight attendants is about 4 yrs. On the long haul flights such as LHR - Singapore or USA - Singapore they have a 50 hr stopover. By law they must have one night and one clear day before flying again and they always stay in very good hotels. No stories of wild parties or orgies though and I also asked if he had any funny experiences or stories from his flights but he remained inscrutable throughout. I suggested it must be quite boring for parts of the long haul flights, during, for instance the part where pax tend to sleep but he assured me that they have a variety of jobs to perform to ensure the comfort of their pax. They remove previous or unused meals from the galley and restock for the next meal, check, restock and clean the toilets, deal with pax needs or problems and prepare for the interim snack and drink rounds of the cabins. With SIA the crew, Captain and flight officers do eat the same food as the pax but 2nd officer always eats a different meal to Captain. The rest of the crew must have a reasonably balanced split between the menu choices too. However one very interesting fact emerged from our talk. SIA has a very strict No Upgrade Policy. They say they have a high proportion of regular Raffles passengers travelling in that class. So when they get full on a normally half full Raffles class flight they get annoyed that they have paid full price and travel regularly and we, the hoi poloi get upgraded for nothing! They only operate it when they have an overbooking problem in economy. They allow a certain percentage of overbooking of seats because the also have a problem with ‘No Show’ pax. Naturally it doesn’t always balance it self out. So they bump Raffles Class (equivalent to Business) pax to First Class where possible and economy to Raffles to free extra seats. But he said they always get complaints none the less.
Flight takes an extra 30 mins or so due to strong headwinds and we land at Changi Airport at 14.50 local time Tuesday 29th May. (I hate the “losing a day” effect of flying East) The airport is just as clean and full of orchids and plants as last time. We take the airport shuttle (still SG$7) to Peninsular Excelsior Hotel and in the shuttle get talking to the 2 girls travelling with us. One is going to stay at Sleepy Sam’s in Bussorah Street which, as those who have been paying attention to previous blog entries will know, I raved about last time. Must go back again on this trip, I know Lu will love it. The other lady is from Mauritius and of French extraction. She has a marvellous mix of French and Afrikaans to her accent which, hard to decipher at first but becomes rather melodic as you tune in and listen. She has just returned from Vietnam on a buying trip for local artefacts to sell back in Mauritius. She also has about 40 apartments which she rents to holidaymakers and the web address is here and also in the summary at the end of the blog trip. www.Oazure.com
Peninsular Exelsior hotel is right in centre on Coleman Street by North Bridge Road and Hill Street and very handy for City Hall MRT so we can go pretty much everywhere without too much unnecessary walking in this heat and humidity. Today it is around 29C and humidity 80%. The hotel have upgraded us to a superior room which is on the smoking floor as there are no rooms at all in the non smoking floors. They have loads of tour parties staying and they take whole floors together. Our room is quite big and comfy with a sofa, armchairs, coffee table, dining table and chairs and a huge queen size bed but the bathroom is in need of a make over and refurbish.
More about the hotel tomorrow when we’ve had a better chance to explore it. We showered and dressed in nice clean, fresh creased clothes and went off to visit Clarke Quay for dinner via the MRT. Bought a new MRT travel card which you charge with $15. We chose Clarke Quay Fish restaurant (yes I know, everybody knows I’m not too keen on fish) and had an interesting dinner. Lu chose sea bass (we had seen it 5 mins earlier swimming around a fish tank with its friends) with stir fried okra, barbecued and served with chef’s special lime and chilli sauce. We started with crab claw and seafood soup and deep fried baby squid in chilli sauce and sesame seeds. I ordered stir fried scallops with asparagus in oyster and ginger sauce and we shared seafood fried rice. For drinks, Lu had fresh squeezed lime and orange juice and I had local Special Brew beer. Total SG$140 plus taxes and svc charge SG$164 or £56. Oh and the sea bass was delicious. Walked along Clarke Quay to the reverse bungy jump in a ball and watched some poor victims shoot into the air and get thrown around and upside down until they went green! Great fun for the spectators! We walked back to the hotel which took only about 15 mins, had a quick drink and retired at 10.30 pm completely knackered! Woke up at 02.00, not sure why, and as couldn’t get back to sleep decided to write today’s blog.
Collected Ludy and drove to Andy and Carol’s house. We left just after 1.00 pm for Heathrow and Singapore International Airlines flight SQ319 to Singapore. I had booked the flight on line direct with SIA for £506 each to Manila via Singapore. We arrived nice and early and had a lovely surprise to see Ate Tess And Ate Matilda were there to wave us off. We booked in straight away but no upgrades this time as Raffles and First Class both “fully booked”. Oh well no harm in trying. LHR is really quite a nightmare for flying out from now since the anti terrorist measures were introduced. We were quite lucky as there wasn’t too many passengers passing through but during very busy times it must take hours to be processed through Departure control. We queued for approx 30 mins just to get through x-ray machines and body searches, and then you are required to take your shoes off and they go through a separate x-ray machine! We walked down to Gate 31 to board the flight only to find that there were no more than about 200 pax on the flight! So when we took our seats we prayed no one was going to sit next to us….. And they didn’t, so we could spread out over the 4 seats and be a little more comfy for the 12½ hour flight. Who needs an upgrade anyway! Took off 30 mins late due to Air Traffic control and made our way up through the bleak, grey and wet London clouds tand headed East o the warmth of equatorial Singapore.
Pre dinner drinks trolley was rolled out and a tiny splash of red wine was taken by me and a Singapore gin Sling (or 2!) by Lu. We had a choice of menu for dinner, roasted beef fillets served with roasted vegetables and mashed potato or, roasted chicken in hoi-sin sauce with chicken flavoured fried rice and seasonal vegetables including pak choi or, fish vindaloo with mixed vegetables and pilao rice. Not bad for economy! Oh and they insisted we had wine with the meal and that it should be refilled very regularly. I tried to refuse but to no avail of course. Watched a couple of films including the new one, Zodiac with Jake Gyllenhall. Pretty good film actually, despite the constant interruptions to refill my wine glass . Lu gave up about 4 hrs into the flight and slept fitfully for about 6 hrs. Lucky her, I managed about 3. During the flight I got to talk to the senior flight supervisor, Loy Ying Hian about life with SIA. He has been flying with them for 15 years but said there are some flight attendants and pilots who have been with them for 30 or 40 years! The current average though for flight attendants is about 4 yrs. On the long haul flights such as LHR - Singapore or USA - Singapore they have a 50 hr stopover. By law they must have one night and one clear day before flying again and they always stay in very good hotels. No stories of wild parties or orgies though and I also asked if he had any funny experiences or stories from his flights but he remained inscrutable throughout. I suggested it must be quite boring for parts of the long haul flights, during, for instance the part where pax tend to sleep but he assured me that they have a variety of jobs to perform to ensure the comfort of their pax. They remove previous or unused meals from the galley and restock for the next meal, check, restock and clean the toilets, deal with pax needs or problems and prepare for the interim snack and drink rounds of the cabins. With SIA the crew, Captain and flight officers do eat the same food as the pax but 2nd officer always eats a different meal to Captain. The rest of the crew must have a reasonably balanced split between the menu choices too. However one very interesting fact emerged from our talk. SIA has a very strict No Upgrade Policy. They say they have a high proportion of regular Raffles passengers travelling in that class. So when they get full on a normally half full Raffles class flight they get annoyed that they have paid full price and travel regularly and we, the hoi poloi get upgraded for nothing! They only operate it when they have an overbooking problem in economy. They allow a certain percentage of overbooking of seats because the also have a problem with ‘No Show’ pax. Naturally it doesn’t always balance it self out. So they bump Raffles Class (equivalent to Business) pax to First Class where possible and economy to Raffles to free extra seats. But he said they always get complaints none the less.
Flight takes an extra 30 mins or so due to strong headwinds and we land at Changi Airport at 14.50 local time Tuesday 29th May. (I hate the “losing a day” effect of flying East) The airport is just as clean and full of orchids and plants as last time. We take the airport shuttle (still SG$7) to Peninsular Excelsior Hotel and in the shuttle get talking to the 2 girls travelling with us. One is going to stay at Sleepy Sam’s in Bussorah Street which, as those who have been paying attention to previous blog entries will know, I raved about last time. Must go back again on this trip, I know Lu will love it. The other lady is from Mauritius and of French extraction. She has a marvellous mix of French and Afrikaans to her accent which, hard to decipher at first but becomes rather melodic as you tune in and listen. She has just returned from Vietnam on a buying trip for local artefacts to sell back in Mauritius. She also has about 40 apartments which she rents to holidaymakers and the web address is here and also in the summary at the end of the blog trip. www.Oazure.com
Peninsular Exelsior hotel is right in centre on Coleman Street by North Bridge Road and Hill Street and very handy for City Hall MRT so we can go pretty much everywhere without too much unnecessary walking in this heat and humidity. Today it is around 29C and humidity 80%. The hotel have upgraded us to a superior room which is on the smoking floor as there are no rooms at all in the non smoking floors. They have loads of tour parties staying and they take whole floors together. Our room is quite big and comfy with a sofa, armchairs, coffee table, dining table and chairs and a huge queen size bed but the bathroom is in need of a make over and refurbish.
More about the hotel tomorrow when we’ve had a better chance to explore it. We showered and dressed in nice clean, fresh creased clothes and went off to visit Clarke Quay for dinner via the MRT. Bought a new MRT travel card which you charge with $15. We chose Clarke Quay Fish restaurant (yes I know, everybody knows I’m not too keen on fish) and had an interesting dinner. Lu chose sea bass (we had seen it 5 mins earlier swimming around a fish tank with its friends) with stir fried okra, barbecued and served with chef’s special lime and chilli sauce. We started with crab claw and seafood soup and deep fried baby squid in chilli sauce and sesame seeds. I ordered stir fried scallops with asparagus in oyster and ginger sauce and we shared seafood fried rice. For drinks, Lu had fresh squeezed lime and orange juice and I had local Special Brew beer. Total SG$140 plus taxes and svc charge SG$164 or £56. Oh and the sea bass was delicious. Walked along Clarke Quay to the reverse bungy jump in a ball and watched some poor victims shoot into the air and get thrown around and upside down until they went green! Great fun for the spectators! We walked back to the hotel which took only about 15 mins, had a quick drink and retired at 10.30 pm completely knackered! Woke up at 02.00, not sure why, and as couldn’t get back to sleep decided to write today’s blog.
Labels: Bussorah Street, Clarke Quay, Desmond22, Peninsular and Exelsior Hotel singapore, Raffles Class, Singapore Airlines, Sleepy Sam's
