We took the ‘bus to London’ - that is jumped on the V-line bus in Mansfield headed for Melbourne where a friend collected us from Southern Cross Station. Rob took us home for lunch and on to the airport for our late afternoon flight out of Melbourne.
We decided to fly Singapore Airlines this time as we didn’t fancy flying with QANTAS through Dubai. So after flying with QANTAS since our world travels began in 1975, they have lost us as passengers. Our flight was on an A380 upstairs, still in economy alas, however with only 60 passengers in our section the experience was great. We were just two seats together so no leaping over anyone else plus great legroom and a sizeable storage compartment next to the window.
The staff were excellent and the food fantastic. Couldn’t fault any of it. We also changed hotels in Singapore this time. We’d stayed several times at the Swisse Hotel, the Stamford, but booked into the PanPacific Hotel near the SunTec Exhibition Centre, still quite central on Marina Bay. This change also proved to be a good decision.
The room, on the 21st floor had great views, was clean, comfortable and the staff pleasant and efficient. Breakfast was awesome. Big buffet. Didn’t need lunch and in fact had dinner at 9 pm!
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| The Pan Pacific is very stylish offering every luxury, great facilities. |
The weather in Singapore this trip was sunny and amazingly not humid. It was like a spring day in Melbourne - very pleasant. We still took taxis wherever we wanted to go though. They are quick, sometimes too quick, cheap and clean.
The night views from our hotel were wonderful from the Singapore Flyer to our left past the Marina Bay Sands Hotel with the ‘ship’ on the top and around to the city buildings.
We had arrived on Chinese New Year’s eve. It’s the Year of the Horse and the locals were up for a big celebration. Lots of decorations and relaxed locals. We headed for Chinatown where there was lots of colour especially hundreds of larger than life horses ‘galloping’ along New Bridge Rd. These had been constructed by many Chinese artisans brought to Singapore for the occasion.
We decided to hold off on a trip on the Singapore Flyer till our return visit as I was a bit keen to visit the SEA Aquarium. The only drawback is that it is located on Sentosa Island. This has to be the tackiest tourist attraction on earth. However there are a couple of really well worthwhile points of interest including the aquarium - not to be confused with Singapore Undersea World - also on Sentosa. Even our taxi driver took us to the wrong spot on the island and we had to catch a shuttle bus to the right place.
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| The striking lines of the Singapore Flyer |
The aquarium was stunning - the largest in the world according to the Guiness Book of Records. We took way too many photos so just flick past them fi you’re not interested. The most amazing thing was a huge Reef Manta Ray which looked like a B52 Bomber!
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| The magnificent Reef Manta Ray which circled under escort |
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| Two divers cleaning the walls of the aquarium |
After two nights in Singapore we had to leave and were surprised to find at the airport a butterfly house and koi pond. The butterflies were beautiful and the fish were huge. We’d call them carp and knock them on the head!!
Next stop London!
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