Slinging through Singapore

After an uneventful flight we arrived in Singapore. It’s been many years since we have been here, but we have fond memories of the place. As modern cities go, it is about as good as it gets, with excellent public infrastructure. From what I could see near our hotel, they are actually reclaiming sections of freeway for public use in terms of apartments, parks and pedestrian access. This, I would argue, is how you make a place liveable, with extensive and relatively cheap public transport and fewer roads. Hopefully we can learn from this ourselves!

Before I go much further on this point, I have been reminded by Christine that our blog is not a place to push my political, ideological, or philosophical agenda’s. No promises, none whatsoever, but I will do my best!

We spent most of our first day exploring the Singapore Botanical Gardens. It is a UNESCO heritage site, and with good reason. It is acres of sprawling parkland with a variety of plants that put most of our botanic gardens to shame. Our favourite part was the National Orchid Garden with thousands of, you guessed it, orchids. I never really understood the fascination, people devoting their whole lives to breeding different varieties, but now I think I get it. Some of them are breath taking, with intricate structures that make some of them look like miniature engines, and colours of such depth - like a red, red mustard - that our phone cameras simply couldn’t do them justice. We spent an hour of two in this part alone, and you could spend days looking at them. My favourite was the moth orchid, a magnificent hanging variety of brilliant white. 

From here we travelled into the city and the harbour area. It was quite muggy, so we escaped inside the Bayside shopping precinct to look at $1500 Guccci sneakers (I am sticking with my $30 Target’s) and marvel at the scale of things (as well as the cost of things – a couple of coffee’s and a cake set us back nearly $50 Australian). The Singapore skyline continually expands and they currently doing an $8 billion dollar expansion to the Marina area. To do this they have to reclaim some of the harbour, via the expedient of building a massive dam and then draining it so they can begin construction. A very impressive feat of engineering.

Our plane did not leave until nearly 11PM the following day, so we spent some time wandering about the city and eventually ended up at Raffles for the obligatory cocktails. In order to ensure that our funds cover this trip, we have hit upon a unique strategy for enjoying some of the world’s great hotels, like the Fullerton and Raffles. Rather than stay there, we just hang out in the foyers. This way we can soak up the ambience, and act like we belong before security ask us to move on!