The Adventure Begins!

Tuesday 16th  August
After a rather fraught few hours we managed to complete our packing and storage of our house contents and the car, and make it on time to the train to London at 12.15. We realised we have far too much luggage when we had to drag it around stations and hump it up and down stairs. From Euston we made our way to a hotel near Heathrow. Here, what looked like the work of the malevolent pixie became evident when we tried on-line check in and discovered my first name was Noramrs and his was paulmr. In something of a panic, we took a trip to the airport, where they assured us it was not the malevolent pixie but the bug in the machine, and it would not matter.

Wednesday 17th August
What can I say about a day spent in a plane? The food, surprisingly, was quite nice, and the baby across the aisle screamed and shrieked for most of the 11 hour flight. When we arrived, it was the next day.

Thursday 18th August
In the early morning, Singapore was quite cool. It didn't last! We took the airport shuttle right to our hotel, which is very central, right by the river which is now the fashionable district. The drive in, in an air-conditioned minibus, was quite beautiful, the wide roads ablaze with bougainvillea at this time of year and everything very clean, neat and fresh. Goodness, how Singapore has changed, even I noticed it and I was here only 12 years ago. There are new developments wherever you look. The river has changed from an open sewer to a fashionable and rather expensive tourist area.

We took an electric bum-boat (a rescued real old-time boat) along the river to admire the old warehouses and 'shophouses' which have been carefully conserved and turned into expensive restaurants or fashionable apartments. They are overlooked by enormous skyscrapers - offices or frighteningly expensive apartments.

At the harbour entrance, one skyscraper complex consists of 3 enormous buildings supporting a 2 acre 'sky garden' spanning all 3 of the buildings.

After our river trip and a quick lunch, we paid a visit to the Asian Civilisation Museum, which was very fascinating and which we enjoyed. However, jet-lag caught up and I found Paul fast asleep on a seat with his head resting on one of the interactive displays. So we went back to the hotel for a shower and a sleep.

For supper, we wandered along the river admiring the displays of lights to Chinatown where we found an excellent collection of food stalls. The we went from the gor blimey to the sublime, so to speak, by visiting the Raffles hotel and wandering through the courtyard - very picturesque. We took in the air-conditioned Raffles City Shopping Mall on the way (it is very hot here, air-conditioning is very welcome) the Padang, which was being set up for a cricket match, and a couple of historic gleaming white churches.