exploring Singapore

We got up early and went for a walk up the hill in Canning Park, which is just behind the hotel.

Canning Park

from Canning Park

aerial roots

museum

Gardens on the Bay from Singapore Flyer

 

We then found an arcade below street opposite the hotel for tea and rice buns. Denise went back for breakfast while we found out about the hop on buses nearby.
Our first bus took us right out to the Botanic Gardens and through the diplomatic area. We got off at the Singapore Flyer which was also free on our stopover package and had an earlyish morning ride above the city. This was really good with views out to the ships lying at anchor, apartment blocks, Gardens on the Bay and where we had walked the previous night.
We checked out of our room at midday and left our luggage, returning to the buses to go to Chinatown for lunch, then on to Little India where we got off and walked along Serangoon road, taking the next bus back on the circuit to the Art Gallery by 4pm.
Despite having free entry, it took quite a while to sort our tickets then we had a rather rushed look at a colonial exhibition.
The airport bus picked us up at the hotel at 5 pm and we met Liz, Mike and Neil at the departure lounge a couple of hours later.
The flight to Kolkata was SilkAir, which is not as good as Singapore Airlines in the same timeslot on other days of the week.

To Singapore

Next morning we were up at 5 and off to the airport parking to leave the car for Em a couple of days later. We were travelling with handbag, backpack and trolley case.

A hard boiled egg at the airport and smooth departure. We were in a centre row of 3 seats near the back.

I watched a movie The Man who knew Infinity, which I enjoyed. [In 1913, Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel), a self-taught Indian mathematics genius, traveled to Trinity College, Cambridge, where over the course of five years, forged a bond with his mentor, the brilliant and eccentric professor, G.H. (Jeremy Irons)]

We found the Stopover counter, got some S$50 and took the stopover bus in to our hotel at Peninsula Excelsior.

Once settled in, we headed out for a walk, past the church, Art Gallery and Supreme Court, along the promenade to the river, upstream along the boat quay, over the bridge then down Marina Promenade with restaurants opening. Eventually we found Makansutra, the food market and enjoyed some outdoor food. On the way back to the hotel we took a couple of underground routes, the second one leading to the metro and a maze of shops which took us away from our destination to where we had first gone down.

Day 1 Monday

The Indian monetary crisis was announced on the Wednesday preceding our departure, so we took $1000 in cash as well as our loaded Citybank card.

We collected Denise and drove down to Brisbane arriving before 4 pm in time for coffee and a walk along to Tennyson. It was the first practice for the Womens Lions AFL team at Yeronga so we left her at the flat and walked down to meet Jim there. Then we all had dinner at Yeronga Thai. It was a lovely Brisbane evening - not too hot. Emily was away in Sydney and we had the Forester as it had just been serviced in Toowoomba.

An unexpected opportunity

After our trip to Europe in late 2014, we could not decide on where to go next. So many places to see. So 2016 was a stay in Oz year until we got an email from Liz in September offering an Indian adventure which ticked so many boxes [small group, moderate price, Himalayan foothills, revisit Kolkata and Kalimpong, walking, farms, villages, homestays] that we jumped in. It nearly failed to go due to lack of numbers but we offered to split and share with a friend of theirs and Denise from our walking group, making 6 of us.
We also grabbed the opportunity for a 30 hour stopover in Singapore as we had only spent a few hours previously outside the airport.