Matt and Lisa's Adventures

19 January 2023

Short day today, only 17 rather than 24 hours as we were in transit from Paris to Singapore. 

After arriving in Singapore we grabbed a ride share to the hotel. No Uber in Singapore so had to use the local Grab app instead. Hotel is nice and room is a surprisingly decent size for Singapore. We then headed out for a wander amongst the malls. Lisa was ecstatic at finding a Uniqlo but it turned out I was the one making purchases there. 

We had a beer at a nice place on a busy corner but it was incredibly expensive, so just the one beer there. Lisa filled up on the free nuts they provided, amateur mistake. We had dinner at a food court like area, Lisa just had chips due to the nuts and I had fried rice with pork cutlet with was simple but delicious. Then back to the hotel and to bed at a reasonable hour. 

20 January 2023

We both had a pretty good sleep considering the flight yesterday and change of time zones. Breakfast was in the hotel as it came with the room and we choose the hotel because it came with breakfast. It was ok but not as good as the breakfast at my last hotel in Singapore. I had eggs and sausages then some fruit. Lisa had two pieces of toast with jam, which she could have just had at home anytime… But at least it was proper bread for once and didn’t require cracking it with a rock like French bread. 

We decided to use the hop on hop off bus to give us an overview of the city. Thankfully there was a stop just outside our hotel and a bus was arriving just as we went out. Unfortunately the weather did not align well with the open air double decker bus. We  had intermittent rain through out the day – sometimes quite cold and brutal. On the first leg we had plastic ponchos which were good and some buses had covered areas but others were a disaster. Thankfully it was warm so things did dry out eventually. 

We started with a full loop of the yellow route. This took us along Orchard road, through Marina Bay and out to the botanical gardens. We then tried to switch to the red line but made a mistake and had to do half the yellow line again. Once on the red line we stopped for lunch in Chinatown and had some Thai food and a walk around. We continued on the route to little India before another walk. 

Everything in the city at the moment is for the lunar new year and we saw lots of lights, signs and displays. It is the year of the rabbit which doesn’t seem particularly intimidating and scary, but I guess it can’t all be exciting years. 

We caught the bus back to city hall and then walked back to our hotel up Orchard road. Then had a shower because it had felt damp all day. 

We caught the MRT (metro) down to Marina bay and watched the lights, laser and fountain show at 8pm. I saw it last time from on a boat so it was different to see it this time from the shore. It went for about fifteen minutes and is very impressive. However, 15 minutes is plenty long enough. We then headed back to a mall near our hotel and by this stage it was 9pm and Lisa was getting hangry. Before she went apocalyptic I found a Japanese place and we had pork on rice which was nice, but, like everything in Singapore, was very expensive. 

21 January 2023

We both had very poor sleeps and were awake for a large chunk of the night. We were eventually woken by the alarm I had set so that we didn’t miss breakfast. I wasn’t feeling the greatest with the jet lag hitting me and so I had a quiet hour while Lisa went for a walk through the malls. She found the flagship Uniqlo store, which made her the most happy I had ever seen her!

After checking out of the hotel we wandered through some more malls. Lisa was looking for some Disney stuff for Emily and we finally found something acceptable at the Singapore version of Myer. We found a food court for lunch.

We then caught the MRT to gardens by the bay. It was very hot and sticky. We had umbrellas because the forecast indicated rain but that never arrived. We wandered about and saw the giant trees. As it was hot (and Lisa likes checking out foreign McDonald’s) we had a sundae. Then it was further walking back to the MRT and then onto the hotel. 

We picked up our baggage and headed to the airport. Thankfully I had my gold status on air New Zealand and so we had a shower and some food/drink in the lounge.