The Singapore Fling

Day 0 – A very un-eventful day transit after saying farewell to the Bennetts, Mansfields and Felicty and Jan at Sydney Airport. A day of travelling ended with us checking into Studio M apartments in Singapore, dinner and the Manchester derby just around the corner at “Stacked” bar for some dim sum. Two pieces of advice for those playing along at home, If you ever get the chance to fly on the A380s, do it, they are awesome, and, never pay for transfers in Singapore, cabs are way too cheap to bother!

Relaxing at Studio M

Day 1 – Not wanting to waste time on the first day of our trip we arose early to make the most of the day. Unfortunately it started with the sad news of Katrina’s grand father passing away and our thoughts were (and still are) definitely back in Kotara with the extended Mansfield family on this morning. Breakfast at the café at studio M provided a French style coffee and bread to get us on our way and this would become a stable for the next 3 days. On beginning our walk down the River we realised that our attempt to start early was most probably wasted as like a lot of Asian cultures it’s a start late finish late attitude with not much open before 10. By the time we’d walked the length of the River, down to the now famous, Marina Bay Sands we were exhausted in the stifling heat and humidity. Deciding to eat like the locals we wandered down to Chinatown for some ‘Chicken and Rice’ at the Maxwell Food Markets Hawkers centre. Got to say, the food was awesome, the chilli was hot and at 3.50 SGD for a meal, un beatable value that I don’t think will get repeated for the remainder of this trip! After the sapping heat it was nice to spend the afternoon by the pool at the hotel before meeting Katrina’s (ex-)work colleague, Simone Stokes, out in the ‘burbs’ for some local chilli crab and fish head soup.

Chicken and Rice from the Maxwell Hawker's centre

Katrina at Marina Bay Sands

Day 2 – Was our big day and probably too much given the heat and humidity. We went to Santosa Island to sample the (kids) activities. The cable car over to the island is an impressive view, a few Queenstown inspired luge trips down the hill to the beach and an ill informed attempt at riding a stationary wave at the FLO-RIDER resulting in a few too many bumps and bruises which we are both still paying for. The afternoon was much more relaxing with cocktails of the day, satay sticks and chips on the menu by the beach at Santosa. From there it was on to enjoy the view from Marina Bay Sands. Some handy advice from Simone meant that we waved the 20 SGD fee to get up the top by giving the commitment to have a cocktail at Ku-De-ta. Of course the cocktails are 20 SGD a pop, but hey you get the view and the drink, rather than just the view! We must say it is an impressive view of the city and a great place to watch the sunset and enjoy a drink, albeit a very expensive one. From there it was off to the famous Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo, intermittent rain had increased the humidity from 110%, to 10000000%... Our advice is to just leave it at the Tram ride, the walking trails at the end of an already massive day proving way too much! By the time we got back to the city we only had the energy for a late Indian dinner on Deephavali eve, which was awesome food at Clarke Quay.

On the cable car to Santosa

Luge - Santosa Style

Sky Ride back up from bottom of Luge

The infamous FLORIDER in action!

Cocktails at top of Marina Bay Sands, Ku De Ta

The Fullerton as viewed from Ku De Ta

Day 3 – Our final day was rewarded with a sleep in and a late check out in the knowledge that out flight was not until 1am the next morning. Heading up to Orchard Road to do some window shopping was made more difficult by on-going intermittent rain all day. Giving up on the shopping idea when we have no room to pack anything we headed to the Newton Circus Hawkers market late in the afternoon. We got there at opening and it was pretty much just the shop owners cooking themselves dinner. Can confirm that it is the tourist Hawkers centre with prices being more than the Maxwell and the food no better! Off to Raffles for the very tourist driven Singapore Sling, whilst the free peanuts is a nice touch, the shells on the floor doesn’t really make sense when it’s a tile floor (Katrina reliably tells me that the tradition comes from having wooden floors which enjoy the oil that the peanut shells release when crushed into the floor). With big plans of going out for another drink at one of the rooftop bars before leaving shelved due to FLORIDER based injuries we retired back to Studio M for some drinks and dinner before heading to the airport to check in early and try the ‘we’re on our honeymoon’ for a free upgrade trick. It didn’t work and after enjoying some remedial massage we boarded our 12 and a half hour flight to Zurich early on Day 4.

Singapore Sling??

Day 4 – Still on-going and the location of composition of this blog here in Athens still in transit! The flight to Zurich turned out to be great, with not only Singapore Airlines changing their movies in the last 3 days, but a low attendance on an A380 meaning Katrina and I got three seats each and managed to fit in some serious sleep. A quick hop on Swiss Air to Athens (two hours) and arrived early for our flight to Santorini. Excited by the prospect of the 15:00 flight instead of the 17:45 flight, this was soon quashed by the friendly ladies at Olympic Air informing us it would be at extra 132 EUR for that particular pleasure. Not all bad though, sitting here at “The Olive Tree” (definitely named for the tourists) enjoying a salad, coffee and some wireless inter web. A few days of real Honeymooning ahead for us relaxing on a Greek island, hopefully hovering around the 20 degC mark. Can’t wait!

All our Love, Mark and Katrina

(click on photos to view full size :) :) )