Kobus & Teresa In India: It's all about Singapore!

Let me start by saying Happy New Year to all! We hope that 2011 would be a great year for all.

Singapore was even better than we hoped it would be, from the minute we arrived at the airport to the time we got home. Singapore itself is extremely clean, safe and just a fun place to be. We arrived in Singapore early Thursday morning, got to the hotel at about 8:30am hoping to be able to check in early. We were greeted by friendly staff that tried their best to accommodate us from the beginning. We wanted a room on the river side but that would have only been available later the afternoon. They then booked us in another room until later that day until a room with a better view was available. This allowed us to shower and catch up on some sleep after spending the whole night at airports and on the airplane.

We got our room at 2pm and took to the streets straight after settling into the new room. We walked from one mall to the other until we arrived at the Singapore Flyer. We arrived there just before sunset and by the time we got our tickets and stood in line it was dark. Our planning worked out great since we wanted to ride on it just after sunset. The whole ride takes about 30min and gives you some very nice views of the city. From there we just took a nice stroll back to Clarke Qauy where we had a lite dinner and headed back to the hotel for a nights rest. Not that I slept much, we went to bed at about midnight and I got up at 4am staring at the view and taking pictures.

Friday started off nice and early, we had breakfast in the lounge and left for Chinatown. We were a little stiff from the Thursday afternoon walk, we did around 7-8 km's. We walked down to Chinatown but not to much was going on before 10am. After walking through all the little side streets we took the train to Orchard Street. It is something similar to 5th Ave in New York, with lots of big brand name shops and fancy malls. There we had a nice lunch at a Swiss themed restaurant. We walked around a little more and got back to the hotel at about 3pm where we just relaxed some before the evening activities. Since we stayed in one of the Priemier floor rooms we got invited to spend the evening in the Premier Floor Lounge where drinks and snacks was provided. They had the perfect view from there of all the celebrations outside.

We slept a little later on Saturday and had a slow start to the morning. After a lite breakfast we took a train down to Harbour Front and from there the Monorail over to Santosa Island. It is a small island with lots of attractions and things to do. Universal Studios is also on Santosa Island but we decided not to go there, we would rather spend the time doing something else in Singapore and visit Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. We just walked along the Island and went to Fort Siloso, an old British Fort they used during WWII. They lost and surrendered to Japan but got the island back after Japan lost the war. It started raining really hard just as we finished our tour and took the island bus back to the Monorail. It rained the whole afternoon and we just took a train ride along a big part of Singapore to see more of the country rather than just the city. We went to a Scottish Pub for dinner where Teresa had a steak and I enjoyed some bangers and mash. After tasting the steak Teresa had I was a little disappointed that I also did not get a steak, it was good!

Sunday morning we had a late breakfast and went down to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel where we went up to the viewing area. We got back to the hotel and relaxed until we had to check out, luckily they allowed us a late check out and we did not have to spend too much time at the airport. Not that we would have minded after we saw everything that there is to do, with lots of shops and an entertainment area that includes a movie theater. Our flight back to India was uneventful and immigration was a breeze, we were the only flight that time of night and it took us 20 min from landing till our driver picked us up. It beats the 2 hours it took us the first time we arrived in India.

I will post some pictures we took with the two cameras but there was to much to post on here. I will try and put most of them up on www.flickr.com later this week and will post a link up on next week's blog. That is for you that is not on my Facebook. For those on Facebook, be on the lookout for some more pictures soon!