On The Sea Again, I Just Can't Wait To Get On The Sea Again

Singapore - Special Concrete Edition

Well, this post is probably most meant for our son, Matt, the Guru of Concrete. But, I decided to share it with you all. There is much so-called government housing in Singapore. These are large apartment blocks that, as I understand, the citizens of Singapore can acquire with a 99 year lease at reasonable terms. As we walked to Arab Street this morning, we passed a new construction project where it seemed they were pouring the foundation concrete. There must have been over thirty concrete mixers queued up!

Matt, there may be an opportunity for you here!

Peace and blessings,

Dad

Singapore Day Two

The day two objective turned into a visit to the Gardens By The Bay. We had seen a poster on the Metro indicating that there was a cherry blossom show underway. Another failed attempt to book the viewing platform and then we were off (more on that later). By then we were pros at riding the Metro and we easily made our way to the Gardens (okay, it was at the same stop as the night before). The Gardens consists of 2 large structures - the Flower Garden and the Cloud Forest. And, yes, they are indoors which is so welcome in the Singapore heat and humidity. We started in the Flower Garden and the cherry blossoms. Again, I'll spare you the way too many pics.

We then headed over to the Cloud Forest.

There was also an orchid section there.

By the time we completed the Cloud Forest, it was time to head back to our hotel where Gina and Jim were picking us up for lunch. They took us to the Singapore Cricket Club. It was such a nice lunch and such a good time catching up with them. And, it was time for my first Singapore Sling.

The SCC is a nice, old facility but just be warned - wear pants. We were banished to the outside since we were wearing shorts, which wasn't so bad. Gina and Jim had suggested that we go to the Gardens By The Bay after lunch but, since we were there that morning, it was time for Plan B. When I told him about our failed attempt to book the observation platform, Jim came up with the hack that you should be aware of if you visit Singapore. There is the Ce La Vie Sky Bar on the 57th floor of one of the towers. The fee to go up there is about the same as the ticket price for the platform - and, the fee becomes a voucher to use for food and drinks! It opens at 4:00 pm and that is exactly when we arrived. The elevator whisked us up the 57 floors (in less time than our elevator at home takes us up 4 floors!) and there we were - just in time for my second Singapore Sling.

And, guess what? The views are great though maybe you don't get the clear views you had from the viewing platform, but no one cared.

You can see the Gardens By The Bay structures in this pic.

And, as a bonus, we got to watch the Oceania Riviera sail by as she left Singapore.

It was a great afternoon, but we weren't finished. Gina and Jim then took us to their condo where we visited some more and then went for dinner at a food court by the beach.

After dinner, they drove us back to our hotel. It was just a wonderful visit with them. Linda and Gina had bonded on the ship ten years ago and we had some good times on that cruise. But, you have to wonder. After ten years will things be different? That's a resounding no. We just thoroughly enjoyed our day together and look forward to doing it again. We hope it won't be another 10 years.

Stay tuned for Day Three.

Peace and blessing,

Linda and Larry

Singapore Day One

We're wrapping up our three days in Singapore after leaving the ship. It's been a busy three days, so I'll break it up into three blog postings (plus a special edition). I'll just say here that we had great time in Singapore after a rough start.

Okay, let's get the rough start out of the way. We had registered to leave the ship at 8:30. Apparently there were big delays getting people through Passport Control so we were not able to leave until 9:30. Not a big deal until we got into the terminal and joined the still long queue for Passport Control. After finally making it through, the real chaos began. Normally, the luggage is placed nice and orderly by color and number code. And, normally it's in a big room. Not that day. The luggage was scattered in a small space and the port ground crew brought the luggage out in the wrong order.

As a result, we did not get out of the terminal until 10:30. The good news was that we did not have a flight to catch and our room with a good view was ready when we got to the Hilton Garden Inn.

We had three ideas of what we wanted to do in Singapore. First, visit the Botanical Gardens and National Orchid Garden. We visited it 10 years ago. Second, we wanted to go to the Sky Park atop the Mairina Bay Sands. The Marina Bay Sands is an incredible structure - three 57-story hotel towers topped by a platform shaped like a ship - see the photo at the top. And third, visit with our friends Gina and Jim who we had met on a cruise 10 years ago. Unfortunately, Linda came down with a cold on the last day of the cruise so, the first order of business at the hotel was a bit of a rest. That was okay since it rained while we rested! And then it was time for lunch. Our hotel is in the Little India area of Singapore. Yes, we had to eat Indian food. We walked through the interesting streets to a small restaurant that served biryani. Their biryani has mutton in it so they made us a vegetarian dish with rice. Really tasty and all for the whopping price of 7 Singapore Dollars (or about $5.30).

After lunch it was time for another nap. We tried to book tickets to the observation platform on top of the Marina Bay Sands. Let's just say they had difficulty processing our U.S. credit cards. We then decided we would go to the hotel to have dinner and watch the Light and Water Show. It was time to navigate the Singapore Metro System. The first challenge was to figure out how to pay the fare, A security person helped us and it turned out to be so easy. Just tap a credit card to enter and tap it again to exit. No tickets to deal with. We negotiated the passages to find the correct train and took the 4 stop ride.