Singapore (GMT +8)

I had a really great Saturday 13 in Singapore! The 2 preceding photo blogs relate to this post....

Got up early - I'm nearly acclimated to the time change - and went to the gym for 30mins on the bike. Came back to the room, got cleaned up, went down to breakfast on the 8th floor where the Alligator Pear restaurant is co-located with the pool and had a very nice breakfast.

Back up stairs to pick up my camera and off I went on my first walking tour of the Bay Marina.

Walked past the War Memorial, a very tall, white, sky piercing monument on the way towards the Marina. Along the way I noticed an old Asian man starting to match my stride and path. He eventually saddled up to me and started a conversation - innocent one enough. :-)  I immediately 'sessed that he was going to tag along, all the way offering up information about Singapore, while just chatting me up. 

I was initially a bit irritated but, as we walked and talked, started to enjoy having someone, anyone, to talk to. Turns out he, Lew, was a native Singaporan senior citizen, 74 yrs old, and he'd been put out to pasture by the government and was living in a senior living home... he broke out his credentials to show them to me. Anyway, as we walked he told me alot about the growth of Singapore over the course of his life that included WWII, when he was a young boy in Singapore to current day. Along the way he pointed out some of the most prominent landmarks to me including the Fullerton Hotel - which is one of the few structures I recall from 25 years ago when I first and last visited Singapore while assigned to the USS Independence, CV-62, and VF-32 Swordsmen as a nugget - Merlion Park on the Marina and many of the other, newer structures around the Marina.

Everything is so built up now that I don't remember much from 25 years ago. I don't remember the current 'Marina' being so landlocked. Back in the day, you could easily see the carrier anchored out in the bay and we had a short p-boat ride into the marina to be dropped off right by the Fullerton Hotel.

Anyway, Lew struck with me up to the stadium seating near the helix bridge leading up to the casino and Marina Bay Sands Hotel (still a ton of construction going on at the base of the 3 towered complex). I took his picture, thanked him for the company, and threw him $12SG to go have some lunch. We parted on very amicable terms. I enjoyed talking with him. :-)

Continued around the stadium event seating area - it was roped off - and headed over to the entrance to the helix taking photos all along the way.  Decided to return to the Sands hotel later that day and headed under the new road bridge over to the Singapore Flyer ferris wheel.

The Singapore Flyer is huge, over 162m tall, and makes a revolution once every 30mins. They offer 4 basic packages on rides: a basic ride; a ride with cocktails; a ride with Moet & Chandon champagne, and; a full dinner event. There's some shopping at the base of the wheel and several vendors that offer packaged tours of Singapore including waterboat, bus and walking tours. There's even a mini-rain forest right underneath the wheel. 

Walked around found a gelato vendor nearby, bought a double scoop - chocolate and blood orange gelato - and sat down to enjoy it before it melted.  From there walked towards the start of Raffles Blvd (Raffles is the family name of the folks that actually put Singapore on the map to become the shipping and financial powerhouse that it is today), made a left onto the blvd to head back to the hotel. Saw a couple of the WWII Duck boats pass by along the way.  Also found a Singapore Flyer demo condola along the way that was configured for the dinner package.  Looked pretty cool, elegant and fun.

Raffles boulevard is lined with a myriad of shopping and large hotel resorts. About halfway back to the Fairmont, I pulled into an Irish Pub, Durty Nelly's, for a cold frothy one - a kilkenny's - just to take the edge off the heat and humidity. A pint went for $12SG. Finished up and continued my walk back to the hotel.

I got to an intersection that didn't appear to have a way to cross over? Looked around and found a means to go underground into the subway system or just walk to which ever side of the street I was trying to get to - lots of escalators to the various underground levels... there's a whole underground air conditioned shopping, food vendor environment not just where I was but all across the city from what I can tell. Started walking towards signs for Raffles Hotel.

I saw a place that did express haircuts, EC House, along the way and popped in. I needed a trim. 2 women greeted me, said yes, they could cut my hair but first, I had to buy a $10SG ticket from a machine in the room... strange, but I did and they bustled me into a chair.  I apologized for sweating and making the cut more difficult, wiped down with a pro-offered towel, and my stylist began cutting with a #1 attachment. They spoke English but trying to convey to them what I was hoping they'd do to my head was too hard so, I just let her cut my remaining hair evenly short. Worked out fine. The best part of the haircut... the high suction vacuum she used 2x on my head to suck up hair. Felt great and very cooling! :-)

Departed a much happier bald man and continued my walk back up the nearby escalators onto the streets above. Decided to make a quick detour to check out the Raffles Hotel and snap some photos. Samantha Brown of the Travel Channel stayed at this fixture of Singapore and enjoyed the stay quite a bit. It's quite the large, not too many floored, complex too. Did a high speed, low pass through the hotel and made my way back to the adjacent Fairmont.

Time of return right at 1300 local. Went back up my room to relax, showed again and just planned on chilling until 1600ish when I was going to go back out to hit the Sky Park atop the Marina Bay Sands.  Right at 1630 my friend and colleague, Roy, called and said he'd just arrived in Singapore was in the hotel and what was I doing?

So, headed back out with a running mate for my second foray into the Marina area of Singapore. Was great having a buddy to tour around with and just chat and hang out. We made our way over to the Marina Bay Sands. Figured out, after asking some of the help, that we needed to traverse via underground access over from the casino shopping side of things over to the hotel and from there we could buy our $20SG tickets to take the life up Tower 3 to the Sky Park observation platform 56 floors above our head. Did that.

It was very cool being that far up and looking around city and island that Singapore is. I did have some tingly feet but, got over it after about 10mins and enjoyed our 45mins walking from 1 side to the other taking photos and videos all along the way. Roy was getting peckish, as was I, and we headed back down to ask for directions to a good Indian restaurant for dinner.

Turns out there's a good restaurant in the nearby Pan Pacific hotel off of Raffles Blvd so, we cabbed it there instead of sweating it there. The restaurant, Rang Mahal, was quite good but, very pricey. We each had 2 Tiger beers, split a samosa appetizer, 2 main courses, split a bowl of saffron rice and 2 orders of Nan bread for $196SG - for Indian food! It was quite tasty but, we definitely paid a premium for the location, service and tourist mark-up.

Strolled back to the Fairmont and finally called it a day.

On Sunday, spent most of the afternoon and evening with my Singapore colleague and host, Gene, and his wife, Rena.  Really went out of their way treating me to a long, unhurried late lunch at a traditional dim sum Chinese restaurant called Pa Dang's (too much food... 14 separate delicacies), and then out at a karaoke bar for too many beers with him and a bunch of his friends. Had a great time but didn't get back to my room until around midnight! Got a long work day on Monday! Hey, if you're out hooting with the owls, better be ready to soar with the Eagles the next day! :-)  Think 'tak-san misu' and tylenol!

May be my last blog for a few days... I need to focus on my tasks here in APJ.

Later!