Singapore - 2010

Our main holiday in 2010 was to Singapore and Australia. First stop Singapore for a couple of nights before flying down to Brisbane to stay with Rhondda, then Melbourne to stay with Hillie and Dave before taking ourselves off from Melbourne to Sydney, stopping at various places en route. As with earlier years, we've split the pages to make it easier to load them in.

Singapore

Brisbane & Melbourne

Metung & Tilba Tilba

Jervis Bay & Sydney

So, Singapore first of all.

We chose Singapore for our stopover as it's somewhere we'd not been before. The weather was, as predicted, very hot and sticky but not unbearable. Being tropical, the plant life is lush and abundant. We stayed at the Shangri La Hotel - in the Garden Wing - so had pretty good views from our balcony and our front door.

We arrived early evening and the pool beckoned so off we went for a play before tea. It was lovely and warm.

We've split this page into two to reflect the two days we were in Singapore in case you want to skip straight to one or the other:

Botanic Gardens

City Tour

hotel
View from Balcony

hotel
View from front door

After what must be one of the best hotel breakfasts we've ever had, we braved the sticky heat!

The Botanic Gardens had come highly recommended so we spent the first morning / early afternoon strolling around with our cameras. The gardens are very pretty and an oasis away from the busyness of the city.

birdofparadise
view
butterfly
redbug
Plenty of flying things around, most of which were far too fast for me and my camera!
dragonfly
cricket
view
view

canna

dove
fern
lily
ginger
There was a Ginger Garden - lots of different types of ginger plants but they all seemed to be pretty bright.
ginger
lake
swan
This lake is called Swan Lake. There were swans on it and there was also a sculpture of flying swans.
swan sculpture
red flower
protea
There was quite a lot of sculpture around. One we particularly liked was of Chopin at his piano.
chopin
chopin
chopin
white flower
orchid
flower
orange flower
red flower
white flower
There was lots of water around - fountains, lakes and waterfalls. The sound of the water helped it feel not too hot.
waterfall
water lily
waterfall
Jonathon went behind this waterfall. I didn't dare in case I got my camera wet!
waterfall

This little chap was in the marsh area.

One of the main attractions was the Orchid Garden. Singapore has been a centre of orchid breeding from the 1930s. Some of the early hybrids have left important footprints in the world of orchids and have become part of Singapore's floral heritage.

terrapin
orchid sign
view
orchid
orchid
orchid
herons
orchid
orchid
orchid
orchid garden
view
orchid
The bright light picked up the patterns of the leaves really nicely.
leaf
leaf
leaf
orchid
orchid
red flower
They very helpfully pointed out where it might be nice to take a photo!
shirley
view
orchid
As you can see, the orchids were not in some kind of sterilised setting, they were in a natural garden setting and very beautiful they looked too. The range of colours was stunning and the weather was kind to us - no rain and bright without being too sunny. Perfect for photos.
orchid
orchid
view
orchid
orchid
orchid
view
red flower
man

There were a couple of sculptures that caught my eye in the Mist House. There were some children with their Grandad admiring the one on the right, telling Grandad that it looked just like him!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing (or in my case sleeping) by the pool, enjoying the warmth with a cooling breeze. J spent quite a bit of time in the water - I managed to struggle in before it got dark - the jacuzzi was even nicer than the pool itself!

man

As we only had a couple of days here, we thought we'd like to see a bit of the city and we've found in other places that a bus tour is often a good way to see a lot in not much time so that's what we did. We chose the "orange" route because that seemed to take in a lot of different areas and the stop was quite close to the hotel. Off we went. First Hop Off was in Little India. Little India was not part of Raffles' original town plan. It only became populated with Indians when Chinatown became overcrowded.

little india
It was the time of Deepavali (Festival of Lights) so there were lots of lights and decorations everywhere.
little india
little india
masjid

There were a few different sorts of places of worship - some more ornate than others
sriveer temple
church
There were also some surprises - whoever would have thought that whilst we were wandering around the Little India district of Singapore we'd have found a street called .....
cuff road
cuff road
The word of the day could be "incongruous". The following three pictures show a few buildings that were neighbours - not sure that the new one quite fits the character of the area but it was very eye-catching.
neighbours
posh building
neighbours
little india
Retail is very important in Singapore but because we are not "shoppers" we drove through Orchard Road without visiting any of the big shopping malls. Retail has a different meaning in Little India - anything can be sold next to anything else and if you are expecting a fruit and veg delivery you'd better get your catching hands ready. I couldn't believe that they stood amongst the fruit and veg and threw the stuff off one by one!
veg delivery
retail
retail
Someone has to collect all the cardboard and take it away!
cardboard
clearing away
wild oats
Just in case you can't decide what to have for breakfast, how about this?
Walking round a corner and we wondered what all the flags were for .... then realised that this is how people get their washing dry
washing
washing
flyer

We hopped back on (after we'd found the next stop - the map was more to give us a vague idea than an accurate map!) We gave the Singapore Flyer (left) a miss. The Singapore Flyer is the world's largest giant observation wheel at a stunning 165m above the ground. As I can't get Jonathon to go on the London Eye, I knew there was no chance of getting him on this one. Instead, we marvelled at the Helix Bridge - what a great structure. The Helix Bridge links Marina Bay to Marina Centre. It officially opened in April 2010 and is the world's first curved bridge.

Helix Bridge
helix bridge
There was some great architecture in the Harbour area and, of course, there was the archetypal skyline
skyline
lizard
Having spotted one of the local residents we decided that, rather than just go back to the stop we hopped off at, we would walk a while longer and go through the Parliament Square area. There was a European feel to quite a few of the buildings in this area but there was a good mix of newer buildings as well.
old building
theatre
street
supreme court
old parliament
The Old Parliament House (left) dates back to 1827 and is believed to be Singapore's oldest surviving government building. It was commissioned as a residence by the merchant, John Argyle Maxwell. The building was leased to the British colonial administration in 1827 who later purchased it in 1841. A series of major alterations were carried out in 1874 - 75, 1901 and 1909 changed the orginal design beyond all recognition.
The first multi-party elections for the legislature were held in 1948. In the early 1950s Singapore began preparing for self rule and the building was consequently renovated and transformed into the Legislative Assembly House. In December 1965 the building officially became Parliament House. Parliament moved into the New Parliament Complex in September 1999 and this building closed for renovations. It is now the Arts House.

Back to the hotel for an hour around and in the pool and jacuzzi before we had to say goodbye and make our way back to the airport (special note for Norbert - 747 from LHR to SIN and A330 from SIN to BNE).

We coped with the heat better than we expected and there's a lot more to see in Singapore than we had time for. A good place for a stop over on our way to Australia.

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