Tuesday 12 February 2019

Off to Singapore and a boat trip ...

Due to delays at Heathrow airport we departed for the first leg of our holiday at about 10pm on Wednesday (5th February). The delay meant that we didn’t get round to having dinner on the plane (with a large glass of Shiraz) until around midnight after which one of the stewardesses came to us to congratulate us on our Golden Wedding anniversary (the travel agency through which we booked our holiday must have told the airline) and we were invited to a wine tasting upstairs in the business/first class area! 
It was getting on for 1am when we had the tour through the first and business class areas and met Ben Angolini a sommelier and Customer Service Manager for Quantas Cabin Crew UK.  We  had a lovely time and sampled seven excellent wines both red and white (Australian of course) but due to some turbulence didn’t manage to test the very expensive champagne that he'd chosen for us.
When we got back to our seats it was nearly 2am and just as we were trying to settle down to some shuteye we were presented with a large glass of said champagne ... it was absolutely perfect and it would have been rude to refuse it wouldn’t it?  Although our actual Golden Wedding anniversary isn't until the 14th of February, it was a lovely thing for Quantas and particularly Ben to do for us ... it certainly started our holiday with a bang!
After all that wonderful wine and champers we did sleep for a couple of hours and I took this photo at 10 past 5 in the morning (still on UK time).  You can see that we have over 5 hours to fly before reaching our destination ... 
and 6:15 Singapore time when we could see land once more on the approach to Changi Airport ...

landing safely at about18:30 on Thursday (8th) completing our 13-hour flight to Singapore, 8-hours ahead of GMT.  

By the time we'd disembarked, collected our luggage and moved through customs it was well after 7pm, our taxi was waiting to drive us to our hotel Ibis on Bencoolen  where we booked in, inspected our room, removed the essentials for the night from our bags, went down to the restaurant for an 'ok' meal just before 9pm. It had been a long, long day and we were shattered!

Friday (8th Feb) morning we were up early, having not really slept much, and were down for breakfast by 7am after which we tidied our room and set off for the first day of our holiday ...
a boat trip on the Singapore River on a boat called 'Buzzing Around' for a 40-minute round trip from Clark Quay through the various city areas with an interesting commentary and cheerful staff

I'll let the photo's do the talking here ...










Singapore is a very clean city, this chap is even cleaning the river's edge!
After leaving Buzzing Around we walked around the town back to a convenient place to pick up a taxi to return to the hotel for a siesta  ... watch this space ...

2 comments:

Geoff and Mags said...

Even after flying nearly half-way around the world you still can't stay off the water! Have a great time.
XXX

Carol said...

We will, thanks. xx