The view from our window at Hotel "V" Lavender

Keen participant at breakfast

Lex on the Dragonfly Bridge

the "trees"

View from the walkway in the trees

Marina Bay (coolest hotel building in the world!) from the walkway

Another view from the walkway looking towards the Singapore Flyer

Inside the Cloud zone dome

Looking down from the top of the "mountain"

The plant mountain - rather like a large green dalek!

The food display at the "Casual Japanese Pasta" restaurant!

Thursday, 11th September         SINGAPORE

Robyn writes: Thankfully, I had a much better night's sleep last night. Lex's was a bit better than the night before, but still not brilliant. He claims I snored. I have apologised profusely but what can I do? One pillow and a sore throat and it was going to happen! Anyway, I'm sure he'll sleep on the plane and I'll be wide awake all night....revenge will be his.

It was 9 when I woke, which came as a bit of a shock. The curtains in our room were quite excellent at keeping out light! Luckily though we didn't sleep through breakfast again, so we quickly got dressed and headed down there for a last Singapore "V" brekky. Then it was back up to the room to sort and pack for almost the last time this trip. One more short plane flight after this and we're HOME! This all took quite a bit of time (brains were not working well) and it was around eleven o'clock by the time we had it all sorted and (hopefully) into bags of approximately the correct weight. We checked out, deposited our bags with the nice man at the baggage desk, and headed out for the day.

Our destination today was "Gardens by the Bay", the quite new wonderful garden complex near Marina Bay and the Singapore Flyer. We had seen them from the Flyer last time we were here in 2012, and they had just opened but weren't completely finished at that stage. We only had a one day stopover then, so didn't get there, and had definitely wanted to get there this time. It was easy enough; we took the MRT to Bugis, then changed lines to go to Bayfront. From there we found the correct exit, and chose one which took us up and into the huge Marina Bay Hotel complex. If you're not familiar with this, it's the one that looks like a curved boat sitting on top of three buildings! It was just as amazing inside as it is from the outside, and we discovered that there is an overhead walkway going from there right to the gardens. A brilliant way to get there!

The gardens are huge, and truly amazing. There are many different themed areas such as Chinese, Japanese and Indian gardens and various lakes - all of this is free entry. They have huge artificial "trees" dotted around, which are massive metal frames with vines and bromeliads growing all over them. They're only a few years old now; in a decade or so they will be spectacular. Some of the bigger ones have a walkway wrapped around and between them, so we paid $5 SD each to go up - we were so glad we did, as the views were wonderful and so was the breeze! Today was rather tropical and horrid - very hot and sticky with a storm building, so a breeze was a real bonus. After our tree walk, we went in search of lunch - there was a series of restaurants nearby and we settled on "Hill Street Coffee House" (which was actually a very Oriental restaurant!) My tea, when it came, was Indian black tea with, I think, evaporated milk in it, and I just couldn't drink it! Lex didn't mind it though so he drank it and I quite enjoyed his iced Calamansi tea, which he said was way too sweet. There was a green cumquat or two in it and it was quite refreshing, I thought. He had a huge bowl of chicken curry and noodles and I had yummy chicken satay skewers.

After lunch, we headed to the area which adjoins the two huge domed gardens. We didn't know how long they would take, so we just paid $18 SD each to go into the "Cloud" garden. This started with a massive waterfall crashing down in front of us, and with that and the airconditioning, it was COLD! Like everything in Singapore, it was very well done - the 'mountain' in the middle was a huge mound of, again, vines and flowering plants and bromeliads etc with various walkways coming off. As Lex observed, the effect from certain angles was not unlike a huge green Dalek ("Exfoliate! Exfoliate!) (Sorry, am being given to flights of fancy here.) Anyway, we took the lift to the top and then worked our way down, admiring the plants and the views from each level (seven of them). They had little puffs of water spray constantly emerging all over the place so it was a bit like being in a cloud. There was a preschool class visiting at the same time so our visit was punctuated with the happy and sometimes not-so-happy shrieks of small Asian children and the fairly futile cries of their parents trying to restrain and discipline them! I must say I was a bit jealous; what a wonderful place to be able to take a school trip to.

When we'd finished our trip down the 'mountain', we went through the gift shop, had heart failure at the prices there and decided not to buy anything. I wanted to go for a quick visit to Chinatown (one of my favourite Singapore places) so we walked from the gardens back to the MRT via the river bank this time, and took the train just a few short stops away to Chinatown. This has a wonderful market, so we spent some time wandering up and down looking at everything and resisting the cries of "You come in, I make you suit!", or "Lady, I have nice blouses for you!" We did a bit of last-minute shopping then went to the cafe at the Heritage Centre, where we've been before, and I finally had a decent cup of tea! Lex had a pot of Chinese tea so we were both happy and refreshed. It started to pour just then, so we carefully made our way along under the covers and back to the MRT to head back to Lavender and our hotel.

When we got out of the MRT lift at the hotel, we were rather amazed to see that we were in the middle of a massive tropical storm - it was just pouring down and the poor shopkeepers were frantically sweeping water out! At this stage, it occurred to us just how good it is to have an MRT station in the basement....anyway, we wandered in, retrieved our bags and headed back down for the last train trip of the day. We'd decided to head out to Changi earlier than necessary, as the trains are absolutely packed from about 6 until 8 which was when we would normally have been going. This was a wise move, as we easily fitted in, and had a good run out to the airport, with only one easy change at Tanah Mera (we walked from one side of the platform to the other). Singapore is a dream to travel in after the nightmares of London stations where you frequently have to haul your ports up and down huge flights of stairs with no lift or escalator in sight!

We got to the airport at around six, and got the ten dollar refunds on our tourist travel cards. These cost us twenty each (plus the ten deposit) and have been wonderful value for the three days - I'm sure we've got our money's worth with them, plus the convenience of not having to buy a ticket each time then get a refund on the plastic pass as we've done in the past. We then got changed into our travelling gear (comfy and warm!) We carefully weighed all of the bags, and went to find out when we could check in. To our amazement, Etihad had an early check-in counter, so we got rid of our bags and went to look for some tea. We found a "Casual Japanese Pasta" restaurant, where Lex had the scallop and mushroom soup and I had chicken curry. Very nice. Then we wandered around the shops for some time (Lex bought a book to read), changed our Singapore Dollars into Aussie dollars, and are now sitting outside our gate waiting for it to open. We've had a free foot massage each (there are natty little massage machines dotted around - I do love Changi!) We don't fly out until just before midnight, so it's a looonnnggg wait ahead! I'm very much looking forward to getting to Cait and Mikeal's place tomorrow morning for a good sleep....