No surprise that the weather was hot and humid again and apparently Singapore has been experiencing one of its worst droughts for many years. Apparently it normally rains every day but certainly we have seen none so far and the newspapers are saying that there has hardly been any since the beginning of January.
The Botanical Gardens were first on our agenda and as soon as we entered the gardens the effect of the drought was clear with very brown grass everywhere. I'm sure this is very unusual because, according to the guide book, normally it rains every day.
We had a very enjoyable walk through the gardens and the National Orchid Garden and the Ginger Garden were both excellent.
When we reached the southern end we were pleased to find that there was a bus to take us back to town thereby avoiding a 1.6Km walk back to the MRT station.
Our next destination was the shopping mecca that is Orchard Road which really is wall to wall shopping malls for a few kilometres and everything under the sun would appear to be available here. Some of the malls such as Paragon are very upmarket with every designer label you could mention. In Paragon we restricted ourselves to a brief pitstop in a basement food outlet called Grandma's. It seems to be the norm that the basement of the malls includes a number of food stalls or restaurants.
The LLW was very restrained with her shopping; I put it down to the heat!
After walking a further few hundred metres we decided that it really was too hot now and caught a bus back to the Clarke Quay area (we are quite expert with Singapore's transport system now!). BTW, the buses are also air conditioned and are a real pleasure to ride in. All transport in Singapore seems to work, is very clean and is relatively uncrowded.
A swim in the excellent hotel swimming pool which has a great view over the quays was just what was needed and after a relatively brief rest we decided on another walk south along Clarke Quay and then back along Boat Quay on the opposite side of the Singapore River. This was an excellent choice with lots of colonial buildings along Clarke Quay including a statue marking the landing place of Sir Stamford Raffles. On crossing to Boat Quay we discovered wall to wall small restaurants and bars along the river many of which were packed with office workers celebrating the start of the weekend. All very cosmopolitan. The LLW decreed that it was time for a cocktail!
Dinner was planned at Jumbo Seafoods to sample their legendary Chill Crab and we were not disappointed. The crab was huge even when shared between two. It was absolutely delicious but must have been the messiest meal either of us has ever eaten. Dealing with crab and a very rich sauce using chopsticks and fingers was never going to be pretty!
The Botanical Gardens were first on our agenda and as soon as we entered the gardens the effect of the drought was clear with very brown grass everywhere. I'm sure this is very unusual because, according to the guide book, normally it rains every day.
When we reached the southern end we were pleased to find that there was a bus to take us back to town thereby avoiding a 1.6Km walk back to the MRT station.
Our next destination was the shopping mecca that is Orchard Road which really is wall to wall shopping malls for a few kilometres and everything under the sun would appear to be available here. Some of the malls such as Paragon are very upmarket with every designer label you could mention. In Paragon we restricted ourselves to a brief pitstop in a basement food outlet called Grandma's. It seems to be the norm that the basement of the malls includes a number of food stalls or restaurants.
The LLW was very restrained with her shopping; I put it down to the heat!
After walking a further few hundred metres we decided that it really was too hot now and caught a bus back to the Clarke Quay area (we are quite expert with Singapore's transport system now!). BTW, the buses are also air conditioned and are a real pleasure to ride in. All transport in Singapore seems to work, is very clean and is relatively uncrowded.
A swim in the excellent hotel swimming pool which has a great view over the quays was just what was needed and after a relatively brief rest we decided on another walk south along Clarke Quay and then back along Boat Quay on the opposite side of the Singapore River. This was an excellent choice with lots of colonial buildings along Clarke Quay including a statue marking the landing place of Sir Stamford Raffles. On crossing to Boat Quay we discovered wall to wall small restaurants and bars along the river many of which were packed with office workers celebrating the start of the weekend. All very cosmopolitan. The LLW decreed that it was time for a cocktail!
Dinner was planned at Jumbo Seafoods to sample their legendary Chill Crab and we were not disappointed. The crab was huge even when shared between two. It was absolutely delicious but must have been the messiest meal either of us has ever eaten. Dealing with crab and a very rich sauce using chopsticks and fingers was never going to be pretty!
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