Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Indian Ocean 2012
Singapore revisited
The day began with an excellent breakfast in the
highly impressive 31st floor Executive Lounge. I was ready to set
out at around 0930 and began by walking across to St Andrew's
Cathedral, passing first the Bavarian Paulaner bar that I
recalled visiting during my previous sojourn in Singapore, and later
the monument to the Japanese Occupation. I had a quick look around
the cathedral before heading in the direction of Boat Quay. I
noticed a number of examples of restoration or redevelopment work
taking place, most notably the conversion of the old supreme court
building into a new art gallery. A billboard invited me to visit the
'Home of Visual Arts' in 2015; I thought that I might just feel
obliged to accept.
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| I proceeded through familiar territory towards the river, to the intermittent and deafening accompaniment of the roar of three military jets that were presumably on exercises. Although I had done so on at least two previous occasions, I decided to have a short river cruise. At first, I was the only passenger not belonging to two large Indian groups. They all got off at the Merlion, leaving me as the sole passenger on board. |
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| ABOVE: Spot the difference | |||
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After the cruise, I had a sandwich lunch at Starbucks, just as the offices in the central business district were disgorging hundreds of staff for their midday break. How well-dressed they all looked, although not in an overly formal sense. With my energy supplies replenished, I took a further stroll around the Marina Bay area, before eventually making my way back to the Conrad.
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As my room was being serviced, I went up to a very quiet Executive Lounge and had a cold beer in an attempt to cool down, while chatting to a staff member. Back in my suite, after several hours of walking about in the equatorial heat and humidity, I peeled off my clothes and went straight into the shower. At first, I entertained thoughts of going out again. Many of the views that I had seen that morning had been dominated by the amazing new Sands resort at Marina Bay and I was certainly interested in the possibility of visiting its extraordinary Skydeck, a structure placed across the tops of three skyscrapers in a seemingly precarious manner. As time passed, however, I realised that it simply wasn't going to happen. My energy quota for the day had already been used up.
When evening came, I had an unremarkable steak dinner at the branch of Outback opposite the hotel's main entrance and then enjoyed the 2001 version of Ocean's Eleven on my huge TV and sound system, after a few false starts in getting it all set up properly.