Adventures

Well our big trip has started....

On Saturday Tom and I flew to Singapore to start our holiday. We have had two days and nights here and decided that we love Singapore.

While we were here we have been to the asian civilisation museum, checked out Boat Quay, been to China town (and bought $10 sunglasses), went to the markets at Bugis Junction, had lunch at Raffles, had dinner on Orchard Road, had copious yum cha and been to more shops and shopping centres than I care to remember.

Singapore is humid and hot but not unbearably so. The public transport is really excellent and very cheap. And when I say excellent Tom and I haven't had any problems at all.

We are staying in Royal Plaza on Scotts which I would highly recommend. They didn't have any record of our booking when we arrived but the lovely receptionist Jaquelyn sorted that out without bating an eyelid and even upgraded us to a better room. Buffet breakfast is included and I have fallen in love with a dish called " fried carrot cake". Ironically it has no carrot nor cake. It is in fact made mostly from raddish and egg.

I took Tom to my favorite Singapore department store "Tangs" and we shopped and ate more food. I made him try the "glutinous black rice dessert" which I had last time and he loved it just as much as I did so that was good.

We bought some electronic equipment from a "dealer". The haggling was fun but tiring. Pretending to leave is the best tactic but it is hard to do it without feeling rude. I think the best way to get a bargin is to not actually want to buy anything. I bought something almost accidently from one lady. I offered her about 5% of the asking price and she agreed to sell the thing to me. She said she would sell it to me as a good luck sale so that other sales would come her way. That just confused me but I definately got a bargain.

It was strange but even in the markets some things didn't seem to be negotiable - maybe I just didn't look interested anough but no one offered me discounts on bags. I found a couple of nice laptop/sholder bags but they were too expensive (ie same as I would pay in Australia) but when I said that to the shop girls they just smiled and walked away. Odd

One of the best things we have done while here is have a 45 minute foot massage with reflexology and a hot tea foot soak. Mine was very gentle and relaxing. It was great. Tom's man absolutley hammered his muscles - he received what I would call deep tissue massage. I don't know how he sits through it because it looks very painful but there is no doublt it is great for your muscles and he legs and feet were better for it.