D02: Singapore

We were up very early this morning (6am)... Not exactly sure why, but both mum & I are morning people, so I guess there's no better way to start the day than to start it early. Of course, this meant that we had to start making what will probably be the first of many decisions that we'll be making over the next 5 weeks.

View from our hotel room

We decided to do the buffet breakfast at the hotel. It was nice and easy and last night when we checked-in we received a discount voucher so it was down to Level 7 to start the day. I've never seen spring rolls for breakfast before, and I'll admit that I couldn't resist trying them. The restaurant was very quiet when we arrived, but that all changed before we left.

The Novotel has an iMac station set up in the lobby with free internet access. Session times are restricted to 20 minutes, but if no one else is waiting, then you can just start a new session. Given my slight addiction to the internet, this is a good (no, let me change that to, great) thing ;-) so I jumped on after breakfast for a little hit. Mum & I also took a walk around the pool area, even @ 8:30am it was very hot and muggy.

The iMac station - my home away from home.

Part of the lobby area

As we'd travelled with Singapore Air, we could use the SIA hop-on hop-off bus that runs in a loop around the city for a reduced price. It was good, but didn't have any commentary, which was a bit of a shame. The first stop we got off at was the Singapore Botanical Gardens. It was beautiful. We didn't go into the National Orchid Exhibit, but we were able to see some lovely Orchids at the front of the building...

Afterwards we got back on the bus and went down Orchid Road and saw all the shops. We got off at SunTec City and waited for the shuttle bus to Sentosa. Once on Sentosa we could've wandered around, but we decided that we were happy to head back over to Singapore.

On the way to Orchard Road

Returning from Sentosa Island

We really didn't do a lot today, but it was good being on the buses as we got a really good look at Singapore. It's a really clean city and has lots of green spaces which makes it visually pleasing.

Once back at the hotel, we had a look at the shopping centre that is right beside the hotel. We went into the supermarket and although it might sound very boring and mundane, it was quite an eye opener. Given that Singapore has to import virtuall everything, it was pretty funny to see the prices of things. For example, we saw 2 green apples flown in from Japan for $38 and even better, a Rockmelon (again flown in from Japan) was $79. Given there's almost parity with the Singapore and Aussie Dollars, this was pretty expensive. Australian rack of lamb was approx. $69/kg and New Zealand Rib Fillet was $89/kg. I'm sort of glad I'm not living here with those prices.

We splashed out on dinner - just kidding, it was Maccas. We had an early night, to prepare for our second day in Singapore

I wish I could up load pics, but sadly that might have to wait until we get home

(For the rest of my Day 2 photos - click here.)