Last day in Singapore

Having checked the weather forecast and seeing that rain and thunder was forecast around midday we set out early taking the metro from Chinatown to explore the beautiful botanic gardens.

The metro is super easy to use. The train carriages are not covered in graffiti and everything is so clean and tidy.

The Botanic Gardens are divine. We stumbled upon ladies doing a fan dance, so lovely. There are over 750,000 orchid specimens here and seeing is believing, they are spectaular. Apparently these are the most visited gardens globally with over 4 million visitors annually.

I always love to visit a museum whenever possible. Singapore National Museum is in a gorgeous building that was opened by Queen Victoria. It had great exhibits, a swanky brasserie and a brief case that caught my eye.

We then planned to visit the Petronas Towers and take the lift to the sky lobby and look at Singapore from above, however it was raining and I don't think we would have seen the city view very well.  Instead we explored the Marina 1 complex which was incredible, plus it  had  great air conditioning and free Wi-Fi which we took advantage of.

The Marina Bay complex is over 400,000 square meters and is a mix of business, apartments and entertainment. It has over 350 trees and recycles rain water and has rain curtains, really incredible architecture and design. Lots of development underway in the Marina area.

By now we were getting a bit tired so jumped back on the metro to Orchard Rd to see the retail worshippers. There's a lot of wealth in this town that's for sure. We ended our day at the other end of the spectrum,   the land of designer brands.

Chinatown

 Chinatown was a lot of fun. The hawker foodstalls are fun to walk through and see the vast array of exotic food and produce. The food area had its own little shrine with incense in amongst the chaos.

We were entertained by a 'free for all' line dancing display, in 37degrees heat, in front of the Buddah Tooth Relic Temple. We were sweating like mad but the locals were all getting into, jeans and stetson's on display....whoowee I would have melted in jeans!

 Our hotel turns out to be in the now quite 'hipster' Keong Saik area near Chinatown. Chinatown grew from the  settlement known as the ‘Chinese Campong’ designated by Sir Stamford Raffles in his 1822 Town Plan for Singapore. Some of the traditional shophouses now sell for upwards of S$20million, yikes.

The shophouses now are mostly groovy restaurants, bars and boutiques. I imagine the area goes off over the weekend..but we will be in Langkawi so will miss the action😉

Singapore ..wows us

Wednesday 5 June

We arrived at our hotel at 3.40am in 30 degrees heat very tired after a long day and flight changes from Singapore Airlines. Originally we were to have landed yesterday early evening. After a cool shower and cranking up the AC  we hit the sack and oh the relief to be able to stretch out! We woke early and decided to get up and explore Singapore before the heat of the day. 

Singapore doesn't disappoint. We started our day with a hot and spicy nasi goreng for breakfast which was delicious. Then we made our way to the MRT, Mass Rapid  transit metro system, which is 4 mins walk from our hotel, got our EZ ticket sorted which meant we were off for the day.

Our hotel has a little temple close by and as we set off for the day many locals we're attending the temple.

 We made our way into the CBD via the marina/river park way. We were on a mission to have coffee at Raffles as a mid morning rest stop.

The park alongside the river has beautiful sculptures that tell the story and history of Singapore, the craftsmanship is simply stunning.

 There is no shortage of impressive buildings to admire

 The parks and gardens are lush and everything is clean and well cared for.

 Unfortunately Raffles was closed for refurbishing.

 Instead we found our way to Fort Canning Park and enjoyed some history as well as beautiful gardens. 

We then set off to Little India for lunch. What an amazing place, my new favorite. We wandered through the food markets where we had Mee Goreng with the locals.

 This was a busy, bustling place with something for all the senses.  The sari stalls were exotic, the fresh  market had live crabs,  fish and meat all being butchered.....full sensory overload. 

We loved the busy, colourful streets and the Garland stalls were my favorite.

 By now our lack of sleep and the humidity was catching up with us so just like the old fella in the picture below, we decided we needed a practice siesta for Madrid so back to our hotel for a shower and rest. China town awaits for our evening adventures.

Brisbane has it all

From a 'chic' city centre with great restaurants, bars, galleries and all the usual CBD goings on, to a city beach, beautiful parks and gardens, a multitude of beaches, islands and bays and native bushland...Brisbane has more to offer than meets the eye.

We were fortunate to see wallaby in the Venman Bushland National Park just bouncing along in their natural habitat.

Also beautiful paperbark trees, Banskia flowers, termite mounds and stunning eucalyptus trees...all 30mins from the city.

There is no shortage of great spots to refresh and reenergise. 

Our four days in Brisbane just scratched the surface and we had fabulous hosts, my brother and partner, showing us the hot spots so another visit is on the cards as there is more to explore, #loveBrisbane💞