Ah back to London with a bump, after a 1 hour delay setting off from Changi (waiting for passengers and luggage from another flight), which is pristinely clean, no dirt, perfect airport.
The flight was uneventful apart from the unhappiest air hostess who really didn’t want to be there, slung your food trays down, refused to offer alcohol and gave you the fruit juice that she believed you wanted. But at least we slept.
Home then to the dump that is Heathrow, dirty, smelly, masking tape holding things together and just plain awful. The express from T3 to T4 in chaos since the woman on the tannoy couldn’t tell you which part of platform two was platform two and not platform one. The Yotel ah sir your booking was from 7am it’s now 7.30, so you have lost half an hour or can pay for the extra time, why because my flight is delayed when we normally just shift the timing, welcome back home!!
So now to the hotel to pick up the car and start the slog back up-t north.
What a fantastic week, we are sat here for one last drink in the Shangri-La lobby before the trip to the airport and then megaflight home, well to Heathrow initially, then it’s the Yotel for a few hours before the motorway slog.
Righty ho then, all packed and ready to checkout. It has been a fantastic time this last week in Singapore. You can sit and people watch for hours, when it rains it truly does rain, but you don’t really care.
Yes today will be a long long day, hence the renaming. Up at 9am, breakfast, showered, packed and checked out by 1pm. Walking tour until 9pm, airport for 9.30pm, plane for 11.45pm (local time), the 14 uncomfortable hours landing at 5.35am on Sunday.
Well it’s not Friday it’s been Saturday for at least 10 minutes now and they haven’t changed the carpet, what are tourists supposed to do now? How will they know the day has changed?
What a better way to stop prostitution than have cameras in the Red Light area and not even tell you where they are, ha.
A very nice day today, MRT ride to Dhoby Ghaut then a slow wander up through Fort Canning Park, a sacred Malay Hill that Mr Raffles decided would make a “spiffing house”, so he promptly had the jungle cleared, built a nice bungalow and then all his mates moved in and the hill was for a time named Government Hill. It has the original government building ( very English colonial) and lots of walks through a pretty park. This is also where in the 2nd World War the British troops set up base. There is an underground battle box on the site that you can tour, complete with wax dummies to help you understand. We did not go in but walked on through to Clarke Key, once full if warehouses to load and unload goods that came by sea and up the river. Now it is a haven of pretty converted buildings and rowdy bars complete with lots of tourists and expensive drinks (but they do offer lots of happy hours!)
Welcome to one of the most famous or infamous places in Singapore, Harry’s bar in Clarke Quay. This is apparently the location where the former Rogue Trader Nick Leeson drank whilst collapsing the Bearings Bank.
After our suit purchase (and Mrs Fogg posing for the start of her Catalogue modelling career) we went for DIY lunch again at Sho Teppan in the ION centre on Orchard Road.