Haloranch

We're in the hotel until noon, which is checkout time, and then we'll take a cab to the ship, which is about 15 minutes away or less. Can't wait! Took this photo last night as we left dinner along the River Walk and went to Chinatown for a $1 ice cream.  I had coconut, and Hans had white coffee.  It's the year of the rat, and this display is just across from our hotel. At the pool earlier, the only other person there was this young woman, who's reading "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck."

All the photos below are from the Changi Jewel, the fabulous airport in Singapore.

Lovely dinner high up in the sky!  Left from Faber Peak after taking a taxi from Furama City Center hotel - $15.  We got there early and they have a roped off section for the diners where we wait until our designated boarding time.  Only some of the cablecars have tables, but it appears they can easily add or take tables away depending on how many people have signed up to dine.  Lots of little twinkling lights on the cablecars.  Took a selfie because I wanted some of the city lights behind me.  The Merlion is the official mascot for singapore, with the head of a lion and the body of a fish.  Can't see the body from this angle.  This is some kind of aquarium as we saw sharks swimming in the pools.  Very tasty desert.  I already at the lychee nut and blackberry and another square piece of chocolate decoration before I remembered to take a picture.  Hans and I each had the salmon dinner.  You pr...

I learned that in Singapore, all vehicles have to be imported at a fee of 100% or more.   Also, before you buy a car, you have to submit your name into a lottery to buy a 'permit' to have a car.  Every month they draw names for the number of permits that equals the number of cars taken off the road.  A permit is good for only 10 years.  Then you have to reapply. Ergo, there are no cars older than 10 years on the road. Singapore is the second- largest exported of used cars, after Japan. Along the way, we saw this machine that dispenses automatic, freshly squeezed orange juice for $2. We didn't think to ask for extra coffee from our chamber maid, so we went out looking for some.  Nothing was open at 9:30 except one place playing awful music, and also a little smelly.  There may be no litter on the streets, but there are pungent smells here and there.  So I'm ashamed to say we had coffee at McDonald's, but on the plus side, they had free refil...

A choir of gnomes, with their choirmaster front and center.  They were adorable.  This is in the Flower Dome at the Gardens by the Sea, and they had beautiful Christmas displays up featuring a Nordic Christmas, and gnomes play a big part.  Hans standing by the sled which was filled with pretty wrapped boxes, but no Santa.  he must have been busy elsewhere.  Letters to Santa were all over the floor by the globe.  Driftwood sculptures More Christas stuff.  If you look closely, you'll see another little gnome front and left.

Dinner on the river last night.  Obviously we're early diners, though it must have been around 7:30.  You can see one of the bridges nicely lit up for the night. You can see the river behind Hans.  Dinner was delish.  We chose to have a selection of appies: 3 kinds of satay, spring rolls and some kind of tasty noodle dish with shrimp.

Daniel from London was in line behind us at Raffles so when a table became available, we invited him to join us since he was alone.  You can see the bag of peanuts-in-the-shell on the table.  Smallest peanuts I have ever eaten!  But since our drinks were $35 each plus tax, I at a lot of peanuts.  Standing outside the Long Bar at Raffles, waiting for our turn to go in. Note the old style ceiliing fans, which moved the air conditioned air around.  It was very comfy inside.  some folks were there with children, which was obviously allowed, since a virgin Singapore Sling went for $17.  This bar is a licence to print money. Standing in line outside they had this big cutout of their signature drink.  It was quite tasty, and they weren't cheap on the gin either since you could feel it right away.  The waitress told me they make a big batch of it in the mornings.  Probably they have barrels of it in the back.  You can see s...

This is our hotel.  It's well located, just on the edge of Chinatown which always has something going on and is a great place to walk around.  Also close to the river, which you can see in the foreground.  If you look closely, you'll see all the people eating at various restaurants under the big umbrellas.  We ate at one of those places.  The 'touts' (thanks to Alethea for explaining what the hell that meant) are lined up by each restaurant imploring you to eat at their venue.  One guy offered us 20% off the meal, so that's where we ate and the food, as it has been everywhere, was delicious.  The mug of beer, however, was $10. In other news, at the 7-11 where we bought a liter of water, I saw Yellow Tail wine for $30!  On sale, we buy it in Mesa for about $4.

We took the hop on/hop off bus today, which is a great way to see the city.  Got on in Chinatown, not far from our hotel, and got off at the fabulous Marina Bay Sands.  Wow.  What an amazing hotel.  They have a Sky Park which costs $28 to view, but it's worth it.  We could have had a Singapore Sling there for $25, but I thought that was too expensive.  If you've see our FB posting, you'll see that we actually paid $35 to have one at the Raffles hotel.  This was in the Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore.  Hanging terrariums. Looks like baby Audrey from the Little Shop of Horrors.  Hans tentatively approached it with his finger so I could show scale, but he didn't want to get too close. We walked through an arbour of stunning orchids from the Amazon.  Many were huge and colourful, but they also had tiny, tiny orchids which had magnifying glasses hanging in front of them so we could actually see the flower. ...