Sally and Peter's Adventures » Singapore

The River Tour

sally — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:46:30 +0000

We decided to spend our last day in Singapore in a fairly relaxed fashion.. a quiet lunch followed by a leisurely boat cruise along the Singapore River. Was a great way to see the city, but we certainly could have done without the ‘I-forgot-to-take-my-lithium’ recording that they insisted on playing at full blast above the roar of the engine…. ahem…

Off to Ko Samui in Thailand tonight… hooray!!

Lookie-look: the naïve Dutch man

peter — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 06:00:44 +0000

Sal crashed in bed and was not planning to move. The jet-lag had seduced her and taken her away. I just had to answer some email regarding my latest job opportunities and since the Hotel Internet machine was occupied by a overweight Chinese 9-year old who was playing online poker games I thought is was wiser to find a Internet bar outside.

A guy asked me whether he could help me and I said that I needed the Internet. “Ahhh” he said “Lookie look?” “Yes” I said “lookie look”. He was leading the way and before I knew I was standing in a large room full of naked big breasted (fake I assumed) Asian ladies. I said again to the guy “I need Internet you know, lookie look at email!” He said “but this is real thing … much better you know!” So I gave up the quest and walked out in the street suddenly realizing that we slept in the Singapore red light district: all the places around me looked like the one I just visited.

After some precarious querying I finally found a Internet bar where most of the screens were occupied by guys scanning for porn … I guess its’ cheaper. Suddenly the concept I learned at my INSEAD MBA of choke price made more sense.

Blooming marvelous!!

sally — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:48:01 +0000

What do you do when you are on holiday in a city that you’ve lived in?? The touristy things of course! So we decided to go and visit the Orchard …oops Orchid Gardens, which, for those of you interested in visiting at some point in the future, are situated in the Botanical Gardens and NOT near the zoo as the Singapore maps suggest.

Was all very stunning. Did you know that the Orchid family of flowering plants is the largest in the world, comprising 10 percent of all flowering plants? And that bananas belong to the ginger family? Very informative trip indeed! Thereafter we had Singaporean hotpot for dinner at Dempsey road, where we basically had to boil all our own food, veggies, meatballs, the lot! (Did you know that the bright orange prawns that you eat are actually purple-grey in their uncooked state??) Was kind of fun, but think I’d rather pay someone else to do the cooking!!

Business is business

sally — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:19:35 +0000

“Dear KLM Customer Service Manager, I’m writing this from row 14 on board your Boeing 777, which, if you knew your plane layout, IS NOT NEXT TO AN EMERGENCY EXIT! We kindly request that you refund the 2 train trips to Schiphol that we had to take in order to secure our requested seats THAT WE DID NOT GET ALLOCATED. Either that, or surprise us with some creative solution…” Fortunately, the air steward creatively bumped us up to business class, so Peter’s friendly ranting never needed to be sent off!! After our pampered flight and some luxurious sleep, we arrived safely in Singapore. Of course, the 6hr time difference meant that we were suitably jet lagged, so we were wide awake during the evening and spent the time walking along the Singapore River, before we had our first Asian meal at a floating restaurant on the river. It sure is great to be back in Singapore!