Singapore: Tuesday 9 August

We had a fairly bumpy flight towards the end, but they managed to quickly fit in breakfast. As you can see, my GF breakfast on the flight was quite good, and I was well set up to start the day in Singapore.

The landing was interesting, it seeming that the brakes were jammed on somewhat and we were all jerked forward in our seats as we suddenly slowed. We didn't have long to wait for luggage and soon found our way to the Singapore Stopovers Holiday desk and a shuttle to our hotel (the Peninsula Excelsior). We arrived there around 9am, feeling shattered after no sleep since 4am the previous morning. Our luggage had to be put in storage until after 2pm, when our room would be available, so we dragged ourselves out to a nearby mall for a cool drink and to get our bearings. We got a bit lost in the Raffles City Mall in the process.

After some refreshment at a McDonalds, we found the bus stop for our free Hop On Hop Off bus and took a full loop around the yellow line (not realising or being told that there were headphones available with commentary). We got off at the Singapore Flyer and David needed some blood sugar so grabbed some Subway while I indulged in a dry GF muesli bar. Moving onto the Flyer, we found ourselves behind and amongst a large and meandering tour group of Indians on a tour (taking photos of bizarre things and holding up the queue). The view from the flyer was worthwhile - amazing. Then we waited in the 32C heat for the Hop On to arrive and be delivered back close to our hotel.

  

It was now afternoon, and David had to wait 20 minutes in the queue at check-in, simply to collect the keys that had previously been allocated for us in the morning, very frustrating. Our room was on the 8th floor of the Excelsior Tower of the hotel, with a nice view of the central fire station and rather cold, draughty air-conditioning. Our luggage arrived shortly afterwards. We had showers and collapsed into bed at 4pm, falling asleep instantly. I awoke at 8pm feeling much better and decided that I had the energy to get dressed again and head to the hotel's Coleman's Cafe to eat something more substantial than the muesli bar. David slept on, or tried to - later reporting that he didn't know if he was hallucinating or if it was real that he saw a big black spider crawling out of the grill covering the shower drain... Meanwhile, I was very well looked after at the cafe (though with some difficulty for them in understanding GF)... We got there in the end and I have noted the most perfectly cooked (at medium rare) and tender steak of my life.