Last night was a relatively late night stupid soccer so we had a bit of a sleep in this morning and eventually tumbled out of bed around 9.30. I had a hankering for pancakes, so Sarah found Singapore’s only pancake house, which happened to be only just around the corner, and we wandered over there for some late morning breakfast. They tasted nice but were very filling and neither of us managed to finish our meals completely. The strawberry milkshakes were awesome!
After our breakfast we went across the road to a taxi stand but stopped to look in the window of a food place called Mad Jack Mad and Wild Aussie Xperience. There was some strange stuff on display in the windows, including a pavlova, which looked more like some sort of sponge cake. Crazy Asians!Into a taxi and I asked the driver to take us to the Buddhist Temple. After staring at me blankly and muttering
something I couldn’t understand, I then repeated Buddhist Temple on South Bridge Rd. Still nothing. I got the map out of my pocket and showed him where to go and he immediately blurted out “ahh Buddhist temple”. Maybe he didn’t understand the Australian accent. 5 minutes later and we pull up outside a magnificent big temple and the driver points at it and says temple. Well duh!Entry into the temple was free. We like free things. I guess they make more than enough money by selling the rights to zillions upon zillions of tiny Buddha statues housed within the joint.
Once inside it was very impressive. It was all gold and sparkly, 5 storeys high, and I’m sure we must have gotten very high from the amount of incense that was burning. After roaming through the ground floor main section, we took the lift up to the 4th floor, which was the Sacred Relic section with no photography or shoes allowed. I’m sneaky and clever, so I did manage to get a few shots in there. Some people were chanting and praying and meditating and I think one dude had fallen asleep while doing so. We went up the staircase to the roof section where there was the garden of 10000 Buddhas. There were a lot of orchids growing up there and it was very
tranquil and pretty. On the way back down the staircase to the 4th floor, Sarah broke the door handle. Too bad for the other people who were up on the roof. There is no proof I broke the door handle. Yes, there was a sound of like metal hitting the floor. Alan says I broke it. I have a feeling it broke in his hand when he opened it and just left it so it fell when I let go of the door.
We left the Buddha temple and walked up the street to the Sri Mariamman Hindu Temple but we decided not to go in there since you had to pay to take photos inside, plus leave your shoes outside on the street front. I don’t want somebody stealing my shoes. Ah yes, the five year old Colorodos, that turn your socks blue if they ever get wet and are also falling apart, would definitely be on someone’s radar. Into another taxi and this time over to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. That’s the new joint with the 3 towers and the boat-like thingy on top. Down into the basement to buy our tickets and then into the express elevator and up to the 56th floor. It was very hot up there but the view is great. We were amazed at how many ships we could see waiting to get in to unload their cargo. We took photos from all sides up there and went and checked out the pool and spa area. It must get ridiculously hot for the people lazing around the pool with hardly any clothes on. They pay a lot of money to have people come and perve on them all day at the pool. I don’t know how comfortable I’d be about that, or looking over the side of the infinity pool.
After we’d decided we’d seen enough from up there we made our way back down and into yet another taxi over to 
Suntec City Mall. In the middle of Suntec City is the world’s largest fountain. Unfortunately you can’t actually walk out into the fountain. We stopped for a quick drink in the mall and we’re going to wander around the shops but thought better of that after about 10 seconds. Instead we returned to our hotel room to relax during the afternoon heat. We ventured out again at around 6pm, although it took us over half an hour to get a taxi. As we were to find out, for some reason taxis are very hard to get on a Sunday evening. Finally we got one and drove to the Singapore Botanical Gardens. The Gardens are very big and it was starting to get a bit dark so we
only walked through about a third of it. We passed by Swan Lake which has been there since 1866. There were quite a lot of people picnicing and playing on the grass in the gardens and one bunch of people were playing a sort of football game except using a frisbee instead. Some of them really should learn to catch. We walked on and saw a few sculptures and ponds and stuff like that. It was getting very dark by this stage so we though we should leave. A lot of other people seemed to have the same idea though and getting a taxi was looking somewhat futile. We walked down the the main road and were lucky enough to flag one down fairly quickly.Our next stop was Clarke Quay, my idea, which is a bustling waterfront area with tons of restaurants, bars and nightclubs. We walked through the crowds, checking out the menus at many different restaurants and taking photos of various things along the way. Eventually we settled on a Spanish restaurant/bar for dinner and went inside into the coolness. It was almost empty inside as most people were dining outside. The food was really really yummy and we ended up having 4 dishes between us.
After dinner we continued walking around Clarke Quay and watched people on the G-Max Extreme Bungy, which is kind of like bungy jumping except you’re strapped into a capsule and hurled upwards at great speed. Not for me thanks, I enjoyed my dinner and didn’t need to see it again. We made our way to the taxi stand and since the crowds at Clarke Quay are so huge, the queue for taxis was very long. We had a wait of 45 minutes or so before we were on our way back to our hotel room.
All in all it’s been a very full day for us and tomorrow we’ll be sleeping in again I would imagine. We don’t have plans for the morning unless we get up and think of something in particular that we’d like to see or do.
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