Singapore and finally Home

Well after 50 days away of which 46 were at sea, we have finally made home again with few problems other than a sniff or two and maybe a couple of coughs.

We had a great time in Singapore, 2 days with the ship and almost 2 on our own.

The excursion we did was called " the way we live' which was all about just how ordinary Singaporeans live day by day.

We visited the Marina Barrage which is the expensive scheme designed to stop the flow of salt water into the Singapore River and to create another water catchment. A excellent project that actually works, to their credit.

The Marina Barrage.
Visited a typical apartment out in the suburbs, which gave us an insight how they live in such confined spaces.

From there we caught the local subway to a working type area gave us an insight how they travel and shop. A very interesting tour. Of course we went to a Buddhist Temple, and a very nice one at that.

After disembarking Voyager where we were farewelled by the the GM, the Cruise Director, the Concierge and Chief Receptionist ( what a fabulous crew) we spent a night at the Swissotel Merchant A nice hotel near Chinatown and Clarke Quay.

Clarke Quay from our hotel room.
We couldn't be in Chinatown without having a delicious meal of Chilli Crab and that didn't disappoint, even found the same restaurant where we had been eighteen months previously.

Yesterday we caught the Subway to The gardens by the Bay a development near Marina Bay Sands which only opened in June.

 This is an overview as you enter the aArden

Christmas decorations were just amazing

 Colour in the flower dome

What a magnificent job they have done; an area of 250 acres featuring the best parkland you have seen, dominated by the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest (suggest you google it to get a very much better idea than I can provide), but it is mind boggling. The Singaporeans have it all over the rest of the world when it comes to such cleanliness and beauty and clever design of construction. It is a credit to them.

 The Cloud Dome is over 35 meters high and represents a rain forest at 2000 feet.

Looking up at all the plants, thousands of them.

 Looking down from the top.

We have just come home from Brisbane airport by train and the graffiti is just such an ugly glut on our landscape. It's disgusting, of course there is none in Asia because people get penalised for it. Pity we couldn't follow suit, but it aint gonna happen!

I'm going to finish off this blog with a statement about Qantas. We have travelled with them several times booth good and not so good, but last night's flight was a doozy!

It is no wonder they make a huge loss, why on earth would anybody want to travel with them.

The hosties are tired, too old for the job and as one fine politician said, "Just a few old boilers,"it just lacks any good service at all. Maybe they can't attract any nice looking hosties or are they all working for Virgin or some other airline

After 1 hour in the air the first thing done was to  deliver bottles of water to each passenger.

We had to actually say, " when are we going to get a real drink". The meal if you could call it that, was disgusting and breakfast was a croissant. I'm not sure whether they are under instructions not to provide a service or what.

So after all that, I'm not sure you would want to read any more blogs of ours so we will sign off and say goodbye.