McLays in Europe

Busy morning getting ready to leave. Ian was not feeling too good after celebrating Cats winning the Grandfinal. We left Alice Springs at around lunch time and flew to Singapore via Darwin. It was around 8 pm when we got to Royal Plaza on Scotts right in the city centre. Lovely grand hotel with candles burning in the foyer. Ian was in holiday mode and tipped the bell boy $10 (found out later that it is not usual to tip in Singapore!) Went for a walk along Orchard Road and had tea at a pizza bar. Beers were $15. Not sure if it was the price or the hangover that limited the number of beers taken to one. Very interesting mix of cultures. We saw moslem families sitting on the same seats as prostitutes.
Next morning we took cab to large Indian shopping centre/market called Musafa to get a couple of things we needed for our trip. Got roped in by a fortune teller in a turban who correctly told us we had 3 children - 2 boys and a girl. We then had to pay him some money for their good health and fortune.
After lunch we met up with Shiling, a student dietitian who had done a placement earlier in the year in Alice Springs. She was our tour guide for the rest of the day. She took us via cable car to Sentosa Island where we visited an information display 'Images of Singapore' which details how Singapore was established with 4 cultural heritages - Chinese, Malay, Indian and European. We then went up a lookout tower for a panoramic view of Singapore. Interestingly on request to see Raffles, Shiling assumed we wanted to see the new one as it is the highest building in Singapore but we of course wanted to see the old one! We then met up with Shiling´s boyfriend Derek who works for their Institute of Sport and they introduced us to some cuisine from their country. We then took taxi to airport and left around 11 pm for the long flight to Frankfurt with Luftansa.

Ian´s view: Singapore an impressive multicultural city. It reminded me of my beloved Darwin but so much bigger and busier with similar climate.