26 March 2008

It was a long night. I thought I might go straight to bed. First thing I needed to adjust was the pillow. The ones on the bed are reeeeeeeally fat and ‘weight about a pig’. I think it may weigh more than my suitcase. Housekeeping came up with another one that was slightly smaller. I was mostly OK after that. I had to decide whether I wanted to have the noise of the air conditioner going or have it off and get used to the temperature. I left it on. Fortunately it was a constant noise rather than a clatter, so it wasn’t that hard to ignore.
So, Now its morning. I’m watching the sun rise over the skyscrapers. I’ve had breakfast, and am thinking I might go for a walk. I’m sort of waiting for my camera to charge before I go.
Singapore is a really big place. It makes Christchurch look like a village. Its very clean, the traffic is fairly free flowing and I haven’t heard a single horn since I’ve been here.
I went for a walk after checking out of the hotel. It would have been much nicer if I didn’t have to carry my computer case around with me. The hotel didn’t want to take care of it because it was in a soft case. They thought it might get damaged. I walked to the city Mall. It’s huge. There are five towers connected by shops. There are three levels of shops and food places. It was rather amusing. I got there at around 9.20am thinking the shops will be open. No, not a single shop. So I wondered for a while. Around 10 am some of the shops were starting to open.
I then thought I might go off looking for the famous Merlion. I had the general direction, I even had a map. Only down side to that was the street signs were not so easy to find. I went through various plazas and finally landed up on the edge of the Singapore River. Of in the distance was the Merlion. By this stage my feet were being very uncooperative. So I found some shade and parked for a while. It was really nice looking over the river. There’s all sorts of architecture in the area, from British colonial to alter modern. There was even one building the looked like a UFO had landed. The main cultural and arts centre was perhaps the most amazing. Comparable, I think to the Sydney Opera house. The main structure consists of two glass domes covered with multiple squares that are slightly raised through the middle to let the light in. Very cool.
Having had a rest, I took of again to get closer to the Merlion. It would seem that to council had erected it to welcome tourists to the city. There were plenty of tourists there. About five or six bus loads.
Next I headed back to the City Mall for a pit stop and refreshments. By time I got back there I had definitely left my feet somewhere, cause they didn’t seem to be attached to my body. I sat down for a while. (Not such a good idea). When I got up again to search for food, my hip was really aching. I felt like an old man. (Hugh will be pleased. He’ll be able to get his own back from all the times I’ve called him the ‘old man’). My only relief was to walk around a bit, which is of course what I had been doing all morning. Catch 22 really.
I stopped at a Swiss restaurant and had a kiwi burger with chips. (He he) By the end of that I figured that if I hobble to the hotel, I might as well be a little early for the flight to India, so I got a taxi to the airport and found somewhere to sit. It would seem that not everywhere in the world is smoke free. The gate was E26. I saw the sign so I figured I might as well see where it is. You know, you do those sorts of things when you’ve run out of things to do. Its just as well. About a mile down the terminal and many travellators later I found gate E26. I was a bit early but there were plenty of people there already. When we were allowed to enter the waiting we went through the scanners. I took of my belt again to hopefully speed up the process. Well, would you believe it. I still went beep. Maybe I’ve got a bionic something tucked inside my body somewhere. (I feel a conspiracy coming on.)
The flight was fairly bumpy. Apparently there was a fairly major thunderstorm our Kiwi pilot was trying to avoid. I was sitting next to an Indian lady with her son. The boy would have been about four. There was a lot of love between them. The mother was laughing at her son’s humour a lot. He went to sleep quite early on in the flight.
We landed sideways even though there wasn’t much wind. (Not sure what happened there)
We didn’t take very long to get through customs. The time seemed to drag though when it came to collecting the luggage. The signs clearly pointed us to one area, but a while later we were directed to another area. My bags had already been around the circuit once before I got to them. Sue met me through the other side of Customs. There were people everywhere. As we were leaving the terminal there was a huge crowd waiting outside, playing drums. It included a TV crew. They were waiting for us. (No, not really) I think there was some celebrity just behind us.
Sue had arranged for a driver to take us to the hotel. What a change in experience. Delhi is in a major turmoil at the moment. The government are preparing the City for the Commonwealth Games coming up in 2010. Fixing roads, Building Train systems, Flyovers, etc. The Hyatt hotel is amazing. Very fancy. Aparently there’s a pool, but I was so tired that I went straight to sleep. We had to get up early to catch the train.