Hello Singapore!!!, your sooo clean! What else was eye catching....the many different language schools: Japanese, Dutch, Swiss, Indian,German and obviously English. But the main language they speak is English or rather "Shinglish" it is English with slang. It was really hot and sticky(32C).We arrived in Singapore airport with our jeans and kreeftonthemove t-shirt and could not wait to take a dive or shower. It was a big airport and it look familiar since it had the same design as Schiphol airport, the biggest airport in Holland. It had indoor-palm trees and many plants in the airport, you had to walk through a jungle to get your bags! When we had our stuff, also my hockey stick arrived-yeeheee, that I got from my club in Buenos Aires, we went outside and it was really tropical hot.
Not only because we were wearing warm clothes, but it was incredible tropical!! We are staying with friends of of my parents Jannie and Gerard. They were very kind and are teachers at the Dutch (day) school. The school has 400 children and looked beautiful with bright colors, nice classrooms with a lot of laptops and electronic school boards, wow!!!. On Monday we visited the school which started with the assembly and all the kids and many parents were sitting in the big hall. Jannie invited some classes to come on stage to perform and when the birthday kids had to come forward, I expected 3 kids only like at our school, but almost 10 kids came forward and Gerard played the accordion for them and we all were singing Happy Birthday and Lang zal die leven in Dutch. After that Steven and I had a sort of presentation and all the kids could ask us questions. Of course we also asked them too, what things we had to see in Singapore.
They gave us at least 20 suggestions! One of the kids advised us to see ToySrus, because that was his favorite excursion. So funny!. In the 5 days we were in Singapore we visited a lot of the suggested sights, but not Toysrus, sorry for that! We went to the Merlion, the statue of Singapore; its half fish and half lion. Half fish because it is protecting the Singapore river and the half lion, because it is protecting Singapore at the entrance of the harbor. When we walked through the CBD (central business district) we saw many sky scrapers and beautiful buildings, interesting statues and modern art sculptures and of course the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. This is one of the most expensive hotels of the world and has on the top of the 2 tall towers with approx 60 floors a cruise-ship on the roof!!!!. It looks like it has got stuck on there after a tsunami wave. Can you imagine this with big pool and stunning views. Of course we had school in the mornings and read about this small Island/country down under in Malasia and because of that it was great we could visit the Museum of Singapore with all the history. I also did not know that they were occupied by the Japanese between 1940-45 during the 2nd World War. The Museum of Singapore was very interesting to see and hear with the earphones how Singapore came to what it is today! Because of a tropical rain (heavy rain showers late afternoon with thunder and lightning) we jumped in the first bus we could find and we arrived at Orchard Road, the most expensive shopping street. Coming from expensive Argentina, this was even more expensive, but wow what a shops and everything was clean and well organised here. What a difference with Argentina. We had a transport pass and used the bus, boat and underground and everything was clean, no lines anywhere, except on the floor of the underground platforms. This was for the people going out and for the people going in so they did not block each other, wow how organised.
We saw school kids leaving their bags outside shops when they went in for shopping and a man leaving his laptop on the table when he went to order another drink. Everything is very safe here. Maybe it is because there are fines to pay for everything which you do wrong. A fine for littering, a fine for eating in the underground, a fine for this, a fine for that....! There are t-shirts sold with on the front written: "Singapore, a Fine city".We also went to the Indian area and the Sim Lim building to buy a screen and a battery for the laptop. There were at least 8 floors and 1000 computer and electronic shops in the building and we ran from one shop to the other to find the best deal. A lot of shop did not have the battery, but than they ran quickly to other shop downstairs and Steven was trying to follow them to see where they went to find the best deal. Later we bought nice fish and veggies at the wet market in China Town.
In the afternoons when came home at the apartment of Jannie en Gerard we could swim in their big pool and they had even a tennis and squash court. On Thursday we skipped school and went to the Island Pulau Ubin. We took the taxi and the bumboat from Changi point. Is was approx. 20 min. and saw the skyline of Singapore behind us with the airplanes going up and down one after the other, because it was near the Airport. When we arrived on the Island is was a really tropical Island with monkeys, coconuts and - unfortunately- many mosquitoes. We hired 4 bikes and drove around the Island. After 2 hours of cycling we were getting thirsty and we saw a sign fresh drinks! We arrived on a private beach with and old boat and an old garage with empty fridges and nobody there. When we went into the jungle we found the owner who was repairing the path and he picked some coconuts for us. We could drink the milk inside and scooped the milky flesh out with a spoon, jammy. Back to the only village and the place were the ferry boat was leaving, we had time to see the temple and had a quick noodle lunch on the beach.
Late afternoon Gerard surprised us and we went to Sentosa Island. Jannie had to finish her yearly report for the Dutch School and could not join us. First we went to a huge shopping mall and we all made a picture at Gap. We posted this on Face book and then went to Sentosa Island by ..... Cable Car. Wow what a view and when we arrived there we went down with the Luges - a sort of skelter downhill.We had dinner on the beach and in the background we saw the fireworks of one of the shows on Sentosa Island. A very very very nice evening (specially for the kids!)
And then it was already Friday and our last day in Singapore. We did homeschooling and packing and of course a quick swim. Before we left for the airport we had dinner at the dutch club were we ate kroketten, poffertjes en zuurkool(traditional delicious food in the Netherlands!!).Just before we left we had a problem,the checking assistance(grond hostess) was new,she was very very slow and she made us wait too long at the check in desk! I wanted to do some shopping at the nice shops at the airport, but there was no more time.
Now we are leaving for Australia where we will visit Loeke, my friend who moved to Melbourne last year from Holland. She will have Easter holiday and we will go on a vacation trip with the Anemas for about ten days!!Sorry I published this article very late,I did not know we were driving so long and there was no internet!!
Good day, Mate!
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