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Singapore: day 3 and wrap up

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  For our final day for the whole trip, we started at buffet breakfast and a pool swim. Which, considering the entirety of our trip has been spent doing this, it seems fitting. We played pool basketball and volleyball and Ethan had a kids attendant show him some games so Darcy and I got a short short break. We checked out and left our bags at the hotel while we caught a 20min cab to the lovingly named Arab Rd near a beautiful mosque. We walked the very cool streets and found endless Korean toy and Photo Booth stores. Yeah, stores decked out in themed photo booths, and that’s it. We had a coffee and then a storm rolled in. It kept bucketing for quite a while so we caught a cab back to the hotel to freshen up and then went to the airport. We purposefully rocked up at about 2 even though our flight was not until 8 because we knew we wanted to explore Changi and The Jewell shopping centre nearby. The famous one with the waterfall in the middle. They really do love an indoor garden and ...
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Singapore: day two

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  We were ready for a jam-packed day after a lightish buffet breakfast, and a rainstorm had just rolled over to incentivise us to get a move on. It meant that we didn’t go for a swim in the pool, rather straight to SAM - the Singapore Art Museum down by the Docklands in what used to be an old power station (think Carriageworks style). The driver asked “are you sure there’s a museum here”, and yes, amongst the random warehouse spaces, there was. And it had a cool kids space that talked Ethan through some modern artworks with a helpful sticker book. In the floors above, more art from this gallery and other private galleries too. It felt kind of White Rabbit Gallery, with billionaires private collections on display. It was modern Asian art, presented how we like to consume it - in a random old warehouse in a dank part of town. From there we caught a cab to the Duxton Hill area and found a sushi joint that was air conditioned and had wifi. It was good to cool off as by lunch time it ha...
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Singapore: day one

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  We always knew that Singapore would be a bit of a rush, because we only have two and a half days here, but we planned to fit a lot in and we certainly did. We all slept in because we’re still on India time, about two and a half hours behind, so by the time we went to the buffet breakfast it was already 9:30. Still, the St Regis in Goa holds the title of best breakfast because this one was only average, also a little chaotic with the business folk and families all rushing past one another to get their tasty morning treats. We had a quick swim in the big pool before showering and getting on our way for the day. First stop was the ArtScience museum, which we thought was a museum but is actually just an event space. There were two exhibitions on, but the studio Ghibli one was sold out so we saw the Future Worlds light show exhibit instead. It was a projection show, where each room showed different floral or aquatic landscapes on walls all around us. At first, Ethan wasn’t sure, but t...
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Travel day 6

  Not much to say, and not even a photo for travel day number 6. However we did make a wise decision staying so close to the airport as it took away a lot of the stress of navigating a foreign airport if it is only 5min from where you are. The flight was only 4hrs, although it was late, and with the time difference backwards we arrived in Singapore at about 8pm. By the time we got to the Shangri-La and checked in it was after 9 so we just went to the lobby bar & restaurant for some noodles and rice dishes before climbing into bed for our short but jam packed days in Singapore!
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Travel day 5

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  A wedding had arrived at the St Regis last night and we saw them setting up and using the first lavish garden themed venue for the three day event last night. By morning, it was packed down - the staff must have worked through the night. But that also meant the breakfast buffet was pumping with new guests for the weekend. The pool also had a bunch of kids in it and we swam while they played “Marco polo”. We showered and got our taxi to the airport about an hour away. The driver took the windy and bumpy back roads so we all felt a little rough upon arrival.  Goa airport is nothing to write home about and neither was our unremarkable 50min flight. We changed our itinerary from another night at the Leela palace in Bangalore to the Airport Taj. This is because it takes a good 90mim to get into town and our flight had landed right before peak hour so that could have been longer. Seeming we fly out to Singapore tomorrow, we would have rocked up at dinner time, slept and then right...
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Relax

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  Have you ever had a day, a whole day, where you did nothing? When was the last time you took a day for you. And not for you, plus doing the washing and getting dinner ready. A day where you melted into the couch, or immersed yourself in your bed sheets… for us, today was that day. We were served breakfast at the buffet; all the wonderful foods of the world… plus our anti malaria medication of course. We spied some people doing a photo shoot at the pool on the day beds that we’ve come to know as ‘ours’. But by the time we put our swimmers on and gathered our reading books and iPads, they were gone and we took up ‘our spot’. It was about 9:30 by this point, and there we stayed until 6pm. We swam and played made up games in the pool. I did the local papers’ crossword and sudoku while Darcy read and Ethan played iPad games. We swam more. We shared a burger for lunch and swam afterwards once our bellies were settled. We read and played more and swam more and relaxed more. We made frie...
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She’s an Old Goa that one

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  Ethan had a terrible night sleep which meant that we did too, since our beds are about 50cm away from one another. So after multiple coffees and a refreshing cold swim we got in our car and had the driver take us the hour to Panaji - the Portuguese district of Goa. Everyone had a nap in the car.  We had planned to go to Confeitaria 31 de Janero (31st of January patisserie) but it was too busy with a tour bus of kiwis just having rocked up. We sighed, looked around the nearby streets and decided on an upmarket Italian bar & bistro called Casanova Trattoria. We had tasty pizza and beer, while Ethan had pasta and a pineapple juice. It was all delicious! Then we walked down the main tourist road of Portuguese inspired buildings towards an art gallery and pottery shop. Alas, they were closed! They have siesta from 1:30 to 3 apparently, right when we rocked up. Darcy was so disappointed so we pivoted and asked our driver to take us to Old Goa about 20min away on a windy and be...
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