{"id":150,"date":"2011-06-05T16:33:28","date_gmt":"2011-06-05T04:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/?p=150"},"modified":"2011-06-05T16:33:42","modified_gmt":"2011-06-05T04:33:42","slug":"the-last-post-for-now-at-least","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/2011\/06\/05\/the-last-post-for-now-at-least\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Post (for now at least)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday 30th<\/sup> \u2013 Out and about in Singapore<\/strong><\/p>\n

Again being cheap Kiwis we decide rather than pay for a hotel breakfast, as for some reason Renee left breakfast off the menu for this hotel, we would go out and find a caf\u00e9 for breakfast.\u00a0 Well that was a mistake as we struggled to find anything.\u00a0 We ended up at a local place where we got two under boiled eggs, toast and stewed sweet coffee all for $2 each.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t overly nice but filled a hole, Doug snuck off to McDonalds for a milkshake.<\/p>\n

We were meeting Vanessa, (a very special friend of ours and a temporary local resident of Singapore) at midday so we thought we would grab a taxi and head up to Orchard Road for a bit.\u00a0 He spun us a yarn about all the shops being shut until 11:30 and how about he drop us of at a factory outlet shop.\u00a0 It tuned out to be a bloody jewellery factory shop.\u00a0 We were out of there quick and grabbed another cab to the Ion Centre, Orchard Road.\u00a0 They certainly had some high class shops in Singapore, all the name brands and more.\u00a0 We organised for Vanessa to meet us up there and when she arrived went and had some lunch on level B3.<\/p>\n

We decided to buy some tickets for the open top, hop on hop off bus and tour the town which also included a river cruise.\u00a0 There are buildings of all shapes and sizes, most of them very impressive, lots of new ones under construction. \u00a0My high light was getting to the top of the Marina Bay Sands building.\u00a0 This building is a hotel with three high towers and what looks like a boat across the top of the towers.\u00a0 It stands out on its own and is one of the tallest buildings.\u00a0 Vanessa was able to sweet talk our way up there saving us $20 each. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We went up 57 floors and on the top was what maybe you would call a park with swimming pools and hot pools.\u00a0 The pools were right against the edge with their water level up to and flowing over the edge and of course people swimming. Very impressed I was. In the base was a huge super high class shopping mall and Casino.\u00a0 It stretched under the road and up on the other side and had in it a canal with boats being propelled (with an oar, but not rowed) along.\u00a0 Doug and Ngaire decided not to join us with Vanessa and her partner, Cam for dinner and they went off to find some seafood at one of the many restaurant\u2019s along the river.\u00a0 We headed over to the Muslim area for dinner at the Blue Jazz where we had excellent European meals with a bottle of Nelson wine and a table out on the footpath.\u00a0 It was a very enjoyable evening and after ten before we were looking for a taxi back to the hotel.<\/p>\n

Tuesday 31st<\/sup> \u2013 A relaxing day in Singapore before a late flight out<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was the last day of our holiday.\u00a0 I thought I had better ring Dolly & Hoosun Wong, the folk we had had the enjoyable night with in Delphi.\u00a0 I got into trouble for not ringing them the moment we landed.\u00a0 They both had a full day ahead.\u00a0 We headed out to \u201cThe Plain Caf\u00e9\u201d 50 Craig Street, a place out the other side of China Town where Vanessa had suggested we may get fried eggs and sandwiches etc., but more importantly good coffee.\u00a0 She was right except for the fried eggs but we had a really nice breakfast and the best coffee since being away.<\/p>\n

Dolly rung us and they had re organised their days so that we could meet for lunch at the Hawker Centre on (or near) Beach Road and the golden mile.\u00a0 Hawker centre means local food and we were in for a treat.\u00a0 Dolly took charge and rustled up dish after dish of local food, it was like a huge banquet and we were never going to eat it all.\u00a0 I am not going to try and name everything because I couldn\u2019t but we did have what Dolly called the queen of fruit. It was like an over large passion fruit which you squeezed to break the outer shell and picked these white segments out.\u00a0 The centre looked like a small clove of garlic but tasted divine with a mandarin\/mango taste, very yummy.\u00a0 The whole meal was a very enjoyable experience, Vanessa joined us halfway through and made a big dent in the food we had left but Dolly still got to take a big doggy bag home.<\/p>\n

As we headed back to the hotel it started get very dark, we had heard thunder while we were eating.\u00a0 We went via the underground and when we came out at Clarke Quay it was bucketing down.\u00a0 Amazingly we were able to find shelter to within 20 metres of the hotel.<\/p>\n

We arrived back about three, we had already booked out but they had said we could come back for a shower and to freshen up before our flight however we managed to sweet talk them into letting us use the pool facilities as well so we went swimming in the rain.<\/p>\n

Renee we give the Park Regis a 10+ but we never ate there.\u00a0 An indication of why were that two beers and a wine while we were at the pool cost $43.\u00a0 The taxi to the airport was under $20 and we were there just on five for our 2205 flight on a Singapore Airline\u2019s Boeing 777-300 to Auckland.\u00a0 We needed time to pick up Margaret\u2019s cigarettes.<\/p>\n

Wednesday 1st<\/sup> June \u2013 Home<\/strong><\/p>\n

The flight from Singapore was nine hours and I didn\u2019t think I got much sleep however the others told me I had much more than them.\u00a0 Auckland customs was a breeze but slower than the others as our bags had to go through the scanner.\u00a0 We declared some apple tea so went in a different queue to Doug and Ngaire but beat them through the door where good friends, Karen & Murray were waiting to pick up D & N and drive back to Tauranga and get a meat pie for Doug.\u00a0 We were on the 12.30 Air NZ, new all black Airbus A320 back to Wellington where Michael and Nicole were waiting for us.<\/p>\n

Renee – You did a great job for us.\u00a0 Everything worked like clockwork and our hotels all passed muster.\u00a0 Well Done<\/p>\n

The next job is to sort the photos and get them up although you may see them on my home page Gallery first.\u00a0 www.hailes.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\n

+ + +\u00a0\u00a0 The End\u00a0\u00a0 + + +<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday 30th \u2013 Out and about in Singapore Again being cheap Kiwis we decide rather than pay for a hotel breakfast, as for some reason Renee left breakfast off the menu for this hotel, we would go out and find … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}