Singapore

12/01/13 to 21/01/13 - Early next morning we arrived at Woodlands station in Singapore, where our immediate goal was to find an ATM (and a coffee) before we hopped on a bus. We made our way to Rob, Jo, Hannah and Matthews’ new pad just off Orchard Road. It was great to see everyone and our thanks go to Matt for lending us his room for the week. Rob and Jo helped us to orientate ourselves and showed us Marina Bay. We took a walk ourselves to the Botanical Gardens (just round the corner) and visited Chinatown (where we could see the preparation for the Chinese year of the snake), Arab Street and Little India.

It was great to eat some home-cooked food for a change, and Jo’s food was great throughout the week. We felt relaxed and made good use of the ping pong table and the pool too. The Trenchers (Jo’s parents) arrived mid-week and we shared the dishwashing duties with them after the washer broke down (we hope it’s fixed now Jo). Brian showed us how to play table tennis by beating us all convincingly.

After spending a couple of days with our heads down inside the National Library, (researching for the remainder of our trip), and checking out the National Museum, we decided to get out and do something physical. We went out to East Coast Park to try our hand at wakeboarding at 'Ski 360'. Here was a system of cables (in place of a speedboat) designed to pull you along as you tried to stay on the board. We did an hour each and knew we would suffer for days with aches from all the crashes. It was good fun though, and excellent practice for kitesurfing. On the way back we were also able to take in the unique view of hundreds of container ships in the bay between us and the horizon.

After another rest day (brought on through stiffness and soreness - it took us a week to recover completely) we had the pleasure of attending a high school musical, with Matt taking the role of Cookie in Return to the Forbidden Planet. We enjoyed the show and even managed to grasp most of the storyline (which we usually struggle with in musicals). Matt’s performance was stellar, and it explained why he kept coming home with silver all over his trousers after his rehearsals.

The weather turned distinctly British (wet) for the final weekend, but we still were able to get out and see the colonial buildings of Emerald Hill and we had free tea and cake at Raffles Hotel. On Saturday night we were treated to classic Singapore Crab with seafood buffet, which was delicious.

We left the kids at home for Sunday night (our least evening in Singapore) and went out with Rob and Jo for a nice dinner, a few drinks and a good old chinwag. Dave stayed up to finally see a full complete Spurs match. Just as well he did as Spurs equalised in the 92nd minute against Man Utd. The next afternoon we said goodbye to the Rickards and the Trenchers and made our way to the airport. Then we left the northern hemisphere and crossed the equator. Put on the Johnny Cash, we're heading into summer and to the Ring of Fire.