We set sail this evening

We had a good nights sleep last night. The ship is huge, our cabin is very nice with a balcony, at the moment overlooking the opera house. We did manage to walk around circular quay yesterday and the opera house and also part of the botanical gardens before we boarded the ship. We boarded the ship at noon yesterday,and then had a buffet lunch we were really tired so had a rest and then our luggage arrived later. In the evening we had the buffet meal again. It will take us a few days to get used to everything on board.
We walked around the upper decks last night, simply masses to see. We are having a coffee in sydney at the moment and late afternoon there are things happening on board which we need to go to, we set off at about 6.30 tonight.

Today in Sydney

It is only 10 minutes to 9:00 am and we are already sitting in a cafe on the Circular Quay and gazing at the huge ship we will be embarking on in 3 hours time!
The flight from Singapore was fine and I got chatting to a young lady accountant from New Zealand but living in Sydney. The plane was huge but seeing our ship now makes us rethink our sense of proportion.

Thunder storm

We are still waiting at the hotel and suddenly it got dark and then the thunder and lightening started and torrential rain, a real tropical storm, it is so close. Hope it does not last long

The waterfront on our last day in Singapore

Last night we decided to enjoy the buffet meal at the hotel ( I keep talking about food!) it was superb international food beautifully presented. It included fresh fish and shell fish and sushi. We tried all sorts of new dishes, not sushi though, especially with a long journey today!! There don't seem to be many European people staying at this hotel although walking around the city there are plenty, we have spoken to a few British and they seem to be so well travelled!! All the staff are wonderful all so organised gentle and extremely thoughtful nothing is too much trouble . There are 3 eating areas here, an upstairs Chinese Restaurant called Park Palace, then on the ground floor there is a Piano Bar called The Bar and the buffet area called Indulge In The Park which also has a courtyard area.

As my heading suggests this is now Saturday and we fly off to Sydney at 8.00pm, we are being picked up at 5.00pm, we get to Sydney at about 7.00am Sunday, we will be on the new big 380 aircraft. Anyway today we had breakfast here and then we got our packing organised and went off for a walk. From the hotel it is a 5 minute walk to the waterfront and there is a lovely walk right the way along under all the busy road bridges past the concert hall to where the wheel is. The views are super of all the tall buildings on the other side of the river, that is the financial district.The little river boats go up and down the river so there is plenty to look at. It is sunny today and very hot and steamy, we put sun cream on today!! We are now waiting in the hotel foyer to be picked up so I think I have written enough for now!

Our 1st day in Singapore

Having had our wonderful breakfast we were fit for the day. At the airport we had arranged to be picked up so that we could go on the city tour bus, hop on and off where you want. The bus starting point is down at the Singapore flyer, a real hub for tourists. We eventually got on the bus and it turned out to be so good. We did the green route. We did the complete circuit first and then went again and got off at the Botanical Gardens. What a place! it was still raining lightly and so humid,as you expect. We headed to the orchid garden, we will try to add some pictures on another day. The whole garden was wonderful and so many varieties of orchids growing on trees and in the ground, such wonderful colours. Lovely to see and listen to the different birds. We then got on the bus again and got off at Raffles. On journey we went down Orchard Road where all the Christmas decorations are up, Strange when it is so hot! On the walk back to our hotel we called in at Raffles shopping centre, a real wow factor. This is all for now.

Friday and it is time for breakfast

We finally got a good night's sleep at our temporary home here in Singapore.
Breakfast turned out to be a feast the food being a pick and mix selection of foods from all round the world. Our third course was mainly European, but I will leave the rest to your imaginations
In just over an hour we will be going on a tour bus courtesy of Singapore Airlines and will stop at a variety of tourist spots. No doubt we will be telling you about that later. Our eyes have been opened, the city looks an amazing place full of different cultures.

Here we are in Singapore

We had a good flight, there were no delays at all. We were at Munich for just over an hour, the time soon went as we all had to get off the plane with our hand luggage and then all pile back on. The we're then off again for our 11 hour flight. We had a snack on the first leg and then lunch soon after our departure from Munich. We then went into darkness and it did not get light again until we were 1 hour from Singapore We then had breakfast! It was raining when we arrived. A coach then brought us to the hotel. We have had a bit of rest and we do feel very tired so we are going to explore tomorrow.