Day Nine - Sunday 17th April

Today we headed to the Changi Museum and Chapel. We had several different sets of instructions and ways to get to Changi but we just stayed on the bus system to get there. It was a very moving experience going though the museum and the Audio Tour provided insight from many different people who experienced and suffered through the 3 1/2 years of Singapore being under Japanese rule.  We spent quite a few hours at the museum and it was a very humbling experience.  Many times we just shook our heads and couldn't quite believe all the cruelty inflicted by the Japanese and suffering by Aussie, NZ, British, Indian military and the Singapore/Chinese community. The horror of War was evident.

After leaving the museum we traveled by bus and train back into the city to do some shopping at the Suntec City Plaza and then dined at Lau Pa Sat Festival Pavillion for dinner.Jonathan and I chose our dinners well, but Nick didn't really enjoy his "chicken and mushroom in a clay pot" dish. We did have a real giggling fit whilst eating our dinner as Nick was facing a food stall called "Pig's Organ Soup and Kway Chap" but Nick renamed the stall "Pig's Organ Soup Takeaway Crap".  I guess you had to be there to enjoy the humour of it all!

 

We then hopped on a No 36 bus and headed back to the Roxy Hotel.  We purchased yummy desserts at the hotel cafe and then settled down in our room for an early night.

Day Eight - Saturday 16th April

Well, we had a sleep in until 8.30am and then we leisurely got up and went down to the buffet breakfast.  Today was to be our shopping day!  We caught the No 36 bus into Dhoby Gaut interchange and then caught the MRT to Chinatown.  We loved browsing all the stalls and Jonathan bought some gifts for his classmates.  We next traveled to Bugis Strret (a famous older area in the city) and Nick and JR went IT shopping in an IT Mall which consisted of 6 levels of IT equipment. I had a couple of hours of mall shopping before we all met up and then moved onto the colourful Clarke Quay area for afternoon tea.  After a little bit more shopping it was dinner time so we stayed in the same area and had a great meal.

 We decided to head back to the hotel and have an early night.  We met up with our "new friends"
from Melbourne and we chatted with them for some time before retiring to our room.

Day Seven - Friday 15th April

We've woken to another beautiful sunny day in Singapore.  Today we head off by public transport (bus 135 and bus 138) to the Singapore Zoo.  Jonathan wasn't too keen in visiting the zoo but even he admitted that it was a fantastic place to visit!

The zoo (like everywhere in Singapore) is extremely clean and the animals seem to walk around freely throughout the zoo.  If you look hard enough, you can see the fencing. We particularly loved all the different types of monkeys as they are so cute and the Orang Utans are absolutely spell binding! A baby orangutan kept pulling on Nick's t-shirt whilst I was taking photos and Nick said the baby's skin was so soft!

 

The zoo was made up of different areas, we didn't bother going to the Australian area but we loved the African area the most.  We saw lions and lionesses, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, zebras, hippos, elephants, giraffes and many more that I can't name.

We also did the Night Safari next door to the zoo and it commenced at 7.30pm with a fire-eating show.

Some parts of the walkways around the park are extremely eerie and in some places we could hardly see where we were walking.  Most other tourists only took the tram rides around the park but we really enjoyed walking around the different tracks as you could get really close to the animals.



 At one stage, I was giving a Spotted Jaguar a rub/scratch under her chin and she kept nuzzling up to the glass to get more cuddles/scratches.  Luckily there was double glazing between the jaguar and myself!

 

 

Another highlight during our time at the Night Safari was to see the 5 month old (and 300kg) baby elephant - she was gorgeous!

It was another late night for us as we didn't arrive back at the hotel until after 11pm. 
We'll have to sleep in tomorrow morning!

Day Six - Thursday 14th April

I woke up with a sore throat this morning so I consumed oodles of echinacea tablets to ward off any cold or flu symptoms and decided to spend the day at the hotel around the pool and just relaxing.

We enjoyed our buffet breakfast downstairs in the main restaurant and then Nick and Jonathan headed off for a day at Science Museum.

The boys handled the Bus and the MRT with ease and landed at the Science Museum. We decided that the Imax show called Sea Rex would hold our interest and off we went to explore it. We moved from the show into the Museum itself and spent several interesting hours investigating it all.


We had our usual daily electrical storm a bit earlier today at 3.30pm.  The lightning and thunder during these daily storms is amazing.  The ligtning is really bright and always seems so near and the thunder is so loud.  The rain simply pours down and then within the hour it is all over and the sun starts to shine again.  Beautiful monsoon weather - very predicable!

We thought we would get back to Allie to see how she is and either go out for a meal or eat in the Hotel. All was well so off we went to the Food Court over the road and enjoyed the meal.

Day Five - Wednesday 13th April

Today we set off for Sentosa Island which is the "playground" of Singapore.  We took the "Jewel" cable car to and from the island and the view is just magnificent from the cable car.  We  went over a luxury liner which was moored at the Singapore terminal and it was quite spectacular to be over the top of an ocean liner (especially on our return visit late at night).

 There were many rides that we went on (and mastered) - the Tiger Sky Tower, the Luge (great fun),  Extreme Log Ride Simulator ride, Desperados shoot out game on mechanical horses, Pirates, 4D movie, Merlion Park, "Sedgway" riding (great fun), bicycle ride and at night we watched an amazing light/fireworks show called "songs of the Sea".  It was a really fun day and we didn't get back to our hotel until about 11pm.  We were very proud of ourselves for travelling the whole day on public transport rather than using taxis.  The bus and MRT train systems are extremely easy and good to use and we will definitely use the public transport system again.

 

A great night's sleep was had by all three of us!

Day Four - Tuesday 12th April

Our first breakfast in the Club Room (which is located just down the hallway from our room) as we needed to head out for our city tour at 8.30am.  We spent the day on the "Hop on, hop off" bus tour and visited the famous landmarks of the Botanical Gardens (just beautiful), Orchard Road (for wishful shopping), Raffles Hotel, Merlion Park, Chinatown, Clarke Quay.

We also fitted in a quick visit to the Singapore Museum and then managed a wee bit of shopping before
heading back to the hotel for the evening cocktails in the Club Room.  It was was an interesting but tiring day so we settled down in front of the large TV to watch some shows on the Discovery channel.

Day Three - Monday 11th April

It was certainly a highlight to watch "The Lion King".  Even though we only had B Reserve seats, they were absolutely great.  Any closer to the stage and I'm sure we would have a neck ache. 
The cast of the show were absolutely fantastic actors, singers and dancers.  The costumes and the sets were breathtaking and the audience were also really good by clapping throughout the performance, at the right moments, and giving the actors a standing ovation at the end. We were so glad that we went to the performance - it was simply a great night.

We had a wonderful night's sleep and enjoyed our buffet breakfast in thee Club Room on Level 57.  We were very sad to leave the Marina Bay Sands Hotel as we had been thoroughly spoilt but we moved onto
the Mercure Roxy Hotel for the next seven nights.

We had booked a king executive room at the Roxy and it is absolutely fine and it is also includes the facilities of the Club Room.

We spent the afternoon at Fort Canning Park and it was just beautiful and tropical and cool. 

 We also went on a guided tour through the "Battle Box" which is a huge underground bunker located under
the park and was used during WW2. It was here that the British Army made its decision to surrender to the Japanese army.  It was an extremely interesting tour.

After the afternoon daily "downpour" we returned to the Roxy to go to the shopping mall attached
to the hotel and we stayed there for a quick bite for dinner.