Singapore

Hello from Singapore! Its hot and sticky but still the amazing city we remember from just over two years ago. The air was quite hazy yesterday, apparently from forest fires in Indonesia. But today has been great.

Since we have been here before we wanted to see the things we missed last time. So first on the agenda was the Singapore Zoo Night Safari. Singapore Zoo is one of only five zoos in the world that shows you animals from Asia, Africa and Australia in natural settings by night. The lighting on the tram trail is minimal so that you can just see the animals, but as flash photography is not permitted it is hard to get a good photo. The Flamingo shot (above) was the only one that came out. We saw so many animals - lions, giraffes, zebras, deer, tapirs - the list goes on. What a great experience!

The Zoo also puts on a couple of night shows including three guys who do a juggling act with fire (photo above). As well as juggling burning sticks they fill their mouths with some sort of flamable liquid and blow it into the flames to create plumes of fire. At one stage one created a mid-air fire and the other two took turns squirting fluid on the fire to keep it going. Pretty 'cool' act :-)

Today we took the hop-on-hop-off bus and river boat rides. It was great to see parts of Singapore that we had not seen before, such as the docks. We had out first close up view of the Marina Sands Hotel - three towers with a 'ship' crossing them at the top containing gardens and resturants - and the Marina Bay area which is all reclaimed land. All in all we have now seen pretty much all there is to see.

We have had time to adjust to the time difference between here and home - just like Perth...2 hours behind you all.  We didn't do too much shopping as we have been here before, but I did buy a magnificent black pearl and diamond pendant....after spending that money we didn't need to spend any more!!!  I am claiming it as my early birthday present!!  We did manage to say no to a new diamond ring...much to the disgust of the shopkeepers!!!  We have done a fair amount of walking already, so have tested out shoes to wear when walking on excursions from the boat...one pair failed, and another passed with flying colours.  We have done quite a few steps, so ice cream could be on for sweets tonight.  We are earning "ice cream points" for climbing up stairs - going down is not counted at all.  Tonight we are trying out Hooters", and I have told Phil he is NOT having his photo taken with a near topless woman!!  He dropped his bottom lip, but decided as he would be with me for the next umpteen weeks, he had better bow to the higher authority!!!

Well all, it is off to Venice tomorrow, so will post once we get there and have sussed the place out a little.  Hope you are all well.  We miss our babies, and Mussy (the biggest cat baby of them all)!!  Wonder if the house sitters would skype so we could talk to him????

Love,
Sue and Phil. xx