TravelStream™ news feed for member jbushie on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jbushie en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:54:30 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259890937/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259890937/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259890937/tpod.html Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:54:30 -0500 Splendour in a Singaporean condominium this time...

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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

What's happened to Customs and Immigration at Tullamarine since last visit? It was almost as fast as Changi!!! Unbelievable. Queue of four at Immigration, waved through at Customs. Can only surmise that TV exposure has smartened them up!

That's where the efficiencies and similarities ended though - sadly. We were unable to get out of the long term carpark when the ticket machine jammed. The women in the booth motioned us to back up and park. The ticket machine in her office jammed as she tried to print a duplicate. She worked through a manual entry...

Wouldn't happen in Singapore - in fact, their airport parking is on their e-Tags.

Then there was the peak hour Tulla Freeway to deal with. All of this before facing a house inhabited by 19year old males for a week.

Well, at least the dogs were still alive and happy to see me!...

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Singapore, Singapore

Laura still hadn't bought any gold. I still had bought much at all, given that this was trip was meant to include Christmas shopping. Today HAD to be a last minute scramble before tonight's flight at 8.15pm.

So it was back to Mustafa's... the all-in-one Christmas shop. With no sign of Frosty The Snowman in sight! (And we were getting VERY tired of cutesy renditions of Christmas songs tinkling everywhere else.)

Gold earrings - tick!
New universal power adaptor - tick!
Cushion covers - tick!
Sari kit, 3-piece, embroidered and beaded - tick!
USB stick - tick!
Mens shaver - tick!
Mens boxers - tick!
Pashminas - tick!
Beaded sandals - tick!
More earrings - tick!

No energy left for anything else - check.
Jurong Park train home - check!
Suitcases sufficiently packed, strapped and under 20kg - check!

Taxi!

Whereas the standard Singapore CBD shopping mall in contained over 6-8 levels, Changi Airport is the same thing on one, spread over numerous arms. The array of shops is just as intriguing, with most of them past Immigration... check in beyond the point of no return and all you can do then is shop for a minimum of one hour.
And like the rest of the island, precious few seats.
"Keep them moving, keep them browsing and buying."

Thankfully, there were also free internet terminals, reasonable coffee at cafe seats.

QF10 departing at 8.15pm was a stop-over for the London-Melbourne service so was completely full. Full of tired people. Full of young back-packers talking excitedly. Full of Singaporean families talking loudly. And seat 54J behind me was full of one of those passengers who kicks and grabs 'your' headrest all night. Especially at those precious moments when you have just dozed off...

Between "D" for Dire Straits and "E" for Elton John on the iPod, I calculated that I slept for a total of 11 minutes through the Doobie Brothers. That's 11 minutes over 27 hours.

New Travel Rule: #2 - Any overnight sector is to be flown in Premium Economy.
Man, those seats looked good as we filed past at Tullamarine at 6.30am...

(Travel Rule: #1 - Any sector over 12 hours is to be flown in Premium Economy.
It's just one of those expenses of travelling that I am now going to factor in. Done my time in cattle class.)

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Singapore, Singapore

After the hustle and bustle of a city of 4.5 million people, it was a day to explore the Singapore Orchid Gardens... ACRES of tropical plants.

And Singapore orchids. LOTS of Singapore orchids...

Every colour and shape with added bromeliads, palms and myna birds - seemingly the only birdlife in this city. With piped misting and a total lack of breeze, added to the most oppressive day thus far, the atmosphere was stiflingly and I was stymied in no time. The garden were lovely and meticulously clean, of course - workers picking up individual dropped leaves with long tongs - but there was no way we were spending a whole day there! We had a glimpse of the attached Singapore Botanic Gardens as we sipped cool drinks from the shade of the teahouse.

And cool drinks were the theme for the afternoon as well... High tea at Raffles Tiffin Room, not unlike that at The Peninsula in Hong Kong but with a more colonial air. We definitely felt like landed English gentry being waited upon by the uniformed servants!
Afternoon tea was not just tea and scones. There was (outrageously priced) champagne, savoury hot Asian morsels and a wide assortment of delicate cakes, all accompanied by Christmas Carols on the harp.

The day ended with a trip to one of our hosts' favourite seafood restaurants with a huge array of live things in tanks and a menu to match. The communal bowl of pepper crab was the crowd pleaser, as was the warm outdoor seating under (more) Christmas lights in the trees above.

24 hours - and the only purchases were admissions and food. Suspect it won't last...

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Singapore, Singapore

You guessed it... more shops. But not before the stunning four-storey gold-laden Bhuddha Tooth Temple. The photos tell the storey.

Chinatown this time... Shopping here moves from a pastime to a sport. Small businesses sell (mostly) tacky things for tourists with shopkeepers willing to barter. At SGD$5.00, the pashminas were cheaper than New York, hitting a new minimum for that benchmark.

Best results are achieved by bargaining using Singlish - the informal spoken Asian-English indigenous to Singapore. Standard English grammar rarely applies. Grammar, tenses and plurals are usually abandonned for a more direct rhythmic sound. Economy is the order with sentences pared to absolute simplicity. Okay, lah?

So... "Wah! So expensive! Cannot afford, lah. Got discount? Got ten dollar only. ATM where?"

Amusingly, many of the phrases I read in a Singlish guide were very familiar already or now part of English!... "Long time no see!"

As for now, it's bedtime... "So damn shack now, lah!"

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Singapore, Singapore

This morning started with a trip to the Fort Canning Battle Boxes - the British warren of rooms 20 feet underground used as command headquarters in the Second World War until the Japanese invasion of Singapore. Interesting history - especially the fact that apart from air attacks, the Japanese invasion of Singapore was via 60,000 troops through Malaysia ON BIKES!

Laura and I then tackled the remaining malls on the list of recommended stops.

Sunday is most people's only day off and the national sport is shopping... the CBD was packed! But I am now officially 'shopped' out. (Not that I bought much - clothing and shoes are invariably too small.) The decorated LG washer/drier with attached bling tickled my fancy though.

Now take me home to my bed. I'm stuffed.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259357182/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259357182/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259357182/tpod.html Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:36:31 -0500 Splendour in a Singaporean condominium this time...

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Singapore, Singapore

Today was the Muslim public holiday Hari Raya Haji, celebrating the haj or pilgrimage to Mecca, especially for those who have completed the haj. Men can then wear white songkoks or caps. On Hari Raya Haj, after early morning prayers, goats and sheep are slaughtered and the meat distributed to the poor. Yards of beasts were evident alongside the mosques yesterday as we toured in the bus.
It seemed that after tending to the poor, all of Singapore then turned their attention to shopping along Orchard Road.

Today, Laura and I had a list of plazas recommended by Becky. We were to work our way down Orchard Road through six of them.

We made it through three.

Shops in Singapore and casinos (in any city) have much in common... winding paths with no regular layout to draw you deeper (and get you lost once inside), lots of glitz to impress, level upon level underground with no daylight and MANY ways to take your money! Think Chadstone (the new expanded version) add two or three more levels underground and add half the Singapore population on a public holiday and that was today.

(Incidentally, Singapore doesn't have any casinos but they are building one at the moment - known as an 'Integrated Resort Complex'.)

It was 3pm when we sighted a wet glass dome and realised that it wasn't a water feature but a skylight and rain. Until then, we had moved through malls and arcades two to three levels underground and well and truly walked our 10,000 steps! We saw stunning designer shops, beautiful Japanese stores, fascinating food courts and an amazing workforce - one sales person person glass cabinet/stand/brand in each department where Myer would have a couple behind the till.

We hobbled home as the sun set to do a show-and-tell of restrained purchases for Becky and explore Singapore TV. (There's no elimination from Singapore Idol this week in recognition of World Aids Day!)

And apparently, we really do have to do the other 3 recommended malls.

But not tomorrow...



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259436422/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259436422/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259436422/tpod.html Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:14:06 -0500 Splendour in a Singaporean condominium this time...

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Singapore, Singapore

From western splendour to an Indian experience today...

Three temples, an Indian vegetarian lunch and the entire day in Mustafa's - an Indian-owned six level department store occupying an entire block. Fascinating! Packed with stock and people...

And amazing things for sale... Lengths of sari fabrics, jewel-encrusted ladies Punjabi tops and pants, regular men's and women's clothes, Asian furniture, gold chains, gold rings, gold watches, technology laid on, appliances, a supermarket, a chemist store. Even a burgundy-coloured LG washing machine with black floral patterns and diamantes!

It was another amazing eight hour day of retail and I could have kept scratching. But the girls were fading. It was home time, a quick meal across the roundabout at Newtons Circus Hawkers Market.

And an early night.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259184699/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259184699/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259184699/tpod.html Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:19:02 -0500 Splendour in a Singaporean condominium this time...

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Singapore, Singapore

My favourite way to orientate myself and work out where I really want to go back to... the hop-on-hop-off bus trip.
Singapore has one running two interconnecting loops - a city one down Orchard Road and through the leafier northern blocks and an historic loop through Little India, Chinatown and the old river area near Raffles. We have also chanced on the Christmas lights season and our bus ticket included a trip down Orchard Road tonight to take them all in.

The weather was hot and humid, but not unbearable in the shade and EVERYWHERE under cover has air-conditioning set to icy.
Although large lengths of historic shop-houses have been preserved, the over-riding impression is ultra-modern, sleek, clean, orderly, young and every square metre meticulously landscaped. There was little of the Asian charm apparent from the upper storey of the tourist double-decker bus as seen in Hong Kong.

The spotless public transport, of course, works like a charm. (why can Melbourne STILL not work out it's myki system when Singapore has had one for decades?) The whole island is clad in polished granite or marble and the winter stock is coming into the shops - fur-trimmed parkas anyone? In fact, the whole sleigh rides and snow flakes thing seems even more ludicrous here than Australia with the constant steamy 31oC temperature.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259184667/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259184667/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/4/1259184667/tpod.html Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:31:30 -0500 Splendour in a Singaporean condominium this time...

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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The girls are off to visit dear friend Becky and do a little Christmas shopping on the side in Singapore. Maybe no cheaper but undoubtedly different.

Plans are also to explore the Botanic and Orchid Gardens, Little India, maybe a walking tour or two, a shopping plaza or three and generally have fun times with Wayne and Becky who live alongside Newton's Circus and around the corner from Orchard Road.

And what a (relative) joy to fly Qantas after experimenting with Tiger and Jetstar! Reasonable headphones, pillow and blanket on every seat - no extra outlay. Very reasonable food that kept on coming. With drinks. At no extra cost... Pleasant cabin crew. On time. No broken luggage.

We flew quite a distance hugging the Great Australian bite before turning right over Western Australia. Over red desert with long, rocky ridges that looked like a an iguana's spikes from 36,000 feet up. Directly over Port Hedland and Indonesia to a super-efficient Changi airport and Becky excitedly waving across the glass arrivals hall. Our bags were off the luggage belt before we even made it there. Immigration? Two minutes. Customs? Walked straight past. Love it!

Our accommodation is 25 storeys up in marbled luxury. An air-conditioned bedroom and bathroom each and a hostess who's right at home in this city already.

The week is going to be tough!

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/rtw-2007/1178595120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/rtw-2007/1178595120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jbushie/rtw-2007/1178595120/tpod.html Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:09:50 -0400 2007 - AROUND THE WORLD IN 73 DAYS. How JB abandoned her children and did the running away from home. A long way away from home... (We all survived.)

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New York, New York, United States

I love those Canadians. They had a heart, half of them had delightful French accents and they didn't put me through the wringer at their airport at Toronto! Didn't even check my liquids.



The American Airlines flight was, however, an hour late departing and then the gate was changed leaving many passengers bewildered and scrambling. The plane was another little 39 seater/1 hostess job affording pleasant views over Lake Ontario and upper New York. We had a full view of Manhattan as we descended... and then we just seemed to keep going and going. JFK airport is MILES away! And miles of walking from entry to exit. However, the New York taxi system is very well organized once you reach the rank. (I opted to not go via shuttle bus this time, landing who-knows-where.) There is a set fare of $45 from JFK to anywhere on Manhattan - and it was good value. It took close to an hour in the peak hour traffic.



The Hotel Newton is proving to be a little gem. On Broadway on the Upper West Side, it is amongst many shops of the domestic kind. The cross streets are full of 4 to 5 storey residential brownstones, the families in which require food, laundromats, cafes and transport. Just what we need too!



Last night I had dinner with our old neighbours from Gisborne Street who now live just 10 blocks (10 minutes) from our hotel. It was a delight to catch up with them, hear their stories, gather some tips and have someone to walk me around in the dark until I found my NYC legs.



This morning, Rob and Liz arrived from Washington. What excitement! I had made it all the way and managed a rendez-vous as planned all those months and kilometres ago. Before their arrival, I had walked quite a few blocks sourcing fruit, bread and deli items for lunches. Every corner here has a fruit stall and every second one has a 'daily' - a little grocery/deli/fruit shop that New Yorkers get just what they need for the day. No Coles or Safeways here - space is at too high a premium for big shops with wide aisles! Walking also allowed me to observe the neighbourhood as it awoke... Latino nannies wheeling pushers with their charges to pre-school, dog-walkers with 6-8 hounds in tow, school buses in this highly built up area driving to schools 10 stories high with no playgorunds.



Tomorrow, we plan to do the hop-on-hop-off bus trip, so photos will follow.
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