Singapore Day 1

Friday, July 1st 2011

Arrived Singapore around 3pm, no queue at both Immigrations at the Tuas Checkpoint. But the PIE and CTE highways in Singapore was rather jammed with cars, normally I'm so used to the almost-empty roads during Chinese New Year. We took more than half an hour to go to Bedok where Taipo lives (to drop Mama off) and then headed to our "home" for the next 3 days, The Fullerton Hotel.

(Just a side note that we only booked the hotel that same morning we left, having discovered the hotel had a totally irresistable weekend deal)

We checked into our Courtyard room, the view was nothing much since it faces the Courtyard and other rooms but what the heck, we really don't care about the view when we have so much activity lined up, and most importantly, we had complimentary breakfast and complimentary usage of the broadband. Having learnt our lesson of all four of us crammed into one king sized bed in Kuantan Hyatt, we asked for a baby cot this time.

William's cot (actually it's a playpen) came with complimentary set of Kodomo toiletries as well. Before checking into this posh 5 star hotel, I reminded the kids to behave themselves while Daddy did the check in. The kids did quite well, surprising they both took a liking to the oil painting art works on display near the reception.

Honestly, I was surprised this little boy knew how to posed like this without any prompting!  Jie jie checking out the oil paintings in the background

Parking, thank God was also complimentary but it was quite a walk all the way to One Fullerton, having to take two lifts, two escalators and one travelator. Each time we got on the travelator, William exclaimed, "Mummy we are going into the aeroplane!" because the airports had these. Aahh, yes, boy boy... how we all miss getting onto an aeroplane, right? Hehehehe...

Part of the bathroom.  It came with private WC room where you can do your business in private, glassed-up shower area and a very nice bathtub.  Oh, and also audio system piped into the bathroom so you don't miss out on what's happening on TV albeit no screen lar

Working area

The bed.

OK, back to Singapore. I tipped the porter who delivered our luggages to the room. Vic caught sight, and asked me after the porter left, "Mummy why do we have to pay the Uncle when he already has salary?"

Good question, babe. Well, errm... because he's expecting to be tipped? Because if we don't, he will silently curse at us behind the door? Because he's underpaid? Because it's the norm to tip in a hotel? Honestly, I can't remember what answer I mumbled to Vic, but will get around to this next time.

Four other guests came along. Three here on the bed, the fourth is a blue donkey borrowed from Mama Yeh Yeh's house to accompany the boy on the journey down (which he pretended was Bullseye from TOY STORY character).

Since they both slept in the car, we scrapped the afternoon nap in the hotel room. As it was nearing 5pm, we definitely did not have enough time for the places we planned to visit, so to the pool we headed! Oh but wait, Mummy forgotten to pack the SPF50, yikes... so we may just end up with two very dark-skinned kids!

The view from the pool was lovely, overlooking the Singapore River and high rise buildings.

Look at the camera, William... stop checking out the babes in bikinis!

After the tanning session in the pool, we bath the kids in the room and walked out for dinner - crossing over to One Fullerton, then to the Marina Square and the Esplanade. My camera battery conked out, thus no beautiful pictures. : (

The kids were mesmerized by the Merlion - simply because of the water spitting out from its mouth, I think. Our walk out and back reminded me somewhat of our time in London last year where we had to carry William in his stroller up and down stairs and kids taking turn to rest in the stroller.

We had dinner at Harry's @ the Esplanade. We sat in the non smoking air conditioned corner, and ordered Braised Lamb Shank for the kids, replaced the mashed potato with rice. For myself, I ordered their Harry's Jazz Burger, and hubby had the Big Breakfast (always thinking of kids first - just in case they want to eat his food). The ambience was nice, the service and food commendable, the best is the 20% discount that came with our SCB credit card : )

After dinner, we walked around at the Marina Square then headed back to the hotel by 930pm. By this time, our legs were all gonna give up on us. Wish I could sit on the stroller too.

Next day's itinerary... "Daddy's gonna bring us to the zoo tomorrow... zoo tomorrow... zoo tomorrow..."