We woke up quite early. Sad to leave Sydney. Excited to be going to Singapore. Wishing we didn’t have to fly 8 hours to get there….
Nature was kind. There were more clouds today in Sydney than we’d seen all week. It still looked beautiful though…. Nice last breakfast. Farewells from the Pier One staff and a Uber XL to take us to the airport.
Wow! Sydney International Terminal is an amazing place. So many fabulous shops. I did my usual “lavishing” thing. That is: I have a particular favourite perfume that is about £150 a bottle (so I’m never going to buy it!), Armani Prive Anciens Incens…. I spray myself like a Parisian trollop with it. All over. Lavishly. Then I browse the skin creams. Quite often I pick Guerlain Royal Orchadee (£180 for a small tub) but today I picked Chanel Lift (similar price) and slavered that on… Oh, I had some Chanel Lift Serum on before it too…. Obviously looking (and smelling) a million dollars, i drifted on to the gate…. If you don’t do this, you should. Might as well get on the flight feeling fabulous. For free!
We were exceptionally lucky with the flight. Singapore Airlines! We’d booked the front of Economy and gone for the Window seat/Aisle Seat strategy. This time it paid off. We had no one sitting between us, so we had a super wide seat and plenty of room to stretch out. It was an A380-800, an amazing plane. The attendants were beautiful and liked their job. We got a proper hot 4 course lunch shortly after take off, and another hot one course meal (prawn fried rice in my case) before landing. They were incredibly generous with the drinks too. I watched 3 films during the course of the flight. Jumanji which was absolutely excellent. Sequels are generally terrible. I thought this one was better than the original. So did Bob. Then I watched The Greatest Showman, the musical about PT Barnum. Loved that too. Loved Hugh Jackman in it. Especially loved the opening and closing numbers. I watched them twice! And then I watched just the opening of Thor Ragnarok again because I think its a great opening. Especially when the music “I come from the land of the ice and snow….” starts. Just great. All right. Chris Hemsworth is pretty good to watch too. But its the music I really like (giggle). Sorry. Then, I watched All the Money in the World, about the Paul Getty kidnapping. I actually remember that. Really good. Christopher Plummer was excellent as J Paul Getty. I wonder what Kevin Spacey’s performance was like…. I wonder if a cut exists.
The flight was really smooth and it was so interesting flying over Australia. I know it sounds like with three films (and a bit!) watched, I couldn’t have been looking out of the window. But I was! We flew for hours over absolute red desert wilderness. The sort of land that is human death. If the space agencies aren’t using central Australia to train for Mars, then I would be very surprised. It’s weird, weird country.
Had to circle for about an hour before landing in Singapore but landed to a good evening with temperatures about 31C. The drive into the city from the airport must be one of the most beautiful I can think of. Fabulous shrubs of all colours of pink, lovely specimen trees…. and then the spectacular Singapore skyline. So many new buildings since we were last here in 2011. Can’t wait to visit some of the new attractions.
Our hotel, the JW Marriott South Beach, is very new, very super cool, very trendy. You walk in past big light art displays and even the lift has a light show inside it, changing colour all the time. Our room is not huge but spacious enough with lots of mirrors and uber cool concealments. The bathroom is amazing. Big egg shaped double bath. Big double shower. And an all singing all dancing electric toilet. It does everything. Lifts its own lid, lights up the bowl, flushes… changes into a bidet of all types, even gives pulsating washes. Blimey! The seat is warmed. It’s extraordinary.
We have free access to the Club Lounge level of the hotel. This means we can go intot he restaurant and lounge on that level for food and drink at all hours of the day. Tonight, after we’d unpacked, we went up for the hors d’oevres service and free cocktails. WOW!!!! There was so much free food, way beyond what I would call Nibbles. It was more like a big buffet. We stuffed ourselves and also helped ourselves to drinks. Not horrid cheap drinks either. The wine was very good labels. Can see we might visit there a lot. Well, definitely for breakfast tomorrow!
We then went up to floor 18 to look at the pool area there. Amazing. Incredible views over the new Marina Bay area and the Gardens. Can’t wait to explore them over the next couple of days. But tonight, we were tired…. So… turned in about 830 and watched tv.