So I've been meaning to write up our weekend away to Singapore for a fortnight but never got round to it... until now. Here are a few selected thoughts about our trip:

The special deal with our short Singapore Airlines flight meant that we had a special rate with Hotel Pan Pacific. It has the reputation of a swish Singaporean hotel (well as I could tell when various people go "oooo" whenever I mention it to them) so my expectations were raised. It has a lovely lobby with lots of big, comfy seats that you could just melt (see photo) into as well as the necessary water feature (which pleased our young son to no end). The ride to the room was just as spectacular as well - an outdoor lift that lets you survey the Singapore skyline as you shoot up to the 29th floor - which was unnerving for my mother as she was not too fond of heights. However the swishness of the hotel didn't really extend to the room - the room was comfortable but not really as spectacular as I would have expected in line with the rest of the place. It came with a nice sea view too because the lady kindly upgraded us (the balcony provided a place from my mum to take some picturesque photographs although she wouldn't look over the edge) and some business sized envelopes that were perfect for slipping 2005-6 fantasy league diaries into!

( Ok, no photo although you click on this link to see what I wanted to put in!

http://singapore.panpacific.com/hotel/photo_04.html )

As my only stays in Singapore have only been 5 hour long stop-overs from ridiciously long 13+ hour flights, I have never really seen much of outdoor Singapore in a state enough to appreciate it. In all honesty, we didn't have a clue where to go even with the tourist map unfolded in front of us but our final decision rested on Singapore Zoo - a place where Ben would come face to face with wild animals that he only ever seen on television.

Singapore Zoo is a hard place to reach. We had a long MRT (Monorail Transport) journey at which Ben was pretty tired then we had to get off (me carrying a Ben which had fallen asleep) and look for a taxi. We were standing at a taxi stand for 10 minutes and... no taxi ever came! So we walked around the corner of the shopping complex and there was one pretty much instantly!! The most annoying thing was that to get back to the hotel, we took a taxi back and it slashed the amount of travel time by about two thirds and wasn't at all expensive as the girl at the information counter in the shopping centre told us...

Singapore Zoo has a 3.4km path which actually isn't very far at all... to adults! However to a half dozy 5 year old son, it is a considerable distance and we couldn't use the tram that travels around the zoo either as it wasn't included in the ticket price either. So my bad memories recall having to drag and later carry my own 18kg pet around the zoo. However there were some good memories - Ben could relate to most of the animals from cartoon feature films. For instance, he loved looking at the meerkats which triggered memories of The Lion King 1 & 1/2 and Timone and Pumba as well as actually hearing a lion roar. Then we came across a bunch of children who were on a school trip and when they went to look at the newly imported giraffes, they were singing a song from the film Madagascar "I like to Move It, Move It!" Our son also liked the fountain which shot water directly up into the air and was surrounded by pebbles too (see photograph of happy child and tired father).


After a dinner of ordinary but expensive duck rice, we headed straight for the Night Safari which is essentially another zoo next to the main one but as you have cunningly guessed only open at night. Fortunately though our tickets did allow us to sit on the tram (I don't think we would have gone in if it didn't because the adults were pretty exhausted by then!). Despite the long queue, which moved along quickly thanks to typical efficient Singaporean efficiency, we were able to board one of the trams and the ride turned out to be quite enjoyable - certainly enough that Ben wanted to go on it again! It was basically a slow ride around the zoo with a lady sprouting facts from the top of her head as we trundled past various areas but with the animals accustomed to the tram and dimmed lights, they were not bothered about us which allowed us to get a good look at them in their (fairly) natural habitat - most especially the boars which were only an arm stretch away - although no-one was crazy enough to offer their hand!

Well the next day turned out to be a horrible one (after a pleasant Japanese lunch with John, Angela & baby James) as we visited shopping centre after shopping centre with no considered planning. It is even more terrible with an 18kg son who whines on as time moves on which usually = my good self carrying him = a tired father = (if left long enough to stew) a very p*ssed off man. I would like to say at this point that Singaporean shopping centres are woefully child unfriendly - no playgrounds or anywhere for younger children to play at any of the 3 (very large) shopping centres that we stomped through.

However my brother-in-law did take us to an excellent place for dinner called le marche. Each diner is given a card with a bar code scanner and whenever you go and choose something to eat, you hand it over and it gets scanned. At the end of the meal, you pass your card to the cashier and it gets totalled up. And boy are there choices?!? It is set out like a (very clean) market with each section brimming full of tasty looking food - the meat section brimming with steak and vegetatables of your choice although the lamb (actually now I think about it, I don't think it was lamb but it will have to be lamb because I can't remember what it was) looked just as appealing.

You could also compile your own food re: the vegetables for instance, you could make your own salad, take a pre-paid salad, choose your vegetables and ask the chef to stir fry them for you just the way you like it - the pizzas were, of course, your choice of topping and baked in the oven whilst you wait. And the desserts were just as popular with the ice cream and pancakes having a very long line with a multitude of cakes also on display for the customer's selection. And the queues were not restricted to the inside: we had to queue outside for a short while becaue all the tables were full - it felt like a nightclub as we stood on the red carpet behind the man with the rope letting people in! My mouth just salivates at the thought of the place...

Sunday morning was the day 3 of us flew home although we managed to cram in a service at City Harvest Church in the morning. At this point Ben & I separated to go to the children's service whilst my mother & I joined Angela in the main auditorium for the service. Our service was ok although there was one funny moment (amongst others). The young lady was demonstrating the cleaning of a stain on a white cloth by hand washing it in a bucket and relating it to the cleaning of our sins by Jesus Christ.

One of her sentences were, "I'm sure you've seen your parents clean your clothes like this."

At which point, Ben related loudly to her (and everyone else), "My mummy and daddy wash the clothes in a washing machine!" The strange thing was that he said it loudly enough for everyone to hear in a moment of quietness but nobody reacted at all. It was as if nobody heard (not possible) although they might have had difficulty understanding his accent or else it didn't register in their brains.

Meanwhile the service in the basement was jam packed full of young people and noise! My wife actually described it as similar to a concert in terms of size and response which would account for my mother's words of never returning there again! The church also now holds the record for the shortest skirt I've ever seen in a church - I know that if I was a guy and this particular girl sat next to me, I sure would have difficulty concentrating. On the sermon that is! Obviously we've not been to any of the cell groups or any other events so I wouldn't like you to avoid this church just from what I've written above.

It has, by far, the best church website intro I've seen (although I would like to point out the need for a high bandwidth and a computer that is running fairly speedily!)! And the only church website that tells you the weather of the city, it is based in! It puts our church website to shame although of course, it doesn't really matter whether a church website is funky or not. Ok, I can go round in circles apologising but it really is too late and I am coming close to having 21 hours without any sleep so at this point, I will cut my short (or rather long) my Singaporean tales right now!  ¶ 12:39 am