I finally got round to taking pictures of breakfast, which had been really good with a huge variety of foods from different cultures on offer.
Although getting the 86 bus to the hotel was really easy, it turned out getting it back to the airport was not. The bus stop was too far away to make walking with suitcases and crossing those busy roads a realistic possibility. Ubering however was pretty easy so that's what we did.
Check in was a doddle and there were priority lanes for immigration where our short queue had 3 open kiosks while everyone elses much longer queues only had one kiosk each.
Going through security everyone was asked to remove shoes and place them in the basket which is the first time I've had to do this. I even had to take off my watch.
The lounges were quite close at gate 20. It's not a huge lounge but had a good supply of food and plenty of seats. There was a separate room with massage chairs in too.
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| Female restroom included toothbrushes in packs. |
The flight was running late by 25 minutes and it was the same 321 plane we came in on. However unlike the last flight, this did have limited entertainment. We were shown The Road To Russia (about football), a documentary about embroidery skills in Vietnam and a practical jokes show on overhead tv sets. An interesting selection! Again no power to the seats and mechanical adjustment for footrests and to recline the seats but fabulous food. It still beats BA short haul business any day of the week.
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| welcome drinks and hot towels |
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| not quite as much leg room on the 321 |
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| can't fault the food |
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| this was the salmon starter, salad and the dessert |
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| main course |
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| Jonos strange but nice dessert included sweetcorn! |
Singapore airport was also very, very efficient. No queues, bags waiting on the carousel and, when we got to where the taxis were waiting, it was simply take the next in line. No one opportuning us or trying to change our minds, no shouting or beeping of horns.
There is an MRT at Changi airport but the internet had generally warned against trying to use it with lots of bags so we'd heeded the advice.
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| Arrivals baggage area Changi airport |
We were staying at Orchard Scotts Residences on Anthony Road. It's not a hotel but serviced apartments so we had a bedroom, ensuite, lounge, kitchen and crucially, a washing machine. It comes with full use of the gym, tennis courts,basketball courts, children's playgrounds, Jacuzzi and swimming pools as well as a mobile phone with free international calls and data and special offers on attractions around Singapore. And breakfast is provided on weekday mornings as well as an early shuttle bus into the city centre.
We were taken up to our room by Ain who took the time to sit down with us and tell us about where things were and give suggestions. She was very helpful.
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| Lobby area |
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| One of the swimming pools |
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| lounge area |
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| kitchen |
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| unusually basin was in bedroom outside bathroom door |
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| Separate shower out of shot |
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| bedroom |
However I am going to criticise the apartments for their advertising as online they only show one sort of one bedroom suite. They do this well with floor plans and 360 walk throughs too. But this is the deluxe one bedroom suite and actually there is no way online of booking the deluxe version. The suite we got had everything in that was promised but just slightly smaller so for instance the dining area was not a table and 4 chairs but two chairs at a breakfast bar. The washing machine is in the kitchen rather than a separate utility room. It's still very nice, but it would be good to be given the option of booking normal or deluxe.
One thing we knew we needed in Singapore was a transport card to get around. There are two ways, a tourist card which gives unlimited travel and lasts for 1 day at $10, 2 days at $16 or 3 days at $20 ( these also have a $10 deposit that has to be paid but that you can get back) or you could buy the normal EZT card which costs $12 and has $7 credit on it and which you top up as and when needed. We wanted the normal EZT card for two reasons: we were in Singapore for a week and we didn't expect to spend $20 in 3 days.
(At the time of writing it's been 2 days and we have spent just under $7 so the calculations are working, Further update: definitely cheaper to get the normal one- we spent $32 each over the week and still have the cards with a few $ on each which are good for 5 years, plus the tourist card doesn't cover the Sentosa express which we used twice on our EZT cards also cutting out the queues of people buying tickets. So Tourist card would have cost us $48 plus extra queuing time and we would have had to claim back our deposit or it would have cost us $20 more).
Orchard Scotts is just a few minutes walk from Newton MRT and from Newton Food centre so we decided to go sort out our travel cards and see what the food options were.
We discovered we can't buy a travel card from Newton,we had to go to Orchard ( next stop along to get it) and that the 7 11 in the MRT had a reasonable selection of snack foods, sandwiches, hot food, icecream, drinks and a seating area where you could eat them since no food is allowed on the MRT.
Newton food centre was a revelation. It's a square with food stalls all around the edge and lots of tables to sit at in the middle. You could order dishes from more than one stall, the food arrived quickly and there was a huge variety of people eating there from business men in suits to families with kids, groups of teenagers and people by themselves. The dishes were put in the middle of the table and people shared. We chose two small size portions and ate well for only $14 ( about £7). No frills, disposable plates and crockery, all open air. Don't expect to find desserts though and drinks stalls are separate from food stalls.
It was sooo warm, temperature was still in the 30s and we could feel the sweat dripping down our backs.
Replete we walked home to our air conditioned apartment.
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| Jacuzzi at Orchard Scotts |
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