Singapore Welcome
By Lothar. Filed in Singapore |
We arrive in Singapore on Friday afternoon, July 31.
The Changi Airport welcomes us as promised : clean, quiet and efficient. I help myself to a mint, offered at the passport check point. I did brush my teeth on the Lufthansa flight, but now I can enter the clean city-nation with extra fresh breath.
We queue up at the taxi line and an official is assigning us one of the taxis which are pulling up into the loading lanes. The parkway into the city is lined with blooming flowers and we reach our hotel in about 20 minutes. The taxi is equipped with a fare computer which is a good thing. I study all the different fare structures and surcharges, posted on the inside of the door. The cab fare varies depending on the day of the week, hour of the day, distance traveled, district within the city, airport surcharge and a few other parameters. In the end it costs less than 20 USD.
Our hotel is beautiful: the Marina Mandarin is shaped like a pyramid with a 21 story open atrium lobby. We are greeted by smiling ladies in long red dresses, with slits revealing their thighs with every graceful step. These women are slim and good looking. So far I like Singapore!
A glass elevator takes us to the 15th floor: room 1509. Our luggage is being delivered within minutes. Everybody is very friendly and all this service is provided without any tips, which are not customary here! We change and head for the outdoor pool. The water feels refreshing and very soft on the skin. The hotel pool is actually filled with mineral water and has no chemical smell at all.
The hotel also provides us with bottled water which is “oxygenated water”, manufactured under the license of Dr.Who. I hope that we are not drinking H2O2!
At night, Gabi and I walk a few steps down to the Esplanade waterfront and have dinner at Harry’s Bar. The beer is more expensive than the food. Alcohol is being heavily taxed and I pay 16 S$ (or 11USD) for a small beer!
After dinner, we happen to walk by a free concert and have a seat in the water-front arena. We listen to a five person band, giving us a good introduction to this multi-ethnic society. Each band member has a different skin color and race, all working together. Before going to bed, we enjoy the city panorama from our balcony: the harbor, the mouth of the Singapore River with the Merlion statue (spouting a column of water) and the Fullerton Hotel to our left, City Hall and St.Andrew’s Cathedral straight ahead and the historic Raffles Hotel to our right.