Sunday Dec 23
We disembarked at 8:15AM - all very smooth, our luggage was waiting on a trolley a porter to push it to a taxi. We arrived at our hotel, The Fairmont at Raffles City, before 9:00AM and low and behold we were able to check-in immediately - which was really nice. We unpacked then called Merry and arranged to meet at her place around 5:00PM for a drink then dinner out.
After resting up a bit we walked (underground through many interconnected shopping arcades) to the amazing Marina Bay Sands complex. We headed up to the bar at the sky-top Ku De Ta restaurant (saving the $20pp to gain entry to the viewing area). The bar has great views over the famous mega sky-top pool (off limits except to hotel guests) and all of Singapore. Since it was already lunch time we had a drink and shared a snack. From here we walked around the attached gardens (knowns as Gardens by the Bay) which were totally amazing, visiting the Supertree Grove, Flower Garden and Cloud Forest - see http://www.gardensbythebay.com.sg/en/home.html.
We met up with Mark and Merry at their apartment which is only a 5+ minute walk from the Fairmont. We were toting 3 bottles of French Champagne to help celebrate the festive season. After polishing off a bottle for five'es we headed out to nearby restaurant, Bambu - sort of a fusion of various Asian flavours. After dinner we stopped for a nightcap at the famous Angel Bar.
Monday Dec 24
We visited the Jurong Bird Park with Merry in the morning - enjoying it very much in-spite of the holiday crowds. On the way back we stopped at ??? so Merry could do a bit of shopping then we all headed home. We met Jenny and John Orchard (friends from our cruise) at their hotel (Marina Mandarin) so we could take them to the bar at the Ku De Ta for a drink. They had 2 Mexican ladies (also from our cruise) in tow so we all headed over of five'es. Afterwards the Mexican ladies headed off for some more retail therapy while the 4 of us found a nice Italian bar in the Marina Bay Sands shopping arcade for a light dinner. We were facing the water so had a great view of a laser show accompanied by a band.
Tuesday Dec 25
We did a bit of shopping at Raffles City in the morning - everything was open even though it was Christmas Day. Later we headed over to Merry and Mark's for Christmas lunch around 2:00pm; a colleague of Mark's also joined us. We had an excellent lunch of paella accompanied by Champagne and various wine. Dieter and I headed back to our hotel at 6pm as we had to pack for an early departure the following morning.
Wednesday Dec 26
So the holiday ended with is on the SQ 9:40AM flight back to Sydney - at home by 9pm.