Arrived home late last night so coffee today was my first back at my favourite Café in Engadine (Steam Brothers). So good I had a flat white and a latte. Must admit after a few weeks without it, Vegemite is heaven on toast.
Month: July 2018
I’m on the final leg of the journey home, back at T3 at Changi for the flight home to Oz. The checkin was a T3 but the plane actually departs from gate C1 which is technically in T1. Plenty of time to walk or take the skytrain. You can walk all the way around through T1, T2 and T3 but will take some time as the airport is massive.
Checkin area is massive. No queues.
Coffee was at Hudson’s, for an airport coffee not too bad. Better than the one I had here just over 5 weeks ago on my way to London. Apparently it’s the only Hudson’s store outside Australia. It’s pretty much standard chain based coffee, I certainly wouldn’t seek it out at home.
On the skytrain between Terminal 3 and Terminal 1
Lots of things here at Changi to keep weary travellers entertained between flights and waiting for departure. All of these are on the “air side” of the airport after passing through emigration.
The Lilly Pond garden.
Interesting display
Carp pond
Cactus garden
Butterfly garden. Unfortunately only thing active at this time of the morning was a moth.
You can watch the planes go as you go !
And the plane is here, with a little rain outside
I think everyone knows I travel with a few kg of tech. To be honest the only two things that were indispensable apart from my mobile phone were a rechargeable battery pack and a SIM card with near unlimited European roaming (this one works in Asia too)
The battery pack meant I never had to worry about my phone running out, I think this one will charge my phone 6 or 7 times itself. It kept 3 of us juiced up the entire day and the SIM card meant I could use the phone anywhere without having to worry about finding free wifi or waiting till back in the hotel or apartment (which often had dodgy wifi anyway).
This particular SIM card had 12gig data on it per recharge. It has some fair use policies that would impact you if you used it like I did over a 4 month period outside the UK, but for a month it’s effectively unlimited, and hey, a £20 recharge costs the same as a brand new sim, so just buy 2 or three sims if going for a few months.
After I arrived yesterday, checked in and had the obligatory Singapore Sling by the pool I headed out to look around for dinner.
I settled on one of the oldest Hawker food centres in Singapore, the Telok Ayer Market. I had a fantastic Thai beef dish. Absolutely delish.
Singapore is certainly one clean place and obsessed with health and hygiene. One of the reasons I love this city. Each food stall is rated from A to D on a food safety / hygiene scale.
A – You could basically eat of the floor
B – Yeah, pretty good
C – Would you really want to chance it
D – This will probably kill you
For reference, almost all the food stalls in the Hawker centres are B rated. Only one was rated A which was a sushi place.
The metro (MTR) here is really good, seems to go most places. The hotel I’m at has one right next to it, you can get to it via the mall right opposite to completely avoid the humidity here.
When on the metro, after the English announcements, there is one that sounds like “Happy Happy Platform” It couldn’t possibly be that, so I googled it and it’s “Berhati hati di ruang platform” – Malay for “Please mind the gap between the platform”.
The MTR also have lots of little rhyming cartoons asking people to be mindful of other commuters.
At the metro stations, no free phone charging for you!
Even in conformist Singapore these share bikes are treated with contempt. Saw plenty of broken ones here.
My wifi router at home looks like it’s finally packed it in, so went looking for a new one. They have a shopping centre dedicated to geek stuff. They had the one I was thinking of, but the hassles of brining such a massive box home far outweighs the cost saving of buying it over the web at home, so I didn’t bother
Today after my awesome coffee I went down to the gardens at Marina Bay. I didn’t actually go in, the crowds were insane and they wanted $35 so I just walked around the outskirts of it and took the shuttle bus around it
Pictured is the famous Marina Bay hotel with its equally famous infinity pool. This is where I really wanted to stay, but at around 3 times what I’m paying for where I am, which is already a fabulous hotel, I wasn’t prepared to hit the wallet for that one this time just to swim in the pool. It would have to be a fantastic swim for $1000.
I did a little shopping, all of it for Emma since I went past one of her favourite clothes shops.
Before packing for the last time and heading out to find some dinner I had a dip in the pool here and a cocktail.
More than halfway home, Singapore has been an awesome place to break the journey in two and readjust to the clock in the part of the world. Daylight hours flight home tomorrow.
Went across the river to Clarke Quay for dinner. Plenty of nice food options here. All seemed to be rated “A” on the it might kill you scale. I had Mexican. Once the sun was down walking around outside was really pleasant.
A friend of mine who lives in Singapore sent me a list of potential coffee places to try here (Thanks Janice!). One on the list that wasn’t that far from my hotel was “The Common Man Coffee Roasters”. Not only close but the name piqued my interest so off I went late in the morning after a significant sleep in.
Before even entering I could see this would be good, hardly anyone around and the place was pumping with people and a small queue had formed for tables. Plenty of awards posted on the walls for things they had won over the years
I think even the Baristas were surprised at how busy they were today they took a break from their coffee making for a few seconds to take a snap of the crowd on their phones, so I used that as an opportunity to ask them if I could take their photo, as I was sitting right behind the coffee machine. They of course obliged
The coffee was exceptional of course as I’d trust Janice on any food recommendation any time.
I had a granola with fruit and Greek yoghurt for brunch. Also delicious.
Now to work out what to see here in Singapore before flying home tomorrow.
It's all about the coffee 