Singapore, Singapore, Sunday, February 7th

What a whirlwind of a day! We left the ship early and got on the shuttle for a 45 minute ride into downtown Singapore. Singapore is just beautiful – green, lush and extremely clean. The people here are so friendly, polite and helpful. We’ve found that to be true of all the Asian people we’ve encountered. There are a lot of them though! Bill always holds onto my hand because he’s afraid of us getting separated. If he loses me off the ship I’ll never be found again!

There’s lots of shopping and many beautiful shopping centers but all the stores are very high end – much too expensive for us. We’ve done little more than walk by them. They seem to be plenty busy though so someone is spending money.

Once again Bill decided not to take any of the Singapore tours put on by the cruise line. He’s pretty nervy and I guess I am too following him around like I do. We found the MRT (an underground massive transit train) and hopped on it heading out towards the famous Singapore Zoo. We heard that this is one of the most beautiful zoos in the world so we decided to spend our limited time there. We rode the MRT as far as we could and then hopped onto a train that took us right to the zoo. Beautiful cannot describe that zoo. There were lush trees, bushes, flowers, plants and water ponds throughout and the animals were incredible. The monkeys had these long hanging noses. Our only problem was that it was hot and muggy again. It was hard to stay cool enough. After the zoo we went back into town and hunted down the infamous “Long Bar” known mainly for their Singapore Slings. I was really, really tired by this time but I kept up. I had one of those famous drinks but I didn’t like it. We had a bit of an experience after leaving the Long Bar. We were only about three blocks from where we needed to be to catch our bus back to the ship but my legs were finished so Bill decided to get us a cab (which would have cost $4.00). A rickshaw driver came up to us and insisted we go with him – “manpower” were his words. Bill asked him how much but he didn’t speak English well enough to understand and answer him. He was so insistent that we decided to go with him for the experience. And what an experience it was! He crossed the street, took us one block and we were there. He then demanded $40.00. Bill said “no, $4.00”. All of a sudden this rickshaw driver spoke excellent English and the verbal fight began. A long story short….Bill paid him $4.00. After that it was time to find that shuttle bus back to the ship. If you don’t go out with a cruise tour and you’re not back in time, the cruise ship does not wait for you. We did fine on the MRT and the buses but in order to cross the street in Singapore you have to go through underground tunnels. That was a problem for us. By the time we figured out what we were doing I was about to expire. We got to the shuttle in time though and back on the ship before we sailed. I was so tired I just took a bath and fell into bed. It was about 4:30. I didn’t want to get up at all but Bill went downstairs and brought us up a turkey sandwich, a couple of cookies and two beers. That food was so good. I think we were starving. We skipped dinner in the dining room and opted for a two hour nap instead. After that we went to an 8:15 comedy show and then called it a day.