Scooting to Singapore

[GarrettM]

Lunch was to be at the Maxwell Centre, a short trip in another taxi.

I think this is a Transformers reference. Lots of cars with Decepticons motifs around.

 

[Denali]

.... think this is a Transformers reference. Lots of cars with Decepticons motifs around.
View attachment 126079

My car often gets "Look, its Bumble Bee!" comments from children. So I then feel obliged to slow down/delay getting into my car to not crush the childs idea of the cool person that drives it (being middle aged and fat). No, its not a camaro, its the colour that makes them say/think it.

 

[love_the_life]

My car often gets "Look, its Bumble Bee!" comments from children. So I then feel obliged to slow down/delay getting into my car to not crush the childs idea of the cool person that drives it (being middle aged and fat). No, its not a camaro, its the colour that makes them say/think it.

Pushka's car takes the cake for being a bee - yellow and black Skoda with matching bumble bee number plate. She posted a photo on AFF at some stage.

 

[love_the_life]

Was this a quick trip for a short getaway GM? Suppose it’s no so far from Perth so easy for a long weekend or slightly longer.
Great to read along.

Did you get the pusher wheel back?

 

[GarrettM]

Was this a quick trip for a short getaway GM? Suppose it’s no so far from Perth so easy for a long weekend or slightly longer.
Great to read along.

Did you get the pusher wheel back?

Five nights incuding the overnight plane trip.
Sunday night to Friday, so home tomorrow.

No wheel. Apparently the driver remembers us, and said we were his last fare. But when he cleaned out his taxi the wheel was not there. There's no reason for him to lie about that, but I'm quite sure the wheel did not come off before or after the taxi.

 

[GarrettM]

Lunch on Tuesday was the Maxwell Centre. Another quick taxi trip.
Hainanese chicken rice, some duck, some curry and carrot cake, which is neither cake nor made with or from carrots.



After lunch we ambled around a bit of Chinatown, and back to the MRT.
Funny signs on the train. I wonder what the penalty for durians is. Probably death.

 

[love_the_life]

Bummer about the wheel. We once took daughter's friend with us to New Caledonia. Somehow she managed to lose he bag (with passport) in a taxi on the way back to the hotel. Luckily the driver remembered us and found it the next day (like you we were the last fare and he had driven home). The consulate was excellent and they got onto the taxi company the next morning and tracked it down (whew!)
Do you need to buy a new stroller for MissGM or will you try to get by?
Five days is a good time to spend mooching around Singapore.

 

[GarrettM]

Bummer about the wheel.

//

Do you need to buy a new stroller for MissGM or will you try to get by?
Five days is a good time to spend mooching around Singapore.

We'll be fine. Hired one at the zoo and we are off home tomorrow. Already ordered a replacement wheel.
It's just a minor inconvenience and an annoying way to spend $70.
But no real damage done.

 

[GarrettM]

Our night safari tickets cost us $62/adult, and a child under 3 is free. MissGM turns three at the end of the month, so we saved some money there. Ticket includes hotel pickup and drop off.
Of course there are several ways to get cheaper tickets to the wildlife park, but we didn't plan it very well.
A ParkHopper ticket cost about $80/per person and gets you into multiple parks. I'd recommend doing that if you are serious about visiting these things.
You certainly can't do them all in one day as well.
Far too much effort. They're upgrading the wildlife precinct again. A new and improved park to open in 2020 complete with accommodation and standard tourist stuff. Will be interesting to see.

As far as our experience goes I would say it was worth the expense for sure.
Sadly my pics do not do any justice to the attraction.


But we saw dozens of different species, including the big African ones. Plus white lions, tiger, heaps of deer, different wild pigs, wolves, sloth bears, a black bear, tapir literally right next to the tram, otters, flamingos, and more.
MissGM was thrilled to bits, although she was totally exhausted by the time we returned to our hotel around 11pm.
As were we.

 

[Denali]

If you're not too tired, I found once the tourist buses were gone it's was really nice and grab a taxi for trip back to hotel.

Singapore zoo was were I saw my first panda...which lead to going to Chengdu, to hold one and visit a couple of centres for them.

 

[GarrettM]

MrsGM was keen to try Tiong Bahru Bakery for breakfast on Wednesday. Would recommend. A couple of croque monsieur and cakes, with coffee, and we were set for the day.

 

[GarrettM]

After breakfast we walked the 10 minutes or so to the nearest MRT and headed back towards Chinatown, because MrsGM wanted to look at the shopping arcade. She was looking for a cheap hat and eventually found one. I needed one too but could not find one suitable.
We did a fair bit of walking around though. And saw some more interesting buildings.


Lunch was going to be at the Tekka Centre, but not before we headed bak to the hotel for a rest.

 

[Denali]

When in Singapore I use a sun block umbrella because I overheat in hats.

 

[Melburnian1]

GarrettM, great trip report.

I've only been on Scoot once (Tigerair SG more) but one thing that really annoyed was its stipulation NOT to bring one's own food and drink on board. I ignored that but felt like a shoplifter as I ate some nuts and then confectionery. The airline's attitude ruled out trying to bring on board takeaway food.

That said, the staff either didn't notice or said nothing. However there were a lot of 'food and drink sales runs' during the flight. Not pushy, but eager to score the commission I suppose.

My northbound SYD - SIN also was late (but that can occur on any airline.)

 

[GarrettM]

GarrettM, great trip report.

I've only been on Scoot once (Tigerair SG more) but one thing that really annoyed was its stipulation NOT to bring one's own food and drink on board. I ignored that but felt like a shoplifter as I ate some nuts and then confectionery. The airline's attitude ruled out trying to bring on board takeaway food.

That said, the staff either didn't notice or said nothing. However there were a lot of 'food and drink sales runs' during the flight. Not pushy, but eager to score the commission I suppose.

My northbound SYD - SIN also was late (but that can occur on any airline.)

We took Subway on board. I ate it in front of the cabin crew and they did not bat an eyelid. I do sort of understand why such a rule is in place, but I absolutely can't abide the fact it includes bringing your own water.
That's ridiculous.

 

[GarrettM]

We managed to enjoy a little rest from the heat and humidity in our hotel room, but as is usually the case we had no rest from one very energetic and demanding toddler. She rarely gives us a break.

Back out we went, this time for a short MRT ride to Little India and the Tekka Centre. Seemed to me to be very different from the Maxwell Centre. I dunno but it just felt slightly dingier. Perhaps I'm being judgemental.


Nothing too much wrong with the food though. Some lamb biryani and a savoury prata type thing which was weird but tasted ok.

Back to the hotel again after lunch because seriously the humidity was getting a bit much, and there was a thunderstorm heading towards the city.
We ended up wathcing it pass over to the north west from the relative comfort of the hotel pool. Plenty of lightning and fast moving cloud, but not a lot of rain to be seen.
That was good, because we were soon heading out to the Gardens by the Bay lightshow, as well as dinner at Satay by the Bay.

 

[OZDUCK]

We managed to enjoy a little rest from the heat and humidity in our hotel room, but as is usually the case we had no rest from one very energetic and demanding toddler. She rarely gives us a break.

Back out we went, this time for a short MRT ride to Little India and the Tekka Centre. Seemed to me to be very different from the Maxwell Centre. I dunno but it just felt slightly dingier. Perhaps I'm being judgemental.
View attachment 126300

Nothing too much wrong with the food though. Some lamb biryani and a savoury prata type thing which was weird but tasted ok.

Back to the hotel again after lunch because seriously the humidity was getting a bit much, and there was a thunderstorm heading towards the city.
We ended up wathcing it pass over to the north west from the relative comfort of the hotel pool. Plenty of lightning and fast moving cloud, but not a lot of rain to be seen.
That was good, because we were soon heading out to the Gardens by the Bay lightshow, as well as dinner at Satay by the Bay.

I also much prefer the Maxwell Market to Tekka. Your great photos are making me look forward even more to our stopover in Singapore in 4 months.

 

[oobi doobi]

I too am looking forward to visiting Singapore & Maxwells after finishing our trip in Canada. We will be leaving Calgary in 10 days via Vancouver, Hong Kong & Singers before arriving back in Perth. Maxwells is our favourite hawker site having visited it dozens of times over many years.

Cheers

 

[GarrettM]

I didn't really bother with pics from our trip to the Bay, because the phone I had with me wasn't much chop in poor light.
So these pics are stolen fron MrsGM's social media feed.
We got the MRT to Bayfront station, which I thought would leave us on the western side of the marina. But I was wrong, so we came out behind the MBS Convention Centre. Which was fine as we had planned to walk around the whole way anyways. And we got to walk through the Convention Centre which was something we hadn't done before.
From there we walked under the Art/Science Museum, and along the river to Satay by the Bay. Sadly we had no otter sightings.
The view from underneath the museum looking north-westish.


Thankfully it was a little cooler than normal, but still a little heavy with the full cloud cover.
By the time we got to Satay by the Bay we were pretty hungry and in need of a drink.
Dinner consisted of chili clams for MrsGM, some seafood noodles, squid, an assortment of satay sticks naturally, and some incredibly good fried whitebait.
Washed down with some Tiger beer. I had two pints which barely touched the sides of my throat, and even MrsGM had herself a beer.


Mrs and MissGM then shared a choc banana prata, before we started the walk back towards the SkyTrees.
On the way we stopped at the Gardens gift shop to buy a couple of little things for my mum as a thank you for housesitting for us.

And then we were at the trees. I was keen to do the Skywalk, but as it was already well after 7pm and we wanted to watch the light show I decideed against it. Foiled again!


Still it's a fine spectacle from ground level anyway.

One of the things I noticed on this trip was the almost constant military action going on in the skies. As we waited for the light show the sound of jet fighters was ever present, and you could easily see them flying in circle patterns across the sky. I had seen another earlier in the week flying very low as well. It's a really odd sight if you're not used to it.
Obviously we have jets flying over us at home from time to time, but usually much higher and out of sight.
On this trip I also saw several Blackhawk helicopters and their naval equivalents, plus an Apache attack helicopter which I believe is a relatively new addition to Singapore's defence force.
(There are some military exercises happening near Perth at the moment with blackhawks flying over our house a couple times a day. One last night was so low I reckon I could have hit it with a well aimed tennis ball.)

Once the lightshow finished we followed the crowds back towards the MRT, but decided it would be easier just to get a taxi, which we found at the front of the Convention Centre. It was this decision that cost us the front wheel of our pram. Highly annoying but I guess just one of those things.

 

[Mattg]

Lunch on Tuesday was the Maxwell Centre. Another quick taxi trip.
Hainanese chicken rice, some duck, some curry and carrot cake, which is neither cake nor made with or from carrots.
View attachment 126146

I also had lunch at the Maxwell hawker centre last Tuesday - would have said hi if I'd known you were there! Did you get the chicken rice from Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken rice?