Penang to Singapore

So today was a travel day, and even though it's not a long flight from Penang to Singapore it may as well have been 8 hours; such is travelling! We probs could have driven it in less.

So up at 6 for a 7am breakfast with both of us not having a very good night's sleep - nor did the Drinnans matter of fact. They didn't have all of the dining room set up but that was OK - it was still dark as sunrise wasn't till after 7.30, so a fitting farewell to our lovely Blue Mansion. There was early morning traffic on the run to the airport but our Indian taxi driver made us laugh with his philosophy and words of wisdom: don't trouble trouble or trouble will trouble you; Your satisfaction is my reputation; I'm not into ghost riding etc so funny.

It was an easy passage through check-in, customs and screening. I'm so happy we got stamps in our passports! A rare occurrence these days but our Malaysian ones are quite large and very clear - bonus!

The flight was non eventful - I dozed and read. Singapore at the other end was more to do with fares for the MRT than anything else but as the MRT is easy to negotiate we got to our hotel very quickly but couldn't get into our room. So we went to Raffles City across the road and after walking through the gorgeous and expensive designer floors we found the food court,.

Mick had chicken rice and I had wonton soup - probs about SIN13 for both?

Got into our very nice room on the 22nd floor and freshened up. It took a while for us to get the internet working but when I did there was Samways to the rescue with details on a supermarket in the basement of Raffles City that had WINE on special and BEER on special! Yaaay.

The supermarket was medium sized and had lots of lovely groceries and produce and fresh food and takeaway kind of stuff. Not cheap but reasonable for where we are. I was able to get bottled wine for SIN20 -22 which was pretty good.

We then had a beer and did some planning with the Drinnans for the next 2 days as they fly home early Saturday morning.

After dumping our groceries at the hotel we met downstairs and headed off on the MRT to Chinatown to go to the Maxwell Food hawker centre. Jo's friend Trish had recommended the stall called 'Wonderful' which sold satay and a few rice and noodle dishes. Well the satays were glorious! We had chicken, mutton and pork satays to share, with noodles and bok choy, The pork ones were to die for. Fatty and flavoured and glistening with juicy goodness. The boys had beer and for some stupid reason I got a can of watermelon flavoured cider. Hmmm.

Chinatown was a lovely energetic place with lots of shops and stalls and eateries with narrow intersecting laneways with festoon lighting and lamps and noise and vendors quietly selling their wares. Whilst not crazy frenetic, it was still a lovely vibe, especially as the Indian temple was havng some kind of celebration which added to the colour and noise.

A great quick trip back on the MRT. Now I'm having a lovely red while doing my diary.Read more