High seas, family, adventures

We spent most of Monday 27/3 travelling,, Jen having dropped us at the train late morning (very good train service from Ashfield to the airport), 8-hour flight Sydney to Singapore, not too crowded, we sat in aisle seats across from each other and each had an empty seat beside us so that was good. Food was okay, Qantas crew very pleasant. And we barely had to stand and wait going through to immigration in Sydney, not a repetition of the 90 minutes in Auckland thank goodness.

Timeline – we lived in Singapore for several years, in Asia for more than 10, this will explain how we got there
• April 1993 Pete was made redundant by Telecom, went to work in Ho Chi Minh City for a year for NZ company TeleNZ
• Nov/Dec 1997 Pete/then family moved to Bangkok, Pete working for Nokia
• Oct 1998 Pete working mainly in Singapore on a Nokia project, family in BKK completing schooling
• July 1999 Family to Singapore
• Feb 2002 Pete made redundant by Nokia, took 3 1/2 years of telecom contract work in Thailand, Philippines, Kuala Lumpur; Andy to Melbourne to Uni 2002, Jen to Brisbane to Uni 2004; Ailsa worked in Singapore 2000-2005
• Aug/Sept 2005 Pete/Ailsa to Hiroshima, Japan, contracting to Nokia
• Oct 2007 Redundant again, moved to Bangkok to look for work but nothing came up
• Feb 2008 Pete/Ailsa returned to NZ

We’ve had a few short stays in Singapore over the past years on our way to see the family in Poland, it’s always good to get back. This time we’re staying at Hotel Royal on Queens Road, good tourist grade, comfortable room, very pretty to look out at the lights from the 13th floor at midnight. It’s two blocks from Raffles, might have to find a Singapore Sling tomorrow

Got a taxi from the airport, typical taxi ‘uncle’ talked the whole time, we got the gen on the new expressway and how many billion $ it cost, tourism is picking up which is good, no masks unless going to the doctor or hospital AND the best chicken rice in Singapore is down in Chinatown, he gave us the address three times, so keen for us to go. Lovely man. Hard to get my language ear back into the ‘Singlish’ though, a bit hard to understand the fast chat, but so familiar all the same, made us smile.

Headed out this morning having bought bus/MRT cards, not without difficulty but I have to say there was a very helpful and proactive young woman at the station on duty to help helpless tourists, very impressed. In the mall above the station we saw three cops, all armed with tasers and possibly guns (didn’t like to stare), Singapore is still a safe place.

We took the 77 bus to Holland Village – I took that bus route from Orchard Road every day for more than five years to and from work, interesting to see the changes but also there’s much the same ‘Fort Americal (AKA the US Embassy) is still standing alongside the Aussies and Brits. All around the Botanic Gardens still looks like a jungle in the middle of the city, Singapore has a law that a certain percentage of the island has to remain green, a good thing. Funny to see two ‘helpers’ (or maids) on the bus with two little expat kids in strollers, kids were griping so they gave the kids their phones to play with, next thing we hear the familiar ‘Baaaaby Shark, do do do do, do dit, do do’. Oisin and Flynn love that song.

We had a look around Lims Chinese furniture and Asian homeware store, my fingers itched to get some of the blue and white pottery to add to my collection, not to mention wooden cabinets, but Pete reckoned they wouldn’t fit in the backpacks. Bother!

Then we met up for coffee with our old friend of nearly 25 years, Amy, so much to catch up on about family and what we’ve all been doing, shared memories are wonderful. Then we went to 6th Avenue for old time’s sake to check out our old neighbourhoods. Quite a bit of building going on, some seriously expensive real estate around the area now, condos and houses. The workers still have their makan (lunch) then lie in the shade for a sleep, we tiptoed past.

Our Lily Avenue house is still standing but we were amazed at the beautiful park next door. One photo shows the huge storm drain that was at the end of our cul de sac, and the other shows that it has been completely piped in (the whole canal job cost $500m I believe), and a park, playground and walking/cycling track created.

Took the bus back to Orchard Road and had Yakitori chicken at Ngee Ann City food court, nostalgia again. It was my go-to meal at least once a week when I was living on my own, I worked for NZ Defence in the Ngee Ann City tower block (it has 8 floors of food and shopping complex, and about 40 storeys of office space in two towers).

I’d booked a treat for the evening, another of our favourite places, the 70th floor of Swisshotel the Stamford where we took visitors to see the sun go down, beautiful. When booking on line they asked ‘any special occasion?’ so, ever resourceful (cheeky?) I said it was an early birthday celebration, and please could we have a table by the window. So we got the table and a surprise cake and candle. There were two young men alongside us setting up advertising for Veuve Clicquot champagne, bottles and glasses set up for photos with food, the staff member pouring, sunset, views – interesting to watch and they were ready for a chat too, having been assured that they weren’t disturbing us at all. The sunset was pretty but it’s really lovely watching the sky dim and all the city lights come on below us, beautiful. Such a good day all round.Leggi altro

8/4 Our short visit to Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city. We docked at Leixoes, a few km from the city itself but it was all built-up anyway, driving through on the bus. We just took the included excursion which was okay though difficult for all excursions because of it being an Easter holiday so lots of visitors as well as major roadworks going on building an underground train network I think so all credit to the bus driver because the streets are narrow, several turned into one-way, and for some reason there was a lot of double-parking in the streets so I think the driver had to hold his breath and hope for the best in some places. The guide was Porto born and bred, very good.

We took the scenic route into the city along the waterfront, lovely beaches and blue sea. Stopped in a central square so we could have a 20 minute walk around which was good because I wanted some cough mixture and there was a pharmacy right there. We were beside a small green park with a small bar, grass and very old olive trees, apparently the site of the city’s medieval olive grove that has been preserved – with a twist! Underneath is a new, small shopping mall, partly open to the sky where they’ve made a cut in the olive grove. Quite strange, but it was pretty all the same. We walked past the entryway to a public building with a huge stone ball suspended from the roof, pleased it didn’t fall on Pete.

This mall led to another square and to the famous Lello and Irmao bookshop which was where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter books. There was a queuing race outside and dozens lined up to go inside, numbers very strictly policed, I wasn’t tempted, but the photo cribbed from the history talk shows how lovely it looks. The guide talked about whether the books used elements of the bookshop in descriptions, and also said that the students from the nearby university could often be seen wearing capes around the square – did that translate to Hogwarts perhaps?

We carried on driving but it was hard to see much out the bus windows. And it was a bit hard to hear at times because of certain yappy people on the bus who had loud conversations over top of the commentary. So annoying. The guide gave us the city’s history, pointed out important buildings, and apologised again for the roading situation, but you just take it as it is. We could see a few of the tiled buildings, he pointed out that a lot of the tiling has been added in later years (20th century) when people realised they helped keep out the damp. The cathedral is apparently very ‘imposing’ and beautiful but we didn’t go near it, and the railway station is completely covered inside by tile stories. Didn’t notice many police around other than two officers on horseback in one street. Around the city there are traditional ‘English’ Gentlemen’s clubs still in use. I was interested that the guide kept referring to classes, both in the past and present day; a lot of references to upper, middle, lower classes which struck me as a bit odd. And it made me pleased to think that in NZ we don’t really have that huge divide, maybe to a small extent but this was really obvious.

We saw some of the old city walls, some up high but many along the Douro riverfront with deep and high arches leading into back streets or big courtyards, apparently some would have been entrances to warehouses and named accordingly e.g. ‘coal street’ etc. Across the river you can see the big port (alcohol, not shipping) company warehouses and other buildings, mostly English names.

There are six big bridges over the river, we could only see one side of the famous bridge built by Gustave Eiffel before he headed to Paris to see about a tower. The metal bridge in the photo, you can see a round tower at the top of the cliff, this was used by the Duke of Wellington as a base – I couldn’t quite work out if it used to be a monastery and was converted to barracks for the Duke, or was built as barracks and is now a monastery. Never mind. About half the group went their own way but the rest of us stuck with the guide walking along the riverbank then back through some small narrow streets to the meeting point, much more interesting to hear about the area’s history and more about Porto than to wander aimlessly in tourist territory surrounded by fridge magnets and handbags and cafes, learning nothing much.

Back ‘home’ we were greeted by a parade of ship’s crew holding red umbrellas, chorus of ‘welcome back, welcome back’ and loud music, odd but fun all the same. Rushed to the theatre in time to hear most of the talk on the age of discovery and global exploration from early times through to Columbus, Vasco da Gama and so on. We went to a later one supposedly about ‘Fact or Fiction: Falmouth and Literary Cornwall’ which sounded quite wide-ranging (think smugglers and ‘Rebecca’) but it turned out to be just Poldark which was okay but not as expected. I had a much-needed sleep after that.

We had booked (for free) at Manfredi’s Italian restaurant for dinner, one of the two ‘posh’ restaurants, and we had a delicious meal and wine, great waiter Enzo looked after us, from Peru. The people next door asked about how long he’d been on the ship, conditions etc: this was his second trip, Viking had better accommodation, food, conditions and great pay – he was making as much as, for instance, a doctor, would make in Peru. Has a wife and 7-month-old child back home, very proud to show us their photo.

Then it was time for the 9.15pm show, songs and stories from Assistant Cruise Director Francesca, who had a magnificent operatic voice but also crossover so very entertaining with a variety of songs and she was well worth listening to.

Back in our room we found the Easter Bunny had visited – or was still there: a chocolate bunny in a basket and some eggs.Leggi altro