Tanglin

Accidentally slept in quite late this morning, and only just made it down to breakfast by 10:30 am when it closes! The only thing we really had planned for today was meeting up with a former colleague of mine from GALKAL who now runs the Singapore operation. By the time we finished breakfast it was 11am so we decided to wander over to the National Gallery and check out a modernism exhibition we'd noticed a couple of days earlier.

Arrived at the gallery to discover that it was the last day of the exhibition so entry was free! It was called "Reframing Modernism", and compared the modernist styles of European artists like Picasso, Matisse and others with South East Asian artists from the same period. Spent a couple of hours looking at the various paintings and comparing the styles. We ended up doing it out of order as there was a large guided tour going through at roughly the same time as us, making it very crowded! So we did the second and third halls first before coming back to the third. Also very happy to see a ban on selfie sticks which are absolutely everywhere here!

While waiting for Shandos at one point I logged on to the gallery's free wifi, and noticed an email from my colleague saying she was unwell and wouldn't be able to make the meet-up as planned. Disappointing, as I was looking forward to seeing a familiar face and having a decent conversation with someone who wasn't Shandos, but alas. At least we had more time in the gallery!

Finished looking at the art and had a quick sandwich at the cafe before deciding to head for the Botanic Gardens. I've got this idea in my head that I'm going to visit as many UNESCO World Heritage Sites as possible while we travel, and this is one of them. In fact it's one of only I think four gardens on the list of 1100+ locations, and the only tropical garden.

So we descended into the metro just nearby, bought some tickets and followed the trains out to the Botanic Gardens stop. I should mention here that the metro is fantastic in Singapore - trains are every few minutes and the stations cover the downtown/interesting areas quite densely. We've never had to walk more than a few hundred metres to a station, though some of the junction stations have quite long walks between platforms.

By the time we emerged from the underground, the ominous clouds I'd noticed on leaving the gallery had turned into a full-on thunderstorm! Lots of lightning and pelting rain, so we joined a crowd taking shelter at the metro exit, right next to the gardens entrance. It took probably 30 minutes to subside, and by now it was past 4pm. Luckily for us everything stays open late in Singapore!

Eventually the rain eased off and we wandered into the gardens, which are absolutely beautiful. I'm not a huge gardens person but the care and attention to detail were very obvious. It also seems to be a great park, full of people jogging, walking dogs and having family picnics, rather than just looking at the flowerbeds and moving on. We walked over to the Orchid Garden (the highlight apparently), paid our admission and had a wander around. Again this was excellent - lots of orchids on display in their native-ish habitats ie tropical gardens and so on. There's also a nursery where they cross-breed to create new types of orchids in honour of visiting dignitaries which we found amusing! It started with Very Important People like Kofi Annan or Margaret Thatcher, until down in the back corner there's orchids in honour of the vice-president of Laos and the Petroleum Minister for Equatorial Guinea and so on. Found a couple of "Australian" ones too - one for former GG Michael Jeffrey, and another for Dame Quentin Bryce.

Finished with the orchid garden around 6:30pm as the sun was beginning to set, so we walked back through the park (a brief diversion at the fish & turtle pond) and hopped back on the metro into town. For dinner we had our hearts set on a local specialty - Singapore Chilli Crab. We figured it might be a little pricey, but I nearly choked when the first restaurant we looked at had a special for $70 per kilo! The next place we checked it was $120/kilo and they had a 90 minute wait! The next place we tried had crabs for $75/kg but the smallest crab they had was about 2.2kg. Our hunt wasn't going very well.

Eventually we found a place that was doing a fixed price of $108 per crab, so we decided to just get one with some garlic bread and share it, which we did! It's delicious (and not very spicy like the name implies), but like with lobster I'm not certain the deliciousness is completely offset by the amount of effort involved in accessing the meat.

Although we'd eaten at Clarke Quay only a few hundred metres from our hotel, we walked past a Japanese ice cream parlour and figured we'd spend our last few Singaporean dollars. Shandos had a green tea flavoured ice cream, while I went half traditional and half Asian with macadamia chocolate and lychee (in separate scoops). Finally to bed around 10:30pm after our third day in a row of 25,000 steps! Tomorrow is a bus trip into Malaysia, so not too much walking thankfully!Read more