Showing posts with label block leave. Show all posts
Showing posts with label block leave. Show all posts

Monday, July 20, 2026

Buses, beverages, botanicals and bellowing bubbles of water

So probably fair to say today was the first real day in Singapore, and what more to do to start it all off then a local delicacy…ok only kidding, a local Starbucks just to make sure that the kids were fuelled ahead of a days sightseeing.

And onto the Big Bus tour of Singapore, which despite the heat and some slightly strange co-sightseers (by that I am not talking about the Robertsons) it was a terrific tour, very informative, and generally hit all the local highlights…and even shot by the Standard Chartered offices! Some of my co travellers were super cool though!
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Then we went onto a real highlight of the trip, off to the main hotel haut, the much vaunted Raffles Hotel, where we hit up the Long Bar for Singapore Slings and to throw Monkey Nuts all over the floor, if you can believe, three of our company really liked the later, and two more distinguished of age liked the former! 

Everything was great though, from the drink, fun, and the kids having a go at shaking up the cocktails using the very big machine.









So back on the bus which took us further west to the Botanical Gardens, where we had a few lizard encounters, mixed in with turtles that the kids absolutely adored. Very warm walking back, but everyone managed to do it brilliantly well!






Back to Chinatown for a wash, more Chinese food, then onto the Marina Bay Sands complex to watch the 9pm showing of the fountains show, certainly very impressive, not sure why it took so long for me to know about it!



All in all a great first full day sightseeing, and great first day of Block Leave!

Friday, July 17, 2026

Summer Holidays and Block Leave, here we come!

Finally, it has arrived, the much awaited, and long excited trip to South East Asia with the whole family. Not without first getting everything work off my table, which was quite stressful in itself!

Anyways, once that was done, and the incredible misses had finalised the packing, it was tooth fix central, pick kids up after last day of Year 5 (Angus) and Year 3 (Amber), it was time to get to the airport.



Amanda and Angus took the taxi with bags, whilst the two youngest and I tried the Superloop. Very efficient and cheap, but god was it slow. Kids were brilliant though, and usb power helpful!


A quick walk at Heathrow airport to meet Amanda and Angus who had successfully navigated the M25 and via a short stop for dinner at Leon and a play at the playground it’s was onboard our B777 Singapore Airlines flight to Singapore for the next 14 hours!