Day 2 in Singapore (Friday). I don’t know if it’s the jetlag, the heat, the rain that comes and goes throughout the day, our bad decisions, our poor planning/lack of research, how insanely expensive everything is here, or the nagging realisation that the trip is nearly over, but to be honest we’re finding it a bit of a struggle.
The day starts well enough. Brunch at one of the cafés in Raffles City, which adjoins the Fairmont. Then walk down towards the river, past the Singapore cricket club.
As we reach Cavenagh Bridge the heavens open. We shelter under the porch of the Asian Civilisations Museum, enjoying a blast of aircon every time the doors open, and watch the rain.
Ok. Can’t stay here all day so we need a plan. We’ll head for Lau Pa Sat for some lunch. We cross the bridge in the rain.
As we’re sheltering beside an office building a kindly local takes pity on us: if you head into the MRT station here you can go underground. She leads us there and we discover that the airconditioned, dry, underground mall goes almost the whole way there. A revelation: it would be helpful if Google or Apple Maps showed underground walking routes, but it seems they are a secret?
So we make it there relatively dry but encounter our first fail of the day. I had assumed it was satays 24/7, but no: Satay Street is only in the evening. Oops. Probably should have checked that.
Oh well. The food from the hawker centre is good though and we wash it down with a cold local craft beer (S$11, ouch!)
After lunch we’re all a bit tired so decide to catch a taxi back to the hotel. We walk around the centre to the taxi rank, where we find a row of minibuses parked up at the rank, but no taxis.
Ok, back around the centre to the other taxi rank. No buses blocking this one, but no taxis either. We wait. Lots of taxis drive past: “busy”, “hired”, “change shift”, “on call”, they say.
Eventually about 20 mins later a taxi pulls in. “Fairmont Hotel please”. “Fairmont?” He asks, as if this is a new and strange word he has never heard before. “It’s opposite Raffles” I say, expecting that the most famous building in Singapore might jog his memory. No, he needs the postcode. I look this up and he plugs it into his GPS, and whisks us back to aircon and rest.