Day 8

So breakfast is simply awesome here… I am already starting to sounds like one of Wisteria Lane’s Desperate Housewives, but what can you do… it really is good. So the wife and I (the man that is in case I confused anyone) had a great little breakfast in our local mall before heading into town, yet again, this time to deal with the wife’s suits.

Before doing so, we both needed to use the bathroom (and by bathroom, I mean toilet, but I am trying to be polite here…) and what struck me the most compared to Belgium specifically and Europe more generally, is that using toilets seems to be a right here rather than a privilege. Public toilets, truly are public and not solely for the use of people willing to pay for the privilege of a release (well that sounds dirtier than I had intended). Weird to be writing about toilet habits, but it is quite amazing that all toilets are clean and free to be used by whomever choses to. So there we are, that’s out of the system, metaphorically...

So the next step was going into town to deal with the missus suits, the only issue (well I say only now) was that the wife had forgotten to bring her shoes and so she would ‘need’ a new pair so that the tailor would be able to fix her suits properly. So off we go to the shops yet again…I think we must easily have bought one item a day since we have arrived, excluding food and drink that is. Shopping-bug, remember people… It will catch you when/if you come over. In trying to chase down a nice pair of shoes, we must have gone to three of four different shopping centres without knowing what was to happen next.

That's quite a selection there my love...

Elli had found two pairs of shoes that she liked but once we got to the counter we found out that my credit card, which had been working fine since then, would not work! F*ck (excuse my French)! So here we are in Singapore, with very little cash left and neither credit card working. Elli’s had not been functioning for a while… so we both got a little annoyed and stressed as we knew that I hadn’t ‘maxed’ out my card. What ensued was about 10-15 calls back and forth to our bank, visa and a hotel that got caught up in the middle. In the process we were to find out that even if you have paid your bill in a hotel, they keep a hold of a certain amount on your visa card up to two weeks after your stay! Very annoying because it means that visa does not allow you to use that amount… and since we were on a bit of s spending spree, it cut us in our stride! Luxury problem some would say… To cut a long story short and to spare you the boring details, it took a good few hours to get it sorted whilst a storm blew over our heads, which in turn did not help the Skype connection with phone calls being made to Belgium.

A nice picture of downtown Singapore, on the quays

Having sorted the credit card issue out, we felt we deserved a little outing. So out we went for a beautiful Japanese meal in the maze that is known as the ION Orchard shopping centre. A shopping mall that is 8 storeys high and spans the whole block, it is difficult to find your way out. It nearly seems as if it was purposefully designed to keep shoppers in until they have spent the required amount. So there we were, Elli with the most beautiful sushi she had ever had and I treated myself to some amazing chicken teriyaki. In all honesty, this meal was way better than the fancy meal we had had on the first night, which either means that you do not need to spend much to eat well or that we are unable to appreciate a fancy meal…I will let you guys judge for yourselves.

Meal finished and cinema tickets booked for 23:40, we still had some time to kill, so we went and enjoyed a fancy cup of coffee on a terrace. It was the coldest since we had arrived and yet the most enjoyable time to be outside, a cool 25 degrees Celsius…

Poor Elli, so so cold...

Now you are just posing wife...

Ordering coffee on the terrace

The last stop of the night was the big cinema complex to watch the disappointing ‘Wrath of the Titans’. We might be getting a bit old, but there wasn’t much a storyline to the film. It was the sequel of the film ‘Clash of the Titans’ and the story can be summarised in 3 sentences, which says enough about the depth of the story. Perseus, son of Zeus and demigod is asked to help his father out, as Zeus’ own father Kronos (a titan) and the other titans were being unleashed by one of Zeus’ other sons, Ares (the God of War) and brother Hades (God of the underworld). Kronos was being held in the prison of the underworld, known as Tartarus and as the Gods strength weakened due to humanity’s lack of devotion, so the Titans strength grew, threatening the whole of humanity. Step forward Perseus, who not only manages to release Zeus from the underworld, where his powers were being drained by Kronos, but who also manages to defeat Ares, who had betrayed his father, as well as defeating the mighty Kronos once released, on the back of Pegasus and using the Spear of Triam (a combination of Zeus’ Thunderbolt, Poseidon’s Trident and Hades’ Pitchfork). I sometimes wonder whether I could write screenplays, because not only is this a historically distorted story (the Minotaur of Minos somehow finds his way into a maze leading to Tartarus) but a very basic plot. Rant over, screenplay to follow. Off home we went for a well-deserved night of sleep.

Disappointing movie...