Day 1

The hotel room in Amsterdam airport

This might well have been the longest day of our lives. Having left the night before from Brussels, leaving behind a sobbing mother (or mother-in-law for my wife), we traveled to Amsterdam by train to get a good night sleep before the big move...

The infamous day started at 09:00 when the alarm rang in our ears, which meant the fateful day had arrived. Though it still seemed somewhat distant, there was no escaping it now. The flight was to leave at 11:15 and having booked the hotel in the departures hall of the airport, it gave us time to have a little breakfast. So far nothing weird or wonderful...

The flight would then take 12:30 hours, meaning that we would be arriving at what our brain would think was 23:45...but NO, instead it turned out to be just before 06:00 and so the start of the day rather than bedtime. Strange...certainly, since my wife and I hadn't had much shut-eye. But we thought, what the hell let's get on with it and start discovering Singapore...not a minute to waste as the say.

The wife Elli, tired but positive to start the day...

So after a bout of beautiful breakfast which put us back a good 50 euros we went into town to wander around and see some of the sights...First stop and first culture shock...the electronics mall in Little India...loads of little stalls with all the weird and wonderful electronics but no laptops...as that is what we were after...So after having gone past a few hundred stores we thought it best to ask someone who kindly pointed us to the mall across the street (there is a pattern here...no doubt you'll be hearing more of). Next mall, next conundrum... We find a few shops selling laptops, but we don't feel 100%comfortable in the shops. Being new in town, with the natural skepticism that all newcomers have, we decided to 'wait' a day and come back.

By this time it would have only been 11:30 and our brains were starting to ask a few questions, but not to worry, let's just soldier on we thought. So we hop onto the underground (or MRT as it is known here) and our confused minds brought us to the Harbourfront stop rather than the Bayfront, something we only noticed after snooping around the mall that had greeted us at the exit of the MRT for a half an hour. Anyway, an iPhone, mobile phone contract and a few clothes later we decided it would be best to return to our hotel, the famous Marina Bay Sands, with it's extraordinary infinity pool. By this time it would have been close to 16:00 and we had reservations in a very fancy restaurant at 18:00. Now in possession of our keys, we were ecstatic when we opened the room to find this:

What a room!!! Massive, crazy bathroom and amazing, amazing view...

After taking in and having to recover from the madness that was our room we had two hours to kill before going to the restaurant, so what a better way to do that than going to this infinity pool and having a nice drink...

Next phase and yes still in the same day, a two-hour 10-course fancy meal in one of the top restaurants in the city. Put us back a few bob and in hindsight a Burger King would have filled the whole, but nonetheless a great culinary experience.

Knackered after more than 30 hours without sleep, I thought we'd grab some after dinner...but we still had to walk off the dinner as one does...and by gosh WHAT a walk... it was simply fantastically beautiful and took us less than a day to fall in love with Singapore.

The night and longest-day would not have been complete without finishing it off with the man (and his woman) that made it all happen. And this on top of the world... Thank you Martin, thank you Singapore, thank you Marina Bay Sands, and thank you beautiful wife for having brought me along for the adventure...

Mr. Singapore, aka Martin and Juju

Day 1 survived - Kieran and beautiful wife Elli, aka The Bald and The Brave