It was to be a full day of
travelling for the Gray boys. We had to leave the hotel and get to the Queen
Vic Markets, providing they were open, and get to Melbourne Airport for our
flight into Singapore. There was no problem checking out of the hotel – “just leave
the keys on the dresser” is all we were told. So we trudged down the street we
knew only too well and made it to the market with plenty of time to spare. I had
a wander round, looking for dual layer DVDs and any kind of cheap tat that was
available. Luckily enough there was loads of it around! But no DL DVDs, so I
bought myself a big hot dog for brunch. There seemed to be a communication
problem as when I asked for “everything on it” meaning sauerkraut, mustard, etc
I got one that had the sauerkraut, the sausage, the bun…but also tomato
ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and chilli
sauce. It was a strange combo to start with, but once it had all mixed in
together it was fine.
 |
| Queen Vic Market innit |
James also had a run round the
markets but came back empty-handed. So there was nothing else to do apart from
hot-foot it down to the train/coach station to get the Sky Bus to the airport.
It wasn’t cheap at $17 but there seemed to be precious other ways of getting
there. Once there we checked in and got through security with no problems. The
score on being swabbed for explosives was made 2 – 1 to James (although we
couldn’t decide if that was winning or losing) but I came back with an instant
reply to make it 2 – 2. We were back on Qantas flights now so we settled in for
the 8 hour trip into Singapore. We had books, ipods and laptops, but none of
these were required as we had (if anything too much) TV and film at our
fingertips. I decided to pass the time with a few episodes of The Big Bang
Theory, interspersed with Prometheus, The Dictator and Battleship films, all of
which were “just OK”. The food was alright too, for airline food, but the “refreshment”
we got as an early supper was a mushroom pizza. Anyone who knows me will
understand why I had to pick out 97% of the bits of mushroom and just munch down
the tomato-bread with precious little cheese left on it.
Before we knew it we were
alighting into Asia; first time for James and second time for me. It felt great
to have finally entered the big unknown that was Asia, which we had not much info or planning on, so far. We grabbed
our baggage and headed to the taxi rank, after much deliberation over whether
we should bus it or train it to the hotel. The guy didn’t know where the hotel
was and he couldn’t really read the small map I had saved on my phone, but we
managed to get there in the end. Before we removed ourselves from his “Toyota Lada”
he had managed to drive for about a mile across two lanes (along the dotted
line) and race a pimped-up Porsche. So getting to the hotel in one piece was
brilliant. He had earned his $1 tip.
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| Trying to get some train info on the wi-fi |
“Basic” is how I would describe
the hotel room, but for the price it was good enough for us. The beds were
rock-hard though, and I do mean rock-hard as there was no give in them
whatsoever. The time was only half 11 but our bodies were saying it was half 1
in the morning so we clambered into bed and tried to get some shut-eye, as the
next morning would surely be an interesting one.
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