Singapore Days

Greetings from wet, but pleasantly cool now, Singapore!

Just before it started pouring I was about to head out shopping to Suntec City (read crazily large shopping centre far bigger than Chadstone complete with undercity mall leading from the city centre). Now I think I'll post a quick note to say hi to all and give a quick update on our trip so far.

Before I do though, a quick note to you all about our email, we seem to be able to receive email right now, but not send, so if we don't reply immediately we're not ignoring you. Apparently my email hosting people "upgraded" my service but it's not working now. In their defence they did try to call, but it was a terrible phone line and I was in the middle of a shopping centre so it'll have to wait till tomorrow.

Anyhow, we're safe and sound in Singapore and have been since late on Tuesday evening. I managed to get a stomach flu just before departing Melbourne which was great to travel with. Thankfully it manifested only in a high fever (38 degrees celcius was me thinking I'd returned to normality at the doctors'), headache and loss of appetite. This was problematic as there are three things that I live to do in Singapore;
1. Visit family
2. Shop
3. Eat all the local foods I see.

I held out until until Thursday before seeing a local doctor which was a rather different experience. The pharmacy and clinic were combined so that when you exited the doctor's consulting room you went to pay and they handed the medicine straight to you. By medicine I'd also like to add that they had me on panadeine, ventolin, an antacid, antihistamines and a tablet "for stomach cramp". Last time I'd had this viral stomach flu I was on panadeine and a diet of lucozade and marie biscuits. As you can imagine I was starting to get concerned about the bill. It came to... SIN$36. I love their health care system costs.

Happily my appetite is back now and I started to eat again yesterday. Still can't eat too much but at least I can have SOME of the foods :)

Aside from that not much else to report. Gene & I have mainly spent time with his family as it's been a very busy week with the wake and funeral for his Kong Kong (grandpa on his Mum's side). Chinese funerals are very different to the ones we have back in Australia and even though this was my second Chinese funeral, it was still a little confusing.

We're possibly heading off to a chalet near the coast tomorrow night after we pick up Gene's new sunglasses. Hopefully the weather is better by then.

Spent last night swimming in an incredible house with a pool in the front yard and a beautiful fish pond in the back. A real luxury given the small amount of land in the country.

Haven't done much photo taking, thought I might get some done today but the weather's still not clear.

Time to head off to the city! Will post pictures later.