A day in Singapore

This morning we took our time having breakfast in the apartment and looking at more hotels to stay in. But soon the noise was getting on our nerves so we headed out. We caught the MRT to Raffles City to find the rug store where I bought the rug from at the recent auction. Although I love the rug, being silk, the cats are going to destroy in no time flat and it is also a pretty small for our bedroom.

We found Eastern Carpets and I explained to the guy our situation. He said that he would be happy to exchange the carpet for us. We looked through a huge amount of rugs before picking two that we loved. One was just gorgeous but I knew it was too expensive for us. Such a shame because it was beautiful! But the other one we also loved and was much more realistic in price. So we arranged with the guy to have the new one dropped off and the old one picked up once we worked out where we were moving to.

We wandered around the mall and had some lunch again at The Soup Spoon. We caught the train back to the apartment and finally managed to find a great deal at the Pan Pacific hotel in the Raffles area. So Ross went to get our money back from the management and I packed up the bags ready for us to move out.

We jumped in a cab and headed to the hotel. They were a little surprised I guess because we had literally made the booking online 10 mins earlier but we were soon in our room - and it was so quiet! A great decision!

We relaxed in the room for a while and then about 4.30 we headed out for a drink and something to eat. We walked to the Raffles and had a Singapore Sling at the outside terrace bar before walking around the marina area ending up at Clarke Quay. It was too early for dinner but Ross and I were hungry so we had a bit of tapas at The Tapas Tree. We walked around the Clarke Quay area for a while before deciding to walk to the Esplanade Theatre area to try out The Coookie Museum - a place I have been wanting to go to for ages.

It took us forever to find out how to get to the Esplanade as all the roads were blocked due to the APEC summit. Even when we found a way in, the whole Esplanade was closed to the public - not happy! Just because Obama was coming in to town, the whole place was shut down.

So we started walking back to the hotel and ended up in Suntec City - another mall. We wandered around for ages deciding what to have for dessert. We stumbled across the Fountain of Wealth - the largest fountain in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records. We were just in time for the multimedia show. It was pretty cool actually. They shined lasers on the fountain and showed a movie about Earth and the solar system. Not bad. It was over pretty quick and we moved on to find an icecream at Swensons before walking back to the hotel.

We had a nightcap in the lobby bar before heading upstairs to our room. We watched some TV then again I was exhausted and fell asleep.

New rug

This morning I headed out to pick Julia up for netball. As we were just about to leave her place, we got a text from Sam the captain to say that it was raining and therefore netball was canceled. However, we did meet up with a few of the girls at the Blue Cow for breakfast and coffee.

After dropping Julia home, I arrived at my place about 11 and headed to the gym downstairs. I thought since I was all done up in my netball stuff I might as well go do something active! I did half an hour on the elliptical trainer and then did half an hour of stretching. I thought I would give my arms and shoulders a rest seeing as they were still a little sore after earlier in the week.

I headed back upstairs, showered and then walked over to Pavilion. I got my Thomas Sabo bracelet polished and also got the bracelet that Sonja gave me replaced (I managed to undo it when I tried to make it smaller!). I also wandered around Tangs which was having a great sale. I picked up a cute dress, some knee length dressy shorts and a one shouldered white cotton top. Oh, and a couple of pairs of cheap sunglasses :-)

I wandered around a few more stores and then went to Dome for a late lunch before walking home. I had a bit of a cat nap on my bed before getting up in time to meet Sonja downstairs to walk over to Istana Hotel for the American Association of Malaysia's rug auction night. We walked around looking at the various rugs that were up for auction and then marked down our favourites. We had some food and waited for the auction to start. We ran into Debbie and Dan (Debbie had passed on the invitation) who were also looking at the carpets.

The auction began quite tentatively but soon it was in full swing. I had my eye on 3 rugs. The first one I missed out on but it wasn't my favourite so that was ok. The second one I bid on I almost had it and someone out bid me - I turned around and it was Dan! He gave up so I ended up getting the rug - a gorgeous silk rug from Afghanistan. The last rug on my list was well out of my price range :-( I also won a door prize of a tiny mini rug!

Sonja bought two rugs and did really well with the prices. At the end of the night we caught up with Debbie and Dan again as they were paying for their 4 rugs! They had bought two that I absolutely loved but didn't feel right about bidding that much without Ross being there.

Sonja rang Brian to come and pick us and our rugs up and took us home. As soon as I put the new rug on the bedroom floor - the cats were all over it. A brief fight ensued and as usual, Black staked his claim on the rug (as you can see from the photo!). By this time it was midnight so I headed to bed - happy with our new rug!

Camel Rug

As you can see from the photo, we hung the camel rug that I received as a leaving gift from my Director at Reach Out To Asia (ROTA), Omnia. After a quick trip to IKEA, Dad threw in a couple of screws and up it went. It really sets off the house and with the other rug that ROTA gave to me also as a gift, it looks great. Such generous gifts!

Other than that, we pretty much spent the day reading and playing games. We also tried to concoct dinner out of whatever was left in the fridge which turned out to be zucchini pizza, green vegetable salad, roast veg and Camembert and roast garlic. Not too bad really :-)

After dinner, we honed our Mahjong skills - I really think we are getting better...