Singapore and Amsterdam

Letter No. 266

Dear all,

We had nearly a month long holiday in Singapore, Europe and the UK over Christmas. Here is a a day-by-day account!

Day 1 – Australia. Today we had a morning finishing packing up and left about 1pm to drive to the Gold Coast. We were staying at “The Pink Hotel” in Cooloongatta. It was very twee and retro and everything was pink! We had an afternoon walk around the town and along the beach and up to the lookout point. It was a very cool afternoon for the longest day of the year so we didn’t swim. We went out for a belated birthday dinner for me to “Siblings” at Kirra. It was soooo lovely with a great ocean view. We had an early night as we had a very early start the next morning.

Day 2 – Gold Coast to Singapore We left The Pink Hotel at 5am and were at the Gold Coast Airport by 5:10am. Much easier than driving from Brisbane that morning! The terminal is quite new and it was the first day that the coffee shop we had breakfast at was open. They were VERY disorganised! It was 7½ hours to Singapore and we arrived at 2:10pm and caught a taxi to The Fullerton Hotel - a beautiful old colonial hotel looking out over the Bay. Santa Claus had obviously visited the hotel and thrown up in the lobby! The amount of Christmas decorations were ridiculous. There was a huge tree made entirely of teddy bears and another one made entirely of wine and champagne bottles, tinsel and lights everywhere. We wandered around and looked at it all before going up to our rooms. They were very nice. The kids were impressed with their room! Katie had a luxurious bath while the kids and I went to the infinity pool and steam room to recover after out long day. In the evening we wandered down to look at the Merlion in the bay and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel which is very spectacular. We then went on the Fullerton Bay Hotel (sister Hotel) and had drinks and dinner at the Lantern Bar,  their roof top bar. There was a light show all over the bay at 8pm which was quite spectacular but we were all tired and were back at the hotel asleep by 9pm.

Day 3 – Singapore I got up at 6am to go for a run and was a little surprised it was still pitch black but went anyway. I did a lap around the bay from bridge to bridge and took some nice pre-dawn photos of the tall buildings. We all went down for breakfast about 8am and were all blown away at the decadence of the breakfast buffet. It was amazing! We had a long day of walking ahead so indulged. We were spending the day at Gardens by the Bay. It was about a 30-minute walk and we went through the Marina Bay Sands Shopping Centre which had 2.5 billion fairy lights and 223,000 Christmas trees! Santa had again passed by and been violently ill! It was really amazing. We went into the Gardens. We went to two exhibits, both in enormous free form glass houses. The first was the Flower Dome which was an explosion of flowers and Christmas themed displays (again). It took over an hour to go right round and then we headed to the adjacent Cloud Forest. As you walk in there is an eight-storey waterfall. The path winds around and through an enormous cliff with sky walks and beautiful plants. There was an Avatar exhibition and there were incredibly life-like models of all the fantastic Avatar creatures. The best was the Banshee which was animated and so realistic. It was so good! We made it back to the hotel in late afternoon and had a swim before heading out to meet our friends Craig and Kirsten Wiley who live in Singapore after escaping from the Melbourne lockdowns last year! We had a lovely Chinese meal at Clarke Quay after a short walk along the quay. It was really nice to catch up with them as we hadn’t seen them for more than 15 years.

Day 4 – Singapore I went for a run around Fort Canning on top of a hill nearby the historic district. The fort had lots of historic sites and building surrounding an active military base with great views in all directions. After a enormous breakfast we all had a short walk to the Asian Civilisation Museum. Matthew decided to do his own thing that day so it was the three of us for the museum which was really good. It had lots of artefacts recovered from shipwrecks around Singapore and a history of the trade routes around Asia. We then went on to Orchard Road to look at all the shopping district which was insanely busy on Christmas Eve. Lots and lots and lots of high-end shops. We went back to the hotel and arrived at the same time as Matthew and all went for a swim. That evening Matt and Jess went to the Singapore Night Zoo. Katie and I went and had dinner on Clarke Quay and when back to the hotel. They had Christmas Carols in the lobby around the 8m tall Christmas tree made entirely of teddy bears. It was really lovely. We followed this up by Champagne in the lobby bar. A very lovely Christmas Eve.

Day 5 – Singapore I went for an early morning run on Christmas morning around Clarke Quay and Boat Quay. The kids came into our room and we had presents and called family in Australia and the UK before breakfast. We tried to restrain ourselves at the buffet but it was quite difficult as it was so nice. Even though it was Christmas Day and a public holiday most of the shops were open. I spent the morning shopping for necessities while the family got ready for lunch. I was so hot when I got back I had to have my second shower of the day and completely change before lunch. It was a short taxi ride to “The English House” by celebrity chef Marco Pierre White (I hadn’t heard of him either). The restaurant was eclectically decorated and very interesting. We had a five-course lunch which was traditional English (obviously). It was very good. Singapore is VERY expensive for eating out and any type of alcohol. We cracked over AUD$1000 for lunch for the first time! It was really lovely though! Lunch went until 2:30Pm and we caught a taxi to Mr Stork a rooftop bar on Level 39. We met Craig and Kirsten for G&T’s and looked at the 360 degree view around Singapore. We went back to the hotel by 5:30pm, had a quick swim and had the evening in watching a movie in our room. A very nice Christmas Day!

Day 6 – Singapore We had a day at Sentosa today. It
is a beach to the South of Singapore which is the southernmost point of
continental Asia. We caught a taxi and long cable car ride to get there. The
cable car was quite spectacular going over the harbour. We had a few hours on
the beach swimming in the warm water before a late lunch at a beach bar. We caught
the monorail and underground train back to our hotel. We had checked out that
morning but could use the pool, spa and change facilities to freshen up and
pack up our bags before heading to the airport for our midnight flight to
Amsterdam. We went a little early so we had time to go to see Jewel, a
spectacular fountain, light show around a diagrid structure housing a rain
forest which has been constructed between Terminal 1 and 3. It was very good. 

Day 7 – Singapore to The Netherlands By the time our flight left at half past midnight it had been a very long day! It was at 12½ flight from Singapore to Zurich. We had one hour  to transfer Terminals to get to our next flight to Amsterdam. It was VERY tight. We had to get a train and it was a long walk either end. We all thought it would be astounding if our bags made it as well. It was another 1 ½ hours to Amsterdam. Five minutes after landing, Jess was face timing her boyfriend Kyel who had landed 30 minutes before us, we met up with him at the baggage reclaim hall. Matt and Jess and Kyel were doing their own separate things in Europe until we met up with them to ski so we said goodbye and caught a taxi to our hotel. We were staying at “The Hoxton Hotel” in the Old Canals Area. The kids were staying in Backpacker Places spread out around the city closer to the party zones.

We had to have a coffee for an hour before our room was ready but by noon we had been showered and changed and ready for an afternoon out. We spent 3 ½ hours wandering around the canals. There are hundreds and very difficult to tell lots of them apart. There are LOTS of bicycles and the ride at breakneck speed and don’t stop for anyone. Most of the cars are electric and totally silent so you need to be very careful on the roads - a bit hard when you are gawking at everything! We walked through the shopping district (9 streets area), cite centre, red light district and went to Oude Kerk the oldest building in Amsterdam. It was a cathedral and the floor entirely made up tombstones. The oldest one we saw was 1591! It was a pretty impressive structure. I was pretty alarmed at some of the buildings though. A great many of them lean at alarming angles. The worst are when adjacent buildings, that were originally built touching lean in opposite directions and a gap up to 600mm wide open up at the fifth (top) floor!

We did think it was pretty funny seeing signs on the streets warning you not to buy drugs off sellers in the street, right outside a shop selling marijuana cookies and chocolate and magic mushrooms! We went back to our hotel for some down time but were feeling sleepy so sat in the lobby to keep awake. I went shopping for food and we had a picnic dinner in our room before going to bed at 7pm. It was a 43 hour day for me with at most 2hrs sleep on the plane so I slept like a corpse!

Day 8 – Amsterdam We tried to go to Anne Frank’s House in the morning but discovered that it was fully booked for three weeks! Should have booked ahead! Anyway we had a look at it from the outside and read all the information in the lobby. We then tried to catch a tram to the Amsterdam Museum. We were told that we could buy tickets on board the tram but by the time we worked out how to do that we were at our stop, so we got a free ride. The Amsterdam museum told the history of the city. Most of the houses and canals in the old city centre seem to have been constructed in the 17th century. There are apparently 1403 little bridges over the canals. Many of the houses have dates on the gable roof. The earliest we saw was 1619. The houses are mostly five storeys. They are founded on timber piles and many houses have settled alarmingly. Floors and walls with significant leans are the norm. The museum also told the History of the Dutch East India company and the slave trade which was also fascinating. We had a very late lunch and went back to the hotel. In the evening we went out to the Red Light District but it was rainy and windy so we didn’t stay very long.

Day 9 - Amsterdam We went to the Rijks Museum which had paintings from all the Dutch Masters - Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Vermeer. The paintings were organised into centuries from the 17th (which was the best). The paintings were so realistic that some of them looked like photographs. It was really amazing how good they were. Matthew was at the museum at the same time with his friend Adam from London and they met us for coffee. We spent about 4 hours in the museum and only got around half of it! We had to have a very quick lunch and then went onto the Heineken Experience. It was a tour of the Heineken brewery but was very good. Apparently Heineken was the first beer to be imported into the US after prohibition ended in 1929 which really turned them into a global brand. It was quite fun. We went back to the hotel for a short break before we were off on a canal cruise. The cruise left at 7:30pm and went around a series of light displays at various points around the canals - The Carnival of Lights. They were very good but it was also really interesting looking into all the crooked houses to see what people were doing! A bit voyeuristic!

Day 10 – Amsterdam We had a tour booked today but it didn’t start until noon so we had the morning wandering around the shops. There are so many beautiful shops I am amazed they can all made a living. There were lots of speciality shops which only sold one thing - peanut butter in 14 flavours, rubber ducks in thousands of varieties, cheese, sweets, marijuana , beautiful art of photographs of your own irises! I stopped for coffee in a “coffee shop” I just had a flat white but everyone else was smoking marijuana! It was quite funny that smoking a cigarette was strictly forbidden but smoking a joint was ok. Outside the shop was a big sign telling you if was illegal to but drugs from street sellers but quite ok to buy them in the shop.

Our tour started at noon and it was a short drive to a clog making factory. We saw how they made clogs in the traditional method which was fascinating. We then had a short boat ride on a freshwater lake that was formed in the 1950’s by closing off a salt water bay. We were looking at the Dykes on the other side. It was quite alarming to see the lake on one side and the houses next to it 3m lower than the water level. Apparently 60% of The Netherlands is below sea level (up to 7m) and they need to constantly pump water from small canals put to bigger and bigger ones until the water flows to the sea. It they ever stop pumping, the houses will flood! I would not feel comfortable living below sea level especially when the water is so close and so much higher than your house!

We went on to a cheese factory and saw how they make Dutch cheese. There was a shop with tasting afterwards and I ate my body weight, or perhaps a little more, of cheese! Yum! It was a short bus ride to see some traditional Dutch windmills. It was blowing a gale and the windmills were going like the clappers! Windmills with Archimedes Screws were originally used to pump water up the canal system but it is mainly electric pumps now. The windmill we went to see was grinding peanuts to make peanut oil. It was constructed in 1627! The millstones were last replaced in 1820 and had worn down in diameter over the last 202 years to reduce from 5000kg each to 2500kg each. They could make the same amount of oil in a day that a modern factory made in 10 minutes so most of their income was from tourism. Watching the windmill turn the millstones was very medieval feeling! It was a short bus trip back to Amsterdam. Matthew and Adam came to our hotel and had dinner with us that night which was nice. The had been to see the same Windmills but on bicycle. It had been raining quite hard so they had gotten soaked to the skin so were a little late for dinner. Jessica and Kyel had gone to Brussels by train that morning so couldn’t join us. We had a lovely dinner with Matt and Adam in our very funky hotel restaurant.

Day 11 – Amsterdam It was our last day in Amsterdam and Matthew had a 4hour train ride to Berlin while Jess had a short train ride from Brussels to Paris. We spent to morning in the Van Loon Museum. The William Van Loon co-founded the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and became fabulously wealthy from trading slaves and sugar. They were also linked to the Royal family, were bankers and William’s grandson was the mayor of Amsterdam. Their house was built in 1672 and the family still live in the upper levels. The lower three levels are open to the public as well as the rear enclosed garden and coach house. The furniture and decorations are all 17th and 18th century. The bedrooms are enormous - about the size of our living room in Australia and four on each level. It was really good. We had a last mooch around the canals before heading back to the hotel to pack. We spent New Year’s Eve in our hotel restaurant, Lotti’s. We had a nice meal and stayed in the hotel lobby which had been transformed into a dance floor. At midnight we were in our room and watched the fireworks over the canals. There were a lot of people setting off some serious fireworks in the streets as well (which had supposedly been banned). These went on until at least 4am so we had a very broken night.

Cheers from Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica & Molly