We've arrived!! Singapore!!!

Musical chairs at 10,000 feet

We're here!  Was a great flight with those Singapore Airlines folks and about 300 movies at your fingertips ;).  I must say, it took about an hour for the musical chairs to finish and everyone to find a seat they were going to be happy with...

And after about 11 hours 'on the road' (so to speak...) we arrived at Changi Airport in Singapore, and were blasted by the 30+ degree heat.  Although that was for only about 2-3 seconds as
we passed from jet plane to airport terminal and back into the comfortable air-conditioning. 

St Oran's: COME ON DOWN!

Everyone was pretty stunned at the huge size of the airport terminal buildings and it was actually very quiet as we came through customs & immigration processing.  Perhaps they had closed off the airport when they realised they were about to get invaded by 40 loud and exuberant teenage girls! 

Grabbing the gear

Processing our passports, and picking up our suitcases, and then passing through customs was an absolute breeze - this has got to be one of the simplest and hassle-free airports to get through!

We had another 2-3 seconds of acclimatizing before climbing on to two busses for our 30 minute transfer to the hotel.  We had tour guides to provide a quick overview of Singapore on the way, and we found out that there are four (!!) national languages here: English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil although English is the main language for business and administration.  Furthermore, Singapore has evolved their use of English to Singlish!  And Singlish switches words around from the normal grammatical structure that we would be used to - for example, "where are you going" becomes "you go where".  I'm sure we'll get used to it soon enough...

We got to see the Singapore Flyer (not a bus like we Hutt people might assume but in fact the world's largest observation wheel, ie a gigantic Ferris wheel!) and passed under the iconic Marina Bay Sands hotel!  It was a great way to see the city at night.

We arrived at our hotel at around 8.30 pm and eventually got settled in.  The old Chinese bellman wasn't too happy with our party spread all around his foyer and I think he would've liked to have a sheep dog to corrale us all into one corner!  We eventually made it to our rooms and I think it was nightie-night for all!   

Waiting, waiting, waiting

It's 6.30am now, and I think everyone will be waking up - considering their body clock is telling them it's now 11.30am in NZ!  A big day ahead of us with a bus tour and the zoo.  See you later!