Katong Gardens

Dionne and Duncan's complex is called Katong Gardens and is about a $S17.00 taxi ride from the airport. Reasonably modern, low rise, well laid out and with a swimming pool. Lynne has been here before but this is my first time to be impressed by the facility. As we walked around the grounds this morning with Quinn and Myrna (D&Ds live in maid) one could not but be impressed with the surroundings; gardener/grounds people keeping everything in order and looking great - wil try the pool later.

New terminal

Arrived in Singapore at the new Terminal 3; what a wonderful facility! Clean (well it is new!), spacious, very well laid out and so built to facilitate the easy and speedy movement of masses of people. It took us about 7 minutes to move from the immigration desk to the main arrivals hall; helped by the fact that our luggage was amongst the first ten or so bags.

The official who handled our entry not only smiled but offered us sweets as well - not a usual occurence at border controls I have to say!

I've had better starts!

It was not a great start to an extended trip - turning up to the flight counter, presenting documentation supplied by the travel agent (who will remain anonymous at this stage), to be told, "This isn't right". However the staff were very helpful in making sure we eventually (after 25 minutes of 'just a moment', several phone calls and back room discussions) got to Auckland. In the meantime I left a message on the agent's voice mail (thank goodness for mobile phones) and by the time we got to Auckland he was able to confirm that by the time we got to the Singapore Airlines check in counter everything would be 'okay'. I'm a 'believe it when I see it' person and felt a lot more comfortable when we had boarding passes in our hands!

Fortunately we still had time to ensure we made the mandatory duty free alcohol purchases!

Day Zero-1

Task one - set up traveling blog site - completed! Now for the real stuff!