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Woke up at 5:30a.m.to the sound of the Indian man singing in the temple near our room. It was nice and a pleasant way to wake up.
We got as ready as we could for the day although it was difficult to wash w/o a washcloth so i used the end of my towel.
We decided to not have the maid make up our room today as we have so much stuff; 5 pieces of luggage between us and there’s only 3 hangers in the room and the closet is just a stand and only about 4 ft. high and very narrow. I don’t know what or who their typical cliental is. Maybe just one nighter people like young backpackers and maybe it’s more like almost a hostel. So we weren’t confident that our stuff would be safe with our suitcases left open in this very inexpensive little room.
I had a banana for my breakfast and we had the desk guy call us a cab and it was here in less than a minute. We went to the Gardens by the Bay and it was so beautiful and there were so many interesting things to take pics of that i was afraid of my camera battery dying. This is right at the posh Marina Bay Sands Mall and the taxi was very reasonably priced. Annie had been there yesterday and she knew i’d love it and i did. It was so cool and classy and without many shoppers so it was quite quiet. We walked a lot and admired all the high end designer stores and the decor of this three floor mall is really out of this world. One attraction is a laser light show over what appears to be a pond. It’s called Digital Lights Canvas. It’s not a pond but glass with a show going on under it that reacts when people walk or dance on it all the while there’s a rain shower effect coming down from the ceiling. Really very very nice.
Annie left me there as she had something else on her agenda so i was on my own enjoying this fabulous mall. Nearby was a food court and i walked around all the food venues admiring the various dishes offered. I wasn’t hungry for a big meal but the frozen yogurt appealed to me and there were dozens of toppings you could choose from too. I had blueberry with a topping of i forget the name of it! It was a whiteish fruit with black seeds in it and it hit the spot. (Was it lotus fruit?)
So i walked on looking at everything there and it must be the best mall in the world. A person could spend a lot of time in there and see something new every time. My only fault with it all was that i think there were just two places to sit each with 4 spaces and of course there were people already sitting in them. I need somewhere to sit every five minutes so visiting this huge mall was a little difficult for me.
When i saw the arrow pointing out the way to the casino i just had to check it out. Casinos are my favourite places because they have millions of comfy chairs to sit on. I never get sore feet or sore back or get tired in a casino. I think they pump oxygen into the air so you never get drowsy. The first strange and unusual thing for me was that i had to show my passport before entering but i passed ok and was in at 11:45 a.m. only to discover that a lot of the slot machines were not powered up, especially or mostly the penny machines. They said they would not be available to play until 1p.m. Meanwhile i had lots to do just checking the place out. It was awesome and huge, on two floors and when i looked over the top floor to the floor below i saw zillions of table games which i don’t play but it was a very cool and memorable sight for the sheer size of it. The ceiling of this casino was also an awesome thing just in itself. I was dying to take pics but there’s no pics allowed in there so i didn’t even try as i didn’t want to be kicked out!
So i sat at a penny machine that i would have played if i could but couldn’t and a friendly local man started talking to me. He said the machine beside the one i sat at had paid out $168,000. the previous day. A lot of the penny, 2 cent and 5 cent machines were capable of payouts of well over $200,000. But that would be playing for the maximum and way too high stakes for me. I play them for .60 cents or on an occasional one that can be hit for $1. They had all sorts of slot machines including some that could be played for $1000. a hit but i didn’t see anyone playing them but probably the wealthy players come out to play at night. But in my area of possibilities to play i noticed many, many machines with the last players payout still on the monitor and many were well over $1000. and lots were in the $500+area. So the local man said he was going for lunch and would be back to play the penny slots with his $100. limit that he plays every single day. He was troubled by the casino having shut down most of the penny slots as he said they don’t do that very often. It’s a 24 hour casino and rare for management to put any machines out of order.....so gotta wonder what that was all about!
So i played $10. worth on a 2 cent machine and got lucky and won $70. which i promptly cashed out and found another one where i picked up $80. for my $10.
Then played a few more w/o a win. I then decided to wait until the penny slots were operational so i wandered and looked the place over real good all the while enjoying their free serve yourself pop and fruit drinks. One was fresh green apple juice and it was so good i drank several. Although the mall and the casino were air conditioned it still was a little warm and humid in there. I may have become better accustomed to the humidity as yesterday i felt like I was breathing under water and today i haven’t quite felt that strange effect so far.
Finally the penny slots were powered up and i played one that gave me $50. for my $10. So far so good and then a couple of misses before i upped my bet to $1. and hit a $100.payout. Well, that just meant i had to play some more and of course some of it stayed there but i did eventually leave with a nice profit. The return trip was in a taxi and he took a different route than the one i’d become familiar with and we drove through the entrance to Little India on a colourful street with a lot of decoration all along and above the road.
Tomorrow my room mate will fly out and she has to go to the airport at 3a.m. to get her morning flight to Las Vegas. Our friends Scott and Li will be flying out tomorrow night and they’re going to spend a few days sight seeing in London and Iceland before they return to their homes in S. Carolina. I’m supposed to fly the next following day which would be Oct 25 here and after flying for over 20 hours it’ll still be the 25th when i land at home at 4p.m.
Ok, notice I said I’m SUPPOSED to fly home on the 25th.............
My flight was cancelled 3 times before i even left home on this journey. Excuses were non-existent; they simply emailed and gave me a different time on a different plane. After the third cancellation they put me on a flight on the 25th, saying there were no flights for me on the previous day and they didn’t offer to pay for my extra night in a hotel either. Since i’d be alone in this very big city for an extra night i wasn’t very happy about it but they said it was the best they could do.
“THEY” are Air Canada. Strangely enough on the last night of the cruise i spoke to a Canadian couple who said they had just been notified of a change in their flight time and it was two days ago. These people and most people have had the use of WiFi on their phones and laptop computers to find out any changes. Me, not so much, in fact not at all. I wasn’t able to get online on the ship as i couldn’t remember my 20 year old home email password! I’ve never had to use that password since that signup day 20 years ago! It ticked me off big time as i don’t know what that particular pw has to do with anything. However, it was their rule and so my only form of communication with my husband has been by phone which was $5. per minute from the ship and it was worrisome for me because he'd get all wordy telling me all the details of the reno that's going on in our house, lol. There’s no point in me calling him from this hotel either as he knows nothing about computing and therefore i shut my computer down. He wouldn’t know how to access my email anyway and especially not if he turned it on and several thousand emails loaded as i’ve been away for 38 days. My email is going to be crazzzzzy! I have no way to find out if they've emailed whether my flight is even going to go or not! So, i’ll check out of this hotel and go to the airport with hopes and expectations that i'll fly out on the 25th and if not then what? Back to the city and Little India i guess because it’s the only hotel i know here and the price has been right so no point in trying another unknown.
OK so it's obviously not in the best hotel category; it might even look like a scary neighbourhood but believe me it was fine due to the laws in Singapore. Anyone who does anything wrong, even relatively minor infractions are punishable by death. Nobody takes any chances here therefore you are safe everywhere in this city. The hotel itself was very neat and clean and while it was very small it was extremely cheap and we really had no need to be worried about our stuff.
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