June 5, 2024
Back in Belfast
Today I got the news around 10:30 am in Cork, that I am scheduled to fly to Grand Canary, Spain at 3pm tomorrow and I can access my baggage on the ship, at noon before heading to the airport. I quickly packed up all my stuff at Edel's and had a quick goodbye, for now, because we are determined to meet up again soon, somewhere warm, so she can have a proper ship experience!
It then took me about 5 hours, to drive back to Belfast in my sporty Kia Rio rental; did I mention I got a standard transmission to make things more of a challenge and exciting! I haven't driven stick in roughly 30 years & add on the opposite side of the road driving! Party!! Poor Edel did a couple of body jerks while riding shotgun and not in control, over our week of touring.
I am staying at a different hotel downtown this time in Belfast and the picture above, the Protestant headquarters, is right outside my window. I am also just 2 hotels down from the famous Europa hotel, the most bombed hotel in the world! Good Karma right!
Late tonight I found out that our itinerary, once we set sail on the 15th, is also changed for first couple of days but it means I am going to miss hooking up with my dear friend Tom Powl in Hamburg, Germany. I talked to him tonight and sent new itinerary below and he is going to see if perhaps we could meet up at another point. I hope so, really would love to see him!
Singapore at night is even more spectacular than by day! The city sparkles! I had set up another tour for us to take in some of the iconic light and water shows, this island is known for also on our first day. Decided we should go big and get a great first taste of things! We joined this tour at 6pm, right before dusk, so we had prime viewing!
The tour I set up was Architecture and Food, for our day one in Singapore . After looking at the Architecture our guide brought us to the iconic hawker center Lau Pa Sat in the heart of the Central Business District . We got there around 1:30 pm on Friday afternoon and much of the business crowd had cleared. The atmosphere is vibrant and you can feast relatively inexpensively. The locals asked us all weekend, if we had been there yet, as it is well used by all, with lots of favorite stalls!
SINGAPORE has been high on my list of must see destinations for a long while and WOW it didn't disappoint! Singapore is a highly developed sovereign island city - state as of 1965. It is famous for its safety, efficiency and lush Garden City nickname . With a population at 6.11M, it is a major hub for finance, trade and tourism. They say every 80 seconds a plane leaves and every 4 minutes a boat comes in or out!