Copenhagen

Pretty new harbour

We spent the Labour day long weekend in Copenhagen, though it's not called Labour day anymore, just early May bank holiday.  And it's not really a bank holiday since everyone gets the day off

We had a bit of a nightmare adventure trying to get there, it felt like the holiday was a bit cursed from the start.  We had another run in with the First Great Western brand - this time their Gatwick Express arm of the company.  There was a fire on the line somewhere - what is it with FGW and fires, do they employ recovering pyromaniacs or something?  I mean that's very admirable, giving them a fresh start and all, but perhaps you should be doing something to halt the excessive fire lighting?

Cherry blossom in Tivoli

Dave with one of the palaces behind him - run round II

And this was the Friday night before a long weekend, everyone wanted to get to Gatwick.  The train station was just getting more and more crowded, people were jumping over barriers to get to the platforms, it was total chaos, but nothing was moving.  So we jumped in a cab, bad move.  Central London traffic on the Friday evening of a bank holiday, man it was bad.  I was convinced we weren't going to make it.  I've never missed a flight before, but I guess the run of good luck had to end at some point.  And we were flying with one of those budget airlines which have 40 minute cut-offs for check in.  So I thought there was no way.  We leap out of the taxi, after trying to pay him in euros for some reason and sprint to the check in desk.  We actually got there about 40 minutes to spare, and since it turned out that there were a few people still waiting for the Copenhagen flight I thought we would be OK.  Or at least we should make it onto the plane.

We were flying with Norwegian air, first time with them.  It was total chaos, I thought it was just because they had to deal with the knock-on effect of the Gatwick Express breaking down.  But we were in Gatwick again last week, and walked past their check in desk and it was the same absolute chaos then as well.  So I think that's just standard.

Looking across to the Churchill park, with added swan's nest

Cherry blossom going crazy

As we are waiting there we had people who had arrived late holding their mobile phones out, telling the check-in staff that they had the pilot on the phone, and that he would hold the plane for them if they could get checked in.  There were people with babies just being completely ignored, people pushing in, desperate to get on the flight.  It was just a free-for-all.

We got checked in and then we had to run through the airport, that was a bit of fun, luckily the other people checking in late to Copenhagen were much older than us, so we knew they would take a bit of time.  And even better was that for once there was no line at security, which was a boon.  We made it fine, we were the second last people on the plane, we had passed the old couple just after duty-free.

Strange pirate ship at Tivoli

Awesome roof at the National museum

At the other end we waited like saps for our luggage to arrive.  It should have been blatantly obvious that there was no way our bags would have made it to the plane faster than we had.  So really we should have saved ourselves the 20 minute wait and gone straight to the missing baggage counter.  We fill in our form, and it is at that point I realise we really should put a name tag or some form of ID on the bag, in case these situations do arise.  They tell us that in 95% of the cases you get your bag in the next 24 hours.  The real pain was that all the Copenhagen guide books and the map I had borrowed from the library were in the bag.

No bag arrived by Saturday afternoon, so we go out to our fancy dinner, still wearing the same clothes I had worn to work on Friday, and come back hoping that our bag had arrived.  To find that there was a suitcase in our room, only problem was that it was the older couple's.  Aaaargh.  It is at this point that I'm thinking perhaps it's actually the old couple who are cursed and we are just being caught up in their bad luck.  Since they had done everything they could (their bag didn't even look like ours) they had all this ID in the front pocket of the bag (that's how we knew it was theirs).  At that point we cracked and went and bought a toothbrush.  But what happens once the tags on your bag get mixed up?  Because my name was on the luggage tag of their bag?  Luckily they must have been at home when our bag was delivered to them, because the airline company rang the hotel first thing in the morning to say that they were dropping off our actual bag that day.  And they did, so 12 hours before we were due to fly back home, we get our bag back.  Let me tell you the shower after receiving the suitcase was one of the best, knowing I could change into all clean clothes.  That's really one of the best feelings.

Really weird painting, the painting is actually reflected on the pole in the middle

Copenhagen itself was great, they are a good looking people the Danes, everyone is really tall, and fit and surprisingly well-dressed.  They definitely don't go in for the same chain shops that we get in London.  And awesome shoes.  Their shoe companies really have to expand into the rest of Europe so we can all have their great styles.  And everyone spoke English, so so well.  It really makes you feel lazy, because it wasn't just the young people, but everyone, even the really old people.  And you are thinking, when did you learn it?  Surely there was no way they were teaching English when they were at school!

It certainly made the bag re-claimation a lot easy.  But even though everyone we met spoke English, the one person who didn't was the taxi driver from the airport.  What is it with taxi drivers at airports, can they not ever get any other fares?  Every time I have caught a taxi from the airport, they haven't known where to go, we couldn't communicate with them, and then they don't even drop us off at the hotel and you have to end up wandering through the streets to get to the hotel.  And yet the taxis you catch during the rest of the stay are all really good.  It's something really weird about airport taxis.

The royal palace

Spring - time!

Overall Copenhagen was a really pretty city, and we had some great runs there.  It helped that the weather was fantastic, there's something about beautiful blue skies, not too hot and running along the sea front to put you in a good mood.  Too bad I couldn't take any photos though, since my running camera was trapped in the lost suitcase.

We went into the National Museum, which was a really good museum, they had a big sections on Greenlanders and whaling and that sort of thing.  Which was pretty interesting, I don't know how people live in that sort of environment, they had all the fur clothes they wore.  Which apparently only last a year and then they have to make whole new outfits, and everything is done completely from hand.

They also had almost like the best-of from around the world.  It wasn't very big, but every culture would have some artifact representing them in the museum, so you had a samurai knight armour, and the Indonesian shadow puppets + orchestra all laid out.  That sort of thing.  But then even more interesting was that the whole other half of the museum was purely on the Danish and Scandinavian history, man they really fought each other a lot.  You kind of imagine that they should have been banding together against the rest of Europe, but no the Danes and Swedes seemed to be constantly at war.  And Norway was actually under Danish control for hundreds of years, I never appreciated that.

The crown jewels

We also went to the royal palace - where I don't think the royals actually live there, they have another palace somewhere.  This is where the crown jewels are kept.  It was a bit of a different experience from the Tower of London, where you have to ride travelators around, no photos and hundreds of guards.  Here just a couple of bored people on stools.  Though they did have massive vault like doors.  I wonder how fast they close when the alarms go off, and how long the air supply would last.  They were very ostentatious jewels.  They didn't have the massive stones that the English jewels have, but they seemed to make up for that in sheer numbers.

They really went in for that smart phone bar scanning thing that you see around nowadays.  It made me think that perhaps it's time to install that app, no more need to hire audio guides.  The palace is built in this park, which on a lovely sunny day was full of Danes.  We even managed to have a nap on the grass.  It's not often that the weather is nice enough to fall asleep outside.  So thumbs up to Copenhagen.

The lights and roller-coaster at Tivoli

The little mermaid - without tourist or industrial estate

One thing I really wanted to see was Tivoli, it's like Luna Park in Sydney, but way nicer.  It's a fun fair, but also a garden, and a light show.  Well not really a light show as such, they just had a lot of pretty lights around the place.  It's the one thing about Copenhagen which is in all the guide books, but I'd never been.  We ended up going 30 minutes before closing time, since I wanted to see the lights, but it didn't get dark until late, and I'm too scared to go on any of the rides.  The great lady at the entrance let us go in 2-for-1, she thought that was the fairest.  Oh man I was liking the Danes.  And it was pretty fun inside, pretty big.  They have all these musical performances on as well.  It seemed to be mainly school-aged performers, I guess they are cheap.  The first thing we saw was a xylophone orchestra, I have to say I've never seen one of those before.  And with the lights, and the cherry blossoms, it was a nice way to end an evening.

The courtyard in Thorvaldsens Museum - where he is also buried

Of course the other thing which is in all the guide books is the Little Mermaid statue, it's actually a long way out of town, we only saw it because we went for our second run of the holiday, another good one, but a bit tougher than the first.  On the other side of the harbour from her is this big industrial estate, so it's actually quite hard to get a photo with (a) no tourists in shot and (b) no massive warehouses.  That's why this one is so tightly cropped.  Having seen her, I'm not 100% sure why she is so popular.  Perhaps it's more that the story she represents is so popular.

The Pope Pius VII plaster cast of the Vatican statue

The colourful interior of Thorvaldsen's museum

The other thing which is becoming much more popular in Copenhagen is good food.  I did try for Noma, but that was a bit half-hearted since I didn't hold out much hope of getting a reservation there.  In the end we went to two great places.  The first was Relae restaurant, the chef used to work at Noma, and given the fact that Noma was just getting over their poisoning of customers I wasn't too upset not to be eating there.

The food was really good, though some of it was pretty weird, we had things like caramelised kelp, I think it was the Danish version of salted caramel.  The oysters were wonderful as was the pork.  And they keep giving you lovely bread, which I was probably very ill-mannered in using to sop up every last bit of delicious food.  This restaurant was in a suburban location, near the cemetery where Hans Christian Anderson is buried, so we got to see his grave as well.  We also found it really hard to hail a taxi from the street here, it was very weird, either all the taxis were full or perhaps they aren't allowed to stop on main roads to pick people up.  So it was a bit of a trek back to the hotel.

The second place was at a much more trendy location, in the meat packing district, or what used to be the meat packing district.  It was about 500m from our hotel, so thankfully no trekking this time.  You walk into what is really a whole estate of warehouses, where you could buy fish and that sort of things.  And one of them has been converted into a fish restaurant - fiskebar.  You can't go to Denmark without trying the seafood right?  Another awesome find. I had to have the rollmops, lets just say they are better than the ones you get out of the jar, it's pickled herrings for those who may have missed trying that delicacy.

The horses exercising outside Christiansborg Palace

And once again everyone spoke the best English, oh man, it makes travelling too easy.

Jason and the fleece - with added tree stump

The final stand out for me was the Thorvaldsen museum, he was probably Denmark's most famous artist.  He was a sculptor in the late 1700-1800 and lived for a long time in Rome.  Right in the middle of Copenhagen, next to the Christiansborg Palace is his museum, just full of his sculptures.  The audio guide is really good, definitely adds to the museum.  One of his more famous pieces is probably the Pope Pius VII grave monument in St Peter's.  One slightly amusing aspects of his work is that the audio guide was saying that he liked to add a tree stump or something to the piece, to give it a more naturalistic setting, but really it was so the heavy marble had something to lean on and that the ankles wouldn't break.

Frontline Club - first Wednesdays

On the first Wednesday of each month the Frontline Club, a journalists club, hosts a discussion evening.  It is pretty good, I've never been to one of these current affairs style shows, think Q&A in Australia, but less polished and on radio instead of TV.  The month we went it was a discussion about Pakistan, so they had a guy who had written books about Pakistan, and was working on another, the Pakistani high commissioner and a couple of journalists, who report from the really crazy areas of Pakistan.  It was mainly to do with the election, which was a very important one, it being the first where one democratically elected government passed on to another one.

It must be so hard to be the moderator of one of these things, and the journalist running it did such a good job.  He has to contend with the audience members wanting to show how smart they are, panellists waffling, off topic questions, all whilst trying to remain polite, in control and on time.  Also with the topic being on Pakistan, he had to try and keep the mood upbeat.  The more the audience and panellists discussed Pakistan all you got was how very bad the country was, and how close it is to becoming a failed state.  That nobody pays taxes, that members of Parliament are constantly being killed, that the violence is almost out of control.  One interesting thing to come out of it was that according to the panellists and the people in the room, that the people in the remote areas are actually all for the drone strikes.  Which I found really surprising, and I wonder how true that is, I thought everyone in the country hated the drone strikes, since innocent Pakistanis are being killed as well.

You do get the feeling that if you went along to a few of those you would definitely be on top of politics and current affairs around the world.

Bath

Bridge in Bath - nighttime

We spent a weekend in Bath recently.  Where I first experienced First Great Western's wonderful service first hand.  That train company is a total joke.  First of all it was delayed (some sort of fire on their train - very encouraging), then when one finally did turn up, everyone RAN to get on the train.  They must have been long-time First Great Western customers, since we took our time, thinking that because we had reserved our seats there would be no worries.  Oh how naive we were.  People literally couldn't get onto the carriages they were that full, I've never seen that before on one of these inter-city trains.

There was absolutely no chance of us getting anywhere near our seats, we had to fit in a carriage about 3 carriages away.  So instead it was standing all the way, joy.  I have to say thank goodness the tender process for the Western mainlines fell through, since by some miracle First Great Western had been awarded them.  Oh the injustice.

The Roman Baths

The Baths and the cathedral

On this completely packed train, of 8 carriages, 3 of them were first class, so you can't go in them - and they were totally empty.  Why would you not have more standard class trains?  How do your trains catch on fire? Do you think they run on petrol.

Sadly it's not just me that has a deep and abiding hatred of FGW, there are a number of amusing blogs detailing the long and painful problems.  The two blogs that I found are both no longer being updated.  Not because FGW somehow figured out that to run a successful train company your trains need to be on time and sufficiently frequent for the demand.  No, they are no longer being updated because the two authors could no longer take the commute and moved somewhere else so they wouldn't be subjected to FGW.  Now that is impressive.  Perhaps this is all a secret ploy for the government to reap more stamp duty, keep awarding FGW the train lines, and watch the cash roll in.

You know what would fix this?  Not freaking privatising your train system.  Because now what you have is a completely unaccountable private company, in a monopoly situation, who not only constantly screw you over, but make you pay for that pleasure.  And there's nothing you can do.  It's not like you can catch a different train to Bath, there's only one line, and only one train company servicing it.  Sigh.

An old Roman drain in the baths

The roof of the cathedral

Anyway enough ranting about FGW (I could go on, how we were packed in like animals, but I won't).

So we arrive in Bath, slightly later than intended, but never mind.  We had a great 2 days in Bath, it's such a pretty city.  I wasn't expecting the colour and the architecture to be so consistent throughout the city.  We were staying over the Bath version of the Ponte Vecchio, though there are less jewellery stores and they actually have an outlet of the Hampstead Bazaar, or as I call it the Hampstead Bizarre.  It's this really strange clothing store for older, wealthy women, that started in our suburb in London, but has now branched out England-wide.  Currently they have a signed photo of Judi Dench in the window.  The street we were staying in was this incredibly wide avenue, with the same Georgian houses all the way along.  It was very grand.

The main highlight of Bath is always going to be the Roman Baths, I was surprised with just how good they were.  We went in right behind a massive tour group, so we were thinking, hmmm this is going to suck, following 40 people around.  But they have put so much thought into the design.  The first part is all outdoors, so everyone can really space out, then once everyone has separated sufficiently they send you into a few smaller galleries.  By that stage you aren't surrounded by a massive tour group.  Why don't all major tourist sites put the same thought into the visitor experience?

View over Bath - lovely honey-coloured buildings

A swam covered in insects

The history of the place is quite amazing, how old the Baths are, and how they were completely lost for centuries, you wonder how that happens.  They have new baths there, set on different thermal springs.  You can also drink some of the water for 50p.  You walk into their lovely tea room - which is very swish - and you can enjoy the surroundings whilst you drink a little mouthful from your plastic cup.  I wouldn't recommend it though, the water is disgusting.

You can certainly spend at least a few hours wandering around the baths - the audio guide is really worth it as well.  They seem to have at least 3 tours programmed on the guide, which seems a slightly excessive number of tours.

St Bartholomew by Damien Hirst in the Cathedral - carrying his own skin

Following the Baths we popped into the Cathedral - being right next door you kind of had to.  Highlights were definitely the lovely roof.  I've never seen one like that with the fans.  To be precise it's actually an Abbey, which I think means that it was part of a monastery, rather than a purely catholic church.  But then after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII it fell into disrepair, until Elizabeth fixed it up again.  It is a very grand building. Whilst we were there a modern art exhibit was on inside the church, which was a more unusual way to use the space out of everything I have seen in churches.  Whilst I was admiring the freaky Damien Hirst statue of St Bartholomew the priest of the church came up and started explaining it to me, or rather why they had decided to exhibit these pieces.  I was a bit too shocked to say anything.  I've never spoken to a priest before.

The royal crescent

On the other side of the alter was, if possible, an even more freaky piece.  It was a taxidermy swan in full glide, but all over it were these little taxidermy insects, spiders and ants, they are the little black dots you can see in the photo.

Nice spot for a rugby game

We also did a walking tour - always recommended.  We learnt that Bath is a world heritage site not only for the Roman Baths, but also for the Georgian architecture of the town and the way the town is built amongst the surrounding hills.  There was also a lot of Jane Austen.

Bath is also a massive rugby town, which I didn't quite appreciate, but there was a rugby game on the weekend we visited.  And the stadium was packed, you could hear the roar throughout the town.  They don't actually have a permanent stadium anywhere in the town, it's just the grandstands set up for the season, which means the games are all literally just across the river from the main city centre, so they are very easy to get to.

Regiment forming up

Of course you can't visit Bath and not be aware of Jane Austen.  There is a Jane Austen museum there, which we visited, where you get a 20 minute talk about Jane from one of the workers before you can look at their stuff.  You got the feeling they liked Jane Austen a little too much.  And you wonder if they had moved in Jane's social circles whether she would have liked them.  It has inspired me to read Persuasion and Northanger Abbey though, since both of those were apparently set in Bath for at least some of the story.

A spot of shooting

We were also lucky enough to visit on World Heritage Day, so you would think, Bath, being a World Heritage site, that it would sort of go a bit overboard on the day.  They did have some demonstrations, but not quite as large as what I would have imagined.  There was a regiment in all their gear and they would every now and again form up and shoot some rounds in front of the Royal Crescent.  You wonder how they decide the hierarchy in these strange reenactment societies.  Is it the person with the most money, who can therefore afford to buy the best uniform, or is it the person most skilled at loading their rifles?

Bath is definitely worth a visit, and if you have the time and/or puff a walk up one of the surrounding hills gives a really great view.  You would think that since the views are one of the World Heritage-y things about the town that there would be a designated walking path up to the best viewing point.  We had to walk through a housing estate to get to what was meant to be the best view.  Which just felt slightly odd.

The leaves are bursting forth

Arundel to Amberley - South Downs Walk

Finally the leaves are arriving

We were back in Arundel one of these weekends past.  On a day when it finally felt like spring was on the way.  We are in training for our walk in the Alps later this year, so we picked one of the hardest walks in our book.  We had already been to Arundel last year, we were going to attempt this walk then, but ended up leaving London too late, and just spent the day checking out the castle and the village.

This time we actually made it out of the village, which was definitely the right move.  The South Downs are really wonderful.  It was English countryside at it's best, or at least some of it's best that I have seen.  There were wonderful, rolling green hills, cows, rabbits, birds.  And a great lunch at a really walkers friendly pub.

Hiorne Tower with the rolling hills

Looking back to the tower, with a lake in between us

This time it was straight past the castle, straight past the freaky half churches, and disappointing churches into the Arundel forest park.  England every now and again surprises you with some fairly extensive 'wilderness'.  It's still not that wild, given the numbers of sheep grazing around the place.

Looking down at Amerberly from the South Downs - piles of chalk in the ground

A lone horseman

This walk was rated a 7 out of 10 for toughness, I guess because it was almost 20kms long with a fair bit of up and down.  You are walking over the South Downs after all.  We had to really power the first part of the walk, there were 6 miles between the start and the lunch spot, and only 2 hours to do it in.  The lunch spot was a very popular pub in those parts, so we had made a booking, but they only did a sitting at 12:30.  We made it in time no worries, and they didn't even care about our excessive amount of mud we were carrying on our trousers, we did leave our boots at the door out of respect though.  If you are ever in the neighbourhood of Burpham (great name) I would recommend the George and Dragon Inn, good food, and great staff.

Church in St Leonards - 11th century

How English is this scene!

The first part of the walk is through the Arundel Park, where you can imagine the Lord of the day would go hunting and persecuting peasants.  There was a random tower in the middle of the park, Hiorne Tower. This tower was actually used in the filming of some really old versions of Dr Who, in 1988.  It is quite a pretty tower, with a good stone pattern, and of course it is haunted, as all good towers should be.

From this point it was pretty much up and down all day.  We poked our head into the churchyard of St Leonard's church, which is from the 11th century.  It is still lit by candles, but given the tight lunch deadline, we didn't have time to investigate further.  Unfortunately it's last rector left in 1928, so ever since then it's been under the care of the Vicar of Arundel.  I guess given that the town it's sitting in has a population of 57, there perhaps isn't such a need for it's own Rector.

The cannon thing would fire off every now and again - we think it was a modern scarecrow

As we were walking through the many fields, we would often hear what sounded like a cannon or a gunshot, you aren't worried that you are about to be shot, given the incredible rights of way you get in this country.  But it was kind of odd.  Eventually we narrowed it down to the object in the above photo, it's some kind of air cannon, and it must have some sort of sensor attached, since anytime a bird came close it would fire off.  It did seem to keep the birds away, though given the lack of crops I'm not sure what they were protecting.

Incredibly muddy field

Towards the end of the walk we had to come down a steep hill, and then back up the other side, damn you South Downs.  But it seemed like the farmer on the other side didn't really like walkers.  The field in which you had a right of way in was just an absolute mud bath, you can see in the photo what I'm talking about.  But this was only a small section of the field, the entirety of it was like this, it was incredible.  There wasn't even any grass for the cows to eat, the farmer had to give them hay.  It's not as if this was the only field the farmer had, he could have moved them into a field which actually contained grass.  I don't know, maybe he wasn't a very good farmer.  It was pretty tough having to fight your way through this at the end of a long day, and going up hill.  Then all the cows were clustered near the exit.  I couldn't blame them, I wanted to get out of that field as fast as possible too.  It was just a bit scary having to sort of use the gate to push them out of the way.

Looking down to Amberly - and the weird marshes

We actually ended up skipping a bit of the walk at the end.  Which since our train was delayed we could have done anyway.  It was through the marshes around Amberly.  But it had been a long day and I was looking forward to a nice sit down on the train.

Arrest of Ai WeiWei - Hampstead Theatre

We checked out another play at our local theatre, Arrest of Ai WeiWei.  The last play we saw here was Judas Kiss, which was awesome, so my hopes were high.  You can get all the info you need for the play from wikipedia, but basically Ai WeiWei is a famous Chinese artist, he helped design the birds nest stadium for the Olympics, did the sunflower seeds exhibit at the Tate Modern, that sort of thing.  It seems as if there has been a bit of a falling out between Ai WeiWei and the Chinese government since then, probably because he started investigations into the Sichuan earthquakes that killed all those kids.  So the government had him arrested and locked up for 81 days when he was trying to fly to Hong Kong.  The script is based on a book, which was written from conversations a journalist had with him after his release.  It feels like it is being pretty truthful, though at some points you feel like he's obviously putting himself in the best light.

If it is actually truthful, it must have been a completely surreal experience.  He is eventually charged , and convicted, of tax evasion.  But they begin by having him interviewed by homicide detectives who have no idea who he is, before he;s transferred to an army base, where two soldiers are apparently in his cell at all times, monitoring him constantly, even when he goes to the toilet.  And throughout it all, he convinced he's going to be beaten, or 'disappeared'.  Before suddenly they charge him with the tax offences, and he's let loose.

The actor playing him does a good job, but it always feels like it's trying really hard to be not just a play, but an art installation piece.  Most of the action takes place in a shipping container in the middle of the stage.  But the entire cast is on stage at all times (even when they aren't part of the scene), and most of them have no role to play at all.  They just sit there, with really good hair, occasionally helping to change the set, filming things on their phones, or taking pictures.  And those people were all white.  So you're thinking, what are they trying to say here, is it the fact that the Western world all wants a piece of him now that he;s famous, and yet we view his suffering as entertainment?  Or was it just a big theatre company putting on the show, and everyone wanted to put this play on their CV.  Then at the end it finishes with a big monologue about what is art.  And then you have to applaud all the people with good hair, who did nothing all evening.

Singapore

Singapore skyscrapers plus the fountain that everyone must see upon visiting

We were back in Australia for a week recently and rather than the killer 24 hour flight we decided to break up the trip with a bit of a stop off in Singapore on the way through.  Definitely a good idea and I think we'll be doing that every time now.  It's so nice getting off the flight after 12 hours and knowing that you don't have to wait around for an hour before sitting through another 9 hour flight.  Aaaah bliss.

The casino/hotel/boat on the other side of the marina.

More of the city with the fountain in prime position

We were a little disorganised on this trip, which lead to some interesting times.  We hadn't got any Singaporean dollars out, and we go to use our UK bank cards only to find Dave's card was being declined.  I try mine, thinking perhaps he was trying too high an amount, and manage to get out $100.  So we are like, great, let's get some more out.  Uh oh, obviously that triggered some fraud warning in HSBC and then we had no UK cards.  We were then thinking, hmm that's a bit annoying, but that's cool, we'll just use our Aussie bank cards.  Only to find we had forgotten to bring them.  Damn.

The city + more futuristic flower buildings

It's cool that HSBC is looking out for their customers, but I think they ping the fraud warning way too early.  Obviously it's to save them money, since they won't have to pay out in cases where there is genuine fraud.  But it is still my money and I would like to be able to access it in one of the largest transit centres in the world.

We then had to have an incredibly painful skype conversation with their call centre.  Where they kept asking me my security details over and over again, all done at a snail's pace.  I had to keep telling them it was an international phone call, and that I hadn't done anything wrong, and could I please access my money now.

A playing field build on the water - taking from the futuristic double helix bridge

They have this wonderfully customer-friendly procedure where each person can only do one specific task, so if there are a few tasks to be completed you keep getting transferred around.  And each time they transfer you, you have to go through exactly the same security questions.  Freaking sort your service out HSBC!!

Unfortunately I think HSBC isn't even the worst of the UK banks in terms of customer service.  And don't even get me started on their joke of an internet banking system.  So I'm off on a tangent here, but seriously if I have a savings account and a credit card with the same bank a blind monkey should be able to figure out how to use internet banking to pay off the credit card.  But no, you have to actually use your credit card number as the customer reference when you pay from your savings account.  How is that a logical and fail safe system?

Please could someone from your supposed internet banking department go to Australia and open up an account there, so you can see what internet banking should really be like.

Panda chowing down

But anyway after the long, and slightly terse skype conversation, we were back in business, and it was time for food!  Singapore seems to be all about food, shopping malls, heat and the zoo.  And we did eat a bit, lovely, spicy, fresh asian food.  Oh how I have missed you!  We had Singapore chilli crab, which was really good, much hotter than I thought it would be.  Halfway through I was kind of wishing that the restaurant had given us plastic gloves to eat it with.  They don't have the same crab utensils that you might get in Europe, you know, the modified nut crackers.  So it was all a tooth and hand affair, we really got in touch with our animalistic side.  But with only one tiny wet wipe to clean up with, I was wishing for a bib.

We also got to experience their hawker centres whilst we were there.  At first I already thought we had been going to hawker centres, but then we went to a real one.  It was at that point I realised that perhaps it's true that no-one really eats at home in Singapore.  Everyone was out.  Imagine a massive shopping centre food court, except it's outside, and there are no brands, and the food is all really good, and $2 and there aren't any shops, just food.  It's definitely an experience.

The other thing which really struck me about Singapore is how it was really going for a futuristic feel.  There was a hotel with a boat on the top, a bridge shaped like a double helix, a sports field built out over the harbour.  Everywhere you looked there was another bizarro, futuristic structure.  It must be great to be an architect in this city.

The first day we were there we were caught in an almighty downpour.  I had forgotten how ferocious tropical rain could be.  Everyone was sheltering under this bridge, and you couldn't even talk the rain was thundering down so heavily.  If you had walked out in it you would have been saturated immediately.  Oh, but it was still so warm.  I love the tropics, like a big, warm hug.  Though forget about running.  We went for one run whilst we were there, setting off before dawn, and I've never been so hot exercising.  That kind of destroyed us for the day, we spent a lot of time in their air-conditioning that day.

Red panda going crazy - most of my shots it was just a blur

They also do a good zoo, in fact more than just a zoo, in this complex there is a zoo, a bird park, a night safari and they are currently building a river cruise/animal exhibit thing.  It's pretty crazy.  But it seemed like a good zoo.  Though their feeding sessions and animal shows weren't as good as others I've seen.  Nothing can compare to Taronga's bird show.  The slight detraction to the feeding shows was the blazing sun.  We had no sunscreen and by the afternoon I was starting to fear for my skin.

They did have newly arrived pandas though, and they got their own, special, air conditioned enclosure.  Too bad you could only spend 15 minutes in there.  They had red pandas in there as well, they seemed slightly insane, but maybe that's just red pandas.  The normal pandas were pretty cool, just lying on their backs chowing down on bamboo the whole time we were there.

Freaky bird in the zoo - cool hairdo

They also do some good gardens.  There are some big ones on the other side of the boat hotel, which is a bit of an experience just getting too.  First you walk through one of their shopping malls, which was so big they had a canal down the middle.  And you could hire a boat and row up and down past all the shops.  Like I said, complete bizarro world.  You then cross this massive 12-lane road before ending up in these gardens.  They weren't even the botanic gardens, just some extra ones.

They had this flower dome built, again futuristic, kind of like a bio-dome, but only flowers.  There was also a cloud mountain dome.  That was really strange.  Remember everything here has been artificially constructed, obviously the plants are real, but their entire environment is built, and constantly monitored.

Cloud mountains are apparently these really moist, high altitude, rainforest type environments.  So in the middle of the dome they had this 7 storey high waterfall, which you would catch a lift up the middle to appear at the top (like I say, totally artificial), and then you would walk your way back down.  Every now and then the mist guns would go off.  There were more sections of the gardens, but there was still slightly too much paving for what should be natural surrounds.

Rhino posing

Would I spend more time in Singapore?  Definitely, I think next time I will check out Sentosa, that's meant to be even more fake.  I just need to do a bit more research on the good restaurants there though.  At the end of the stay I was wanting a bit of a change from eating on plastic chairs, basically in the street, in the stinking hot.  And was hoping for a bit of that mall-type air conditioning they seem to love everywhere else.  But no luck, it was all hawker centres, or restaurants in the street.  So definitely a bit of research needed for next time.