Catching up with Friends in Singapore

We left Tulamben early on Wednesday morning and arrived in Singapore at around four o'clock. Our bags were some of the last to turn up on the carousel as Steve's dive bag had been flagged because it contained a knife which meant we were also stopped at security and questioned - he had to explain it was a dive knife. We then had to wait ages in the taxi queue before taking a taxi to the city to Philippa Fogerty's apartment in Tanjong Pagar, our base for the next three nights.

Phil was at work but would meet us later. After a bit of confusion with the concierge we made our way up to the Phil's apartment on 42nd floor. The views over the harbour were amazing.

After showers and a change of clothes we headed out to the "Mr Punch Bar" on the roof top of the Toy Museum. It was happy hour so we enjoyed a few Mojitos while we waited for Phil. When she arrived we had a few Lychee Martinis before we decided to head for something to eat. We took a taxi over to Jumbo at Clarke Quay were we ordered a huge black pepper crab. The waitress put bibs on each of us and armed us with the tools required to eat the large crustacean. The crab arrived and we got to work - smashing the claws and breaking the legs to get at the meat inside. Soon all that remained was a pile of broken crab shell, legs and claws. It was messy but very tasty.

We spent Thursday morning handbag shopping, spending at least an hour in one shop trying A4 pads and laptop sleeves in an array of different bags! Rupan did however manage to purchase two handbags! Steve found this very exhausting and was in need of some food so we had a late lunch at Sushi Tei - very tasty.

Later on that evening Rupan had arranged to meet up with two of her friends that used to be ENT registrars on the Birmingham rotation. They have now both settled as consultants in Singapore and Rupan was interested to see how they were getting on. She met them at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital and had a quick look around the ENT department. We then all met up at Lau Pau Sat Festival Market for Tiger beer happy hour and then on to 'Satay Street' for 100 sticks of chicken, beef and prawns!

On the way home we stopped in at the Lantern Bar at One Fullerton to enjoy fabulous rooftop views of the Marina Bay whilst sipping the obligatory Lychee Martini...

Phil had Friday off and Rupan wanted her advice on a further handbag purchase - more handbag shopping. Yay! The bag met with Phil's approval so a purchase was made. It was now lunch time. On our previous trip to Singapore we ate at Maxwells food court, Phil had said it had been done up so we decided to check it out. Not sure much had changed - it had a new lick of orange paint though. Thankfully the food was still delicious.

That evening we met some of Phil's BBC work colleagues at Morton's Bar at the Mandarin Oriental. It was happy hour - half price Martinis and free steak sandwiches.

Later that evening we left Mortons and headed down to Gluttons Bay to meet Phil's new fella Rory. You would think that we wouldn't be hungry but we still managed a black pepper crab, skate wing, pork, rice and murtabak, washed down with a couple of pitchers of Tiger Beer.

Next morning we waved good bye to Phil and promised ourselves that we would go back on our diets when we got back to the UK.

Look at those lovely nails!

Nice bag and flip-flop combo!