Ending Singapore with a splash

“You didn’t do half of the good things you should have” was the way the chatty taxi driver summed up our time in Singapore this morning. I think he was wrong, Singapore was just what we needed for our first week of travelling and what we have done feels like more than enough in the circumstances.

The last week before departure was stressful, probably more so than we realised while in the midst of it. Saying goodbye to people, selling and leaving the house, selling the car (only stressful because of scraping the entire side off it 12 hours before the sale went through), dealing with the nightmare that is HSBC’s version of international banking, and so on.

After that Singapore was lovely. We saw some new things. We set up some routines for schoolwork and the like. We reassured ourselves that, on the basis of this week at least, our budget is about right. We swam and strolled and had a few exciting experiences.

We rounded off our Singapore experience yesterday with the Callum and Declan-lead waterpark experience. We had told them they could go anywhere as long as they did the research and got us there. Our budget breathed a sigh of relief when their research failed to stumble across the huge theme park on Sentosa Island, instead they found Wild, Wild Wet up North East of the city.

Declan took charge of geting us there on the MRT and did a fine job. Adult intervention only became required when we got to the Plasir Ris stop which was boggling to navigate regardless of your age. We had been expecting signage at the station and so hadn’t checked the map before leaving; all we had to go on were Decaln’s written directions. It turns out Wild, Wild Wet is very much more a local attraction than a tourist one and there is no signage to be found. So we wandered lost for a while, got given the wrong directions from the first person we asked for help, misinterpreted a map we found, and generally had a classic all-at-sea in a strange city experience.

We finally got there and had a great time whizzing down water slides, floating round rivers and scoffing at the size of the ‘Tsunami’.

Back at the hotel we packed away sandals, shorts and swimmers in favour of gloves, hats and boots. Today we go from low 30 degree temperatures in Singapore to minus 3 in Beijing. Not sure what awaits us in Beijing, but it certainly isn’t going to involve a wild, wild, wet.