A week of luxuries in Singapore

We are now back in Brunei on Sophia after a week in Singapore (by air). It's been a week full of luxuries, big city and lots of fun. We were so lucky we could stay with my friend Theresa in a real house and enjoyed that immensely. Things that most people take for granted such as fresh water showers, lots of power to charge the laptops, internet and air con are now big privileges for us. 

It's all relative though, because normally we feel very lucky living on Sophia, even more so after visiting local people in the country we visit, especially Melanesia. At least we still have some electricity (just not unlimited), clean water and soft cushions which is an awful lot more than the far majority of the people we have visited on our way. 

With Theresa and her two girls Saba and Lea

I was even cold quite often because of the air-con, we're simply not used to it, and didn't even have it on at night! On the trip home in airports and on planes I was wearing a fleece jacket and was still cold. I do wonder how we will cope when we go to Denmark on visit, it will be the height o the summer, but it will still be far from the temperature we're used to.

The real purpose of the trip was to see Phil's parents who had one day's stop in Singapore on their world cruise! Naturally they carried a lot of random boat parts for us, as well as a bunch of other goodies. Typically Singapore we actually spent a bunch of time in traffic, especially on the MRT, but that alone was also an experience for them, people watching and seeing all the Singaporean efficiency. It's quite funny that we'll next see them in Denmark when they have one day's stop in Copenhagen on 15th July.  I was even cold quite often because of the air-con, we're simply not used to it, and didn't even have it on at night! On the trip home in airports and on planes I was wearing a fleece jacket and was still cold. I do wonder how we will cope when we go to Denmark on visit, it will be the height o the summer, but it will still be far from the temperature we're used to.

The real purpose of the trip was to see Phil's parents who had one day's stop in Singapore on their world cruise! Naturally they carried a lot of random boat parts for us, as well as a bunch of other goodies. Typically Singapore we actually spent a bunch of time in traffic, especially on the MRT, but that alone was also an experience for them, people watching and seeing all the Singaporean efficiency. It's quite funny that we'll next see them in Denmark when they have one day's stop in Copenhagen on 15th July.

Phil's parents and 'their' ship!

Visiting Eli and Jan in One 15 marina on Sentosa Island

 We also went to see Norwegian Jan and Eli on Jenny in One 15 marina on Sentosa. Sutera Harbour's extreme luxury totally fades in comparison to that marina, boy oh boy, there are some rich people in Singapore! After a delicious lunch we got to hang out in the super cool see-through pool. We might seem them again later when we get to West Malaysia, but maybe not, as they are heading to South Africa later in the year.

Unfortunately we had to rush on to Changi yacht club. Phil had arranged with an Assiue Young 88 owner that we could race on (another) boat as his was on the hard. We totally underestimated how long the transport would take (2 1/2 hours) so when we finally turned up, the race was almost over! The silver lining was that a Sumatra squall hit the race and we would have gotten more than soaked and we didn't have a dry clothes. We still got to meet and a bunch of other club members and had a fun night.

Otherwise we have mostly been hanging out with Theresa and her two cute little girls and seeing what their expat life is like. We will even get to see them again in Denmark as they are visiting at the same time as us, and we'll also stop by Singapore with Sophia when we're are sailing up to West Malaysia and Thailand.

We are now just going to do some more bumming around this area before participating in the Borneo Race in the first week in July. It finishes in Kota Kinabalu and then we'll sail back to Brunei and leave Sophia on the mooring here again while we go to Denmark. We'll be back mid August and then we'll keep going as planned. As usual more photos on facebook.

East Coast park has a lake with automatic wake boaring towing!