Day 7, Year 4: Embassies and Shopping
Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Hotter, Rain in the Early Morning
Location: One 15 Marina, Sentosa Island, Singapore

Orchard Road was the explore today . . . upscale shopping in one glittery mall after another on a strip that ends in Embassy row. We skipped the upscale shopping and headed directly to the Royal Thai Embassy. But once again our efforts were thwarted. We didn’t have all the paperwork with us that was needed. Yesterday we got there too late and today we didn’t have our boat documentation. So we will be going back tomorrow. Let’s hope three is a charm. From the Thai Embassy we walked further west on Orchard Road and found the Tanglin Mall. There was a supermarket in the basement of this mall that was amazing. It had most of the specialty items we were looking for: Cheerios for our grandson Sam when he visits in January, canned wild Alaskan salmon which is a mainstay on Windbird, stuffed olives, rice milk, and a new addition of packaged chapattis and great curry sauces. The supermarket close to us at the Vivo Center has lots of variety, but none of the items that I just mentioned, so I was delighted to find this place. The one thing I can’t find anywhere is rolled oats to make granola. That is another mainstay on Windbird, so I will keep looking. While I shopped in the grocery store, Mark walked across the street to the US Embassy. It was in a cluster of embassies and Mark was quite impressed with the security. The Australian, British, and US embassies are all together and according to Mark, they are formidably secure. He was checking on getting Social Security for me
starting in March if we do not make a trip back to the US and found that it is possible to activate from out here. He got the forms for me to fill out and send to Manila in Philippines. So that was another positive contact. Our next stop was at Borders Bookstore just to look at the books. We can’t afford to buy them here, but it is always a joy to just wander among the rows and rows of books. Our last stop was in the Ngee Ann City Mall for lunch at Sushi Tei. It is one of those “sushi on a conveyor belt” places, but this one was a cut above most. And the prices were quite reasonable considering that we were in one of the more upscale of the upscale malls.

We returned to One 15 Marina in mid-afternoon and enjoyed a long stay in the pool. It is so hot here that you can’t possibly wear clothes more than once and when you return from the city dripping wet with perspiration, changing into a swimsuit and getting into the glorious pool here is just a wonderful treat. Mark has spent most of the evening researching battery possibilities. We have to buy new batteries SOON and we had hoped to get AGM’s. These are maintenance free batteries that you never need to top up with water, but it is looking like the price tag is just too high. So we might end up with the same kind of batteries that we have had and we will just have to be more vigilant about checking the water level. We can’t afford to boil anymore batteries dry because replacements are just too hard to find.

Tomorrow we will go back to Orchard Road to the Thai Embassy and to do more shopping at the great supermarket we found today. We also hope to go to the Night Zoo tomorrow night. Everyone says this is the number one attraction in this city of many wonderful attractions. Then we have to figure out when we are leaving here and start working in that direction. We’d love to stay here to watch the US election returns, so we might actually be here for two whole weeks. No matter what we have to leave by next Thursday because our Visa expires, so that will probably be our exit date.

081029 Day 7 Singapore–Pool at One15 Marina