... so good to meet up with Aussie friends

Bill and Heather were in town. They flew in to start their cruise back to Sydney on Celebrity. It was a good time to catch up and also show them some of Singapore's sights and cuisine ... we had meals at Straits Kitchen (local buffet), No Signboard (Chilli crab), PeraMakan (Nonya). We also visited the Singapore Flyer, Chinatown (Chinese Temple, Indian Temple) and Night Safari.

They also met Jon and Andrea when Jon bought us dinner at the Cricket Club. Brought them to Blue Horizon to have a look at our residence.

All in all a good 2.5 days together and catching up on all the news. Found out that Victor was in KL and managed to connect with him on Facebook.

...so good to complete 30th anniversary cruise

Just complete the Celebrity Holy Land cruise from 2 Nov to 18 Nov 2012. We started from Rome, then to Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece and finally back to Italy (Rome). It was a good cruise as it knocked off many items from our bucket list including pyramids, wailing wall (Jerusalem), Sea of Galilee, Jordan River (where John baptized Jesus), Ephesus, Capri, Sicily (Acropolis), Naples and Rome (Vatican City, Forum, Colosseum).

We also managed to squeeze in a ride on the Segway around Rome which was really fun. Hope to have individual entries for each location soon.

So good to continue enjoying retirement ... must do all the holidays before we get too old / unfit for all these. The cruise was good - good food, good company (we met an American couple that we really got along well with), good sight seeing (see above) but it was really tiring. Many of the shore excursions were long (as long as 9 hours) and lots of walking. Average we were walking 5 km on uneven roads.

Here is a video clip of the cruise highlights

... so good to have a room with a view

We were so fortunate to be upgraded to a room with a balcony (because we were the first to check in). The balcony gave us a view of the Vatican City when we looked up the street.

The next morning I sat at the balcony catching up on email and Facebook in the early dawn, cool breeze blowing - life is great. As usual Connie was catching up on sleep.

... so good - romantic Trevi Fountain

Trevi Fountain is one of the 'must see' sights in Rome. So after the Vatican City, we took a 20 min walk from the hotel to have a look. It was just too crowded - we had a quick snap of it and decided to go hunt more Italian food (this time for dinner). After dinner, we walked back to the hotel but got lost and took 1 hour to get back and saw parts of Rome (including the Pantheon) by accident.

It was a very tiring day with all the walking but it was a good first day in Rome. Tomorrow we bought the ship - super excited.

... so good to explore the streets of Rome

One of the joy of visiting a new city is to walk on the streets and see different things. For example, we noticed that there were many mini things in Rome - mini cars that were so small you can park perpendicular to the street in a parallel parking lot, mini electric buses that are 'silent killers' that travels along pedistrian walkways, mini petrol stations that are located just along the side of roads. 

Of course, there are the mandatory European features like the newsstand along the sidewalks, the flower shops, guy roasting his chestnuts (pun not intended) and a serene river flowing through the city.

It was fun just walking, smelling and enjoying the cool (20 deg C)and dry weather. 

... so good to finally visit Rome

We arrived in Rome early in the morning and our hotel room was not ready. So we took the opportunity to explore Plaza Polobo which was like 3 minutes from the hotel. 

Since we were at the plaza, we did the Italian thing ... having alfresco coffee at a coffee shop facing the plaza, watching the world go back. What a life!