Lazy Weekend (Day 1)

My first weekend in Singapore - I must admit, I didn't 'do' a lot. But that's the nice part of being here for three months, I don't have to do everything at once.
So I did sleep in on Saturday only to be woken up by this loud noise: rain! And as expected not only a light drizzle, but a downpour! I had already rained a few times last week, but this time it didn't stop after 10 or 15 minutes but kept up for almost four hours. No sense in going out in the rain, I'd be soaking wet before I'm even out of the front gate. So instead I stayed in and read up on a few things.
I finally left around 4pm and walked to Orchard Road - around 15 minutes from my apartment.

Photo from Wikipedia

Orchard Road is 'shopping mekka' with shops no end, all the labels you'd expect (and some you don't - more than 2000) and plenty of shopping malls (22 by the latest count!). As wikitravel states: "Weekends in the area are often packed with locals and visitors alike out to consume en masse". I can only agree (the photo above must have been taken early on a weekday...). And of course it's not only crowded, hot and humid, but also noisy - traffic, loud music from the shops and even construction work going on. I decided to do people-watching and leave the serious shopping for another day... 

What I DID find was an art supply store - yay! So I bought some mineral spirit, but didn't find painting boards. Will have to look further for them...

Landed!

Here I am! - After a perfect flight in the A380 that didn't seem like 12 hours at all (so I probably did get some sleep) I was actually surprised to 'already' be landing in Singapore. Then I thought how a big part of my 'co-flyers' in the plane were probably catching a connecting flight to Thailand or Australia and deceided that 12 hours are enough.
When we took off from Zürich it was cold (-10 C / 14 F), cloudy and everything was snow-covered. Arriving in Singapore everything was... dark. It was only 5.45 am, and apart from some lights I didn't really see anything of Singapore. But already the temperature was 27 degrees Celcius / 80 Fahrenheit! I quickly got through immigration, found my suitecase (after being convinced for 20 seconds that it had disappeared) and got into a taxi to my hotel. A nice 10 minutes drive - still dark. Arrived at the Mandarin Oriental - still dark. As Singapore is near the equator, sunrise is around 7am all through the year.
As my room was not ready yet I was treated to a complementary breakfast (Continental, British, American, Japanese, Chinese, Vegetarian, Indian - anything you can imagine!). Around 10 am I deceided to go for a stroll but just then my room was ready and I was escorted to the 16th floor.
Beautiful room - you can even see the Singapore Flyer through the window!

And looking to the right you I am looking straight at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel - I'm already looking forward to a night view this evening!

Oh, and in the front (this side of the water) you can see the yellow and blue seats for watching the Formula 1 race that's running just along the water in front of the Hotel.

I'll only be staying one night at the Hotel and then go to the appartment that will be my home for the next three months...!

Update: It's 8 pm and I just had to post this night-shot as well...