Leaving Bali and Back To Singapore

March 13

It’s an early morning for us as we are awakened at 6:00am for a 6:30 departure.  We drag ourselves to breakfast and downstairs to our awaiting taxi to the airport.  We have been warned that there is a departure tax of 150,000IDR per person….they truly get you coming and going.  We have saved just enough cash to pay the fee and the taxi and not one Rupiah more.  We make our way through security without incident and our flight is uneventful.  We arrive in Singapore 2 ½ hours later, however, this time we know exactly what we are doing and how to get where we are going…..it’s like it is old-hat.  We all remark that we now know how to get ourselves around some of the world’s largest cities:  Auckland, Sydney, Singapore and soon to be Bangkok.  We get over to terminal 2 at Chiangi airport and back onto the MRT into town to the Lavender station from where we pick up the #133 bus to our stop at Eminent Plaza.  We return to the Madras Hotel and see the smiling faces of our hotel staff.  We take our bags up to our rooms (#405 & #406) and hunker down for a couple of hours.  Paulie and Annie decide to search out the bookstore we found at Raffles Place to purchase Annie two more books in the series she has been reading.  She has become a voracious reader, some days devouring a book in a day.  It is a little difficult to keep up the pace as most of the bookstores we come across do not have the titles that she wants.  They go off and Hudson, Sam and I remain at the hotel.  Shortly, Hudson and I embark on a journey to find a local Family doctor as we have to get a prescription filled and we have been told that we need to see a local doctor in order to get  a written prescription.  Amazingly, we find a clinic about 4 doors down from our hotel.  We walk in and about 1 minute later we are visiting with the doctor who is asking about the medicine and then writing the prescription.  We pay $10SGD (equivalent to $8USD) and are on our way back to the hotel where we wait for the return of Annie and Paulie.  Once they get back, we all decide to venture out for dinner.  We head out to Bugis (no one is really certain how to pronounce that) to purchase a couple of backpacks that we had seen earlier in our visit.  Upon our arrival, we discover all kinds of shops that we had not previously seen.  We meander about and then return to the outdoor market where we find a variety of yummy treats for dinner.  Afterward, we look through the various vendors and make our way to the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th floors of this center.  We come upon a stand making crepes and order two that we greedily pass around.  After a while, we tire of the crowds and decide to return home to rest.  Another busy day of travel and tomorrow is the last day here in Singapore.