The Istana is the Presidents Palace, originally built by the British, but handed over when the country became a republic over 40 years ago.
For some 5 days a year the residence is open and luckily for us, today is Eid, the national holiday and the house and grounds were opened to the public.
It was like visiting the Áras, minus Mary herself. In one of the state rooms on show where gifts given to the president from visiting heads of state, including a Waterford crystal bowl from Ireland.
The house was impressive and grounds secluded and a far cry from the hustle and bustle of Orchard Road outside, which we visited next.
Orchard Road is, in one world, incredible. It’s very wide with every shop being a full blown shopping mall. We visited the ION mall, with over 300 stores spread over 12 floors. After 4 hours we’d only covered half of one mall. You could spend weeks along giving Justice to each store on this street. Amazing indeed.
After a brief refresh we took a stroll down to the waterfront for some snaps of the formula 1 race course which is being erected at the moment and some night time shots of the Singapore Flyer (the worlds largest wheel) and Marina Bay Sands Hotel.
On the way back to the hotel at 3am we found a 24 hour Starbucks at the Raffles City mall. I was in heaven :-). When we got back we settled into an hour or so of a live stream of the Big Brother final!
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