Singapore day five Thursday 17/11/11

MRT again, looked how much of the network we had seen and decided to go to Harbour Front as we hadn't been there before. Large modern Vivo shopping centre of curvy architecture. Met passengers from Spirit of Adventure SAGA cruise whilst topping up our tickets.  Found a nice coffee shop for an iced coffee overlooking Sentosa. Decided we'd made the right decision not to go there. Wandered round the complex, spotting Saga cruisers! Gardens and pools on the roof were a magnet for children to paddle in. Back to MRT and realised we'd helped the SAGA couple buy tickets to Botanic Gardens station, which we hadn't noticed on our maps. More research showed it was on a portion of line only opened a month ago, so off we went. Out into the heat again we looked for a cafe for lunch and found a tiny french one "La Petite Cuisine" in a parade of shops. Into the gardens we were initially disappointed as there was a lot of hard landscaping and the trees were not unusual, however the further we got in the more interesting it became. Had tea at the visitor centre and then decided to follow the signs to Orchard Road as we knew where that was. Wandered through the orchid gardens, nice to see them all growing healthily out of doors in the normal habitat. Out of the Orchard Road gate and no sign of Orchard Road, and no road names matching anything on my map, and no great shopping malls either. Looked at the bus map and nothing went our way so got a taxi back home- not much more expensive than the MRT. Orchard road turned out to be a mile or so away from the gate so no wonder we were confused. Both very tired and lay down for a rest - and to catch up with the Archers, then it decided to absolutely pour down, so loud we couldn't hear the pc. Good decision to return home. Ventured out again in search of food later on and eventually found an airconditioned Indian restaurant that looked reasonable for us. They don't seem to know the meaning of mild and Carol struggled a bit. Collected the necessary drinks from the usual shop on the way back and the shopkeeper now recognises Carol, querying that she wasn't buying water today! Final evening over - packing tomorrow. We have arranged to leave our bags at the hotel as the flight isn't 'til ten thirty and we can amuse ourselves in the city rather than spending 12 hours at the airport. It's going to be a long long day.