No jet-lag for us today, we got up before our 8am wake up call and while Col showered, I finished another one of Kathy Reich’s books.  We got ready and went down for a nice breakfast buffet.

I’ve never ever considered, or given thought to what people in the far East eat for breakfast.  However, it turns out that, in general, they eat what they eat at all other times of the day.  They had noodles, curries, meatballs and other, what we’d consider, quite ‘out there’ dishes – but we did try a couple.  Chicken Teriyaki meatballs were one of my favourite new breakfast dishes, as was the ‘live egg bar’ where a chef cooks you fresh eggs while you wait!

When we’d finished eating, we dropped off a big ole care package at the reception desk for our friend Crystal’s pal who is living in Singapore.

After we dropped off the package, we went up to the roof to check out the rooftop pool – before we decided if we wanted to take a dip or not.

Turned out that the roof was fantastic and we definitely wanted a dip in the pool…

We went back to the room, stuck on our swim gear, our suncream and spent over an hour outside in the nice and quiet pool.

When we got ourselves out of the pool, we discovered our flight was at 1.30pm, not at 2.30pm like we’d previously thought it was, then a frantic ‘OMG! flapping’ and packing moment before dashing off to the airport around midday.  We checked in our bags (3 instead of two – and they were just under our weight limit which was reassuring as Col was moderately concerned as we headed to the airport.

Once we’d checked in, we picked up a donut and coffee (diet coke for me!) and walked to the gate as our flight was boarding.  As it turned out, in Singapore airport, the security screening is at the gate – which meant we had to abandon our drinks on a bin, cause we couldn’t take them through with us and we had no time to drink ’em!

The flight was akin to that of a flight from Belfast to Edinburgh, you barely get off the ground before you’re landing – it was definitely short.  We had to walk from the plane a mile or two (it felt like 12 in the insane heat, as most of the walking was outside!)

After immigration, we picked up our bags, bought a bus/train combo ticket to get us in to K.L city and ‘enjoyed’ a cold Big Mac for lunch (Asians eat their food at a much cooler temperature than we do!).  We had JUST missed the bus, so had to wait outside for 5-10 mins waiting for the next one and a further 20 minutes once on-board before it left – which, wasn’t a big deal cause at least we were in the cool air!

On the way in to K.L, we passed the Sepang F1 race track.  When I saw it, a lump came to my throat and my eyes glazed over.  Col was surprised at my reaction (so was I!) but the excitement hit me like a ton of bricks!!

We were there – at long last, we were a few days away from seeing our first ever, live, F1 race.  I was immediately emotional! (I know, I know, what a sap – but I don’t care!)

We got off the shuttle at the train station, took the train and watched a thunderstorm unfold out of the trains window.  When we arrived in K.L central station, we were informed that the best way to get to our hotel was to take the monorail but you had to walk a 10 minute walk, in the chucking-it-down rain, so we resorted to taking a taxi.

The taxi driver was rude.  He complained that we’d brought too much luggage and we should have given thought to his small car when we brought such big cases (it wasn’t our fault that the car’s tank was in the bloody boot!).  He also then tried to charge us for ‘damage’ done to his leather seat by our case, and THEN tried to charge us extra $$ for the cases like they were extra people – uhm…do I look like I came up the road on a bubble?

Wait – don’t answer that!

Since we paid 13 for the fare at the station (you pre-pay) and the fare was only 8.50 or something we just walked off and left him standing when we got to the hotel.  Perhaps that’s cause we were in recovery from the traumatic drive!

The roads had no rhyme or reason – signs and lights seemed to be more suggestion than law and our driver kept creating lanes where no lane should exist.  More often than not he ended up with, at most, a stamps width between him and other cars – it was insane!

Check in at the hotel was quick and painless, we unpacked quickly and went downstairs to try and connect our laptops to the free WiFi zone, but it wouldn’t let us.

Instead, we used the hotel computers and ended up having a buffet dinner in one of the Hotel’s three restaurants, Essence.

Dinner was just ok, but with a cost of $5 per can of diet coke the bill almost made me cry.  It’d have been cheaper if we’d gone with the bottomless wine option (oh if only we drank wine eh?!)

The dessert station was fantastic! It had a popcorn machine, ice cream, fondue chocolate fountain and tonnes of mini desserts to chose from – FAB!

Almost two hours later, we dragged our exhausted backsides back to the hotel and totally zonked out!