Monday 30 May 2011

Up Early,

and we are away again,

this time to the Singapore Flyer,

similar to our own London Eye but the London Eye is 122 meters in diameter as opposed to the Flyers 150 meter diameter,
but I got side tracked as we arrived, did I want to hire a sports car, well looking at the traffic out here there was not really a lot of road to try it out on, not that there were any traffic jams, just lots of vehicles,
but on to the Flyer,
a quick picture by the roundabout,
for both of us,
then we started our walk to the ticket and information center,
the basic principles looked similar to the London Eye,
I tried the zoom on the new camera to picture one side of the spokes of the wheel,
and very impressed with the zoom I was too!
I shall try that again a bit later, now for the 'arty' shot!
the information center featured touch pads that linked to a screen,
next we made our way through a passage way with more items of interest about the Flyer,
a feature about the menace of discarding plastic,
an over view of the earth,
plus some scale models of the whole enterprise,
up the escalators,
to the main floor,
Diana took these with the Sony,
so there are a couple of repeated views,
the reason for all of the corridors is of course that in the high season it is extremely popular, so the waiting tourist need to be kept out of the sun,
Diana on the main platform,
any moment now and we would be on our way,
then we were in our capsule,
it somehow seemed bigger than the London one, but there were only 4 of us in this one, whereas in London the one we shared there had 12 or so people in it,
it is a long way up,
other than the mechanics of the wheel not much to look at in the early stages, but soon we were getting higher,
looking out towards the shipping bay,
and towards the city,
Diana was quiet at home with the height, unlike some of us,
to keep my mind off things I took this picture with the cameras normal settings, just as I switched it on, look at the center slightly up and to the left you will see a small speck on the water,
so I zoomed in on it, to find it was a small boat,
so I zoomed in some more and this was what it was, I must admit I was well impressed with the camera, hand held with no stabilising switched on, standing in a moving wheel, you could almost count the people in the boat, it appears the camera has what it calls an 'intelligent' 20X zoom,
back to the city, this is the 'durian' opera house,
it looks like a boat on a hotel,
still playing with the zoom featured these guys I guess are training for one of the long boat races,
nearly at the top of the circle,
Diana quiet at ease with the height,
worryingly there were a few rain clouds forming in the distance,
when we were back in Thailand Phil informed us that the 'boat' was in fact a casino,
Diana was looking at the Singapore skyline,
more clouds on the horizon,
another look at the opera house on the way down,
whilst below the long boat trainers make their way back,
I was hoping to take a picture with a flash of lightning in it, but no such luck,
nearly back on the ground,
and soon we were,
so for us a early morning cup of coffee in the Chinese restaurant below the Flyer,
well for Diana cup of Milo,
when I say cup, I should have said huge mug,
'Cheers!'
then into the taxi just as it started to rain for the next part of our Singapore adventure.

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