Travel day today – we have a flight from Singapore to the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.

There was some time in the morning for us to take a walk in a storied city park.. and then it was the routine of packing, taxi, checkin, immigrations, waiting at gates, flight, landing, immigration, customs, luggage, money changing, taxi, hotel check-in.  It was dinner time once we finally got in.. all we were in the mood to do was to order a pizza to split, take showers and watch some TV before bedtime.   It was only a 45 minute flight but you have to build 5-6 hours around that just to get all of the other things accomplished.

Photos below are from the last 12 hours we spent in Singapore.

Final views as night falls on the harbor.  Taken from our top-floor evening lounge for cocktails and snacks.

Brenda has been blown away by the flora in this part of the world.. and keeps trying to figure out how to grow any of these things in an inhospitable Georgia climate.

Fort Canning hill.. this is the highest point of elevation that is near to the original Singapore harbor.  There is evidence of structures here for over 600 years.  Several sultans had their palaces here.  The British really developed it in the 1800s as their HQ to defend the port and the balance of the Malayan peninsula.

An original fort gate built in the 1860s.

There are a series of underground bunkers all through the park.. developed in the 1930’s to defend against the possibility of Japanese invaders.
Singapore was considered an impregnable  fortress against invasion.. There were more than 20 gun emplacements all pointed to the southern seas.. because nobody could possibly think to invade from the north.. there was nothing but hundreds of miles of impenetrable jungle on the Malayan peninsula.  But that’s exactly what the Japanese did.  The Fall of Singapore was complete in just 7 days, only 2 months after Pearl Harbor.

Tea store at the Singapore airport.  If they don’t got it you don’t want it.  Brenda found some of her elusive white tea leaves here and left with a bag of the stuff.

View out of our window in Kuala Lumpur.  The building on the right is “Merdeka 118” – the second tallest building in the world (not even counting the spire) – just under 2x the height of the Empire State building.