At last, we are off on our round the world trip.

”hang on Mum & Dad, you didn’t start by flying, you went by train”

”you hang on Millie, you are jumping in too quick, we know we went by train at first, we were just about to tell everyone xx”

”ok then, just keep it accurate, don’t forget I am watching 😂”

Ok, lets start again and keep it accurate for Millie.

The first part of our trip started with a train journey from our home town of Chesterfield to Manchester Airport – and that’s when we had our first ‘minor’ disaster 👿

We boarded the train and just before we got to Manchester Piccadilly (City Centre), there was an announcement that the train from the City Centre to the airport was cancelled due to signalling problems and the train would be terminating at the City Centre and we all had to get off – so for a while chaos reigned as all the people travelling on to the airport, started to get off the train with all their luggage and milled around wondering where to go now!!!

After a few minutes and alternative train for the 20 minute ride to the airport was announced and we all rushed off to platform 13!, only to find it was already full of other travellers also going to the airport, there were thousands of travellers, it was chaos.

”Mum, Dad, you are doing it again, stop exaggerating, there weren’t thousands there, just a few hundred”

”Ok, ok Millie, there were only hundreds, but it felt like thousands, the platform was heaving!”

”Ok, but don’t exaggerate” “Ok”

The chaos bit was correct and when the train eventually pulled in, we all piled onto the train and it was packed with nowhere to sit, fortunately it was only a short journey.

We stayed at an airport hotel, the Radisson, that evening, as we were flying out early the next morning.

The flight was on Singapore Airlines, our first flight with them and it proved to be an excellent flight, very comfortable, spacious and excellent service from the cabin crew.

The only down side the while flight was the length of it, 13 hours 👿, but it went well and we managed to get some sleep in so weren’t feeling too bad when we landed in Singapore.

The taxi we ordered was there waiting for us to take us to our hotel, the Shangri-La, where we booked into a ‘Garden View’ suite.

The only bad bit was getting the head around the time difference, 8 hours in front of our home in England and 13 hours in front of our home in Florida 👿

These are some of the views from our balcony and some views around the city as we spent a couple of days, using the ‘Hop On, Hop Off’ excellent bus service.

Some of you may have noticed in the photos above, that we managed to find an Irish Pub, that sold Guinness and Gin & Tonic, so of course, it would not have been polite to walk past it!

The photo of the hotel with the three pillars above, was the very impressive Marina Sands Hotel, which had an infinity pool at the top and was so high it was visible from all over the city!

The Shanghai-La hotel that we stopped in was very impressive, with very friendly and at tentative staff and a very nice lobby area.

After just three days, much too short, it was time to head off back to the airport for the five hour flight to Perth Australia, again with Singapore Airlines and it is even in the same time zone, so no jet lag worries👍👍

More later, bye bye for now.