Ian woke me before 08:00 faffing in the room. I had to check that we weren't being burgled.
To commence our day in Orchard Road we enjoyed a hot chocolate in Starbucks Coffee before setting off in our great camera deal search. It was nice to be served a mug of hot chocolate again. We made good progress early on and challenged half a dozen or so electronic dealers to quote us good prices for gadgets. After seeking out many shopping centres which hosted tens of electronic dealers each, and a few handy diving shops too, we began to tire of our quest and were most perturbed by the very arrogant salesmen we encountered on the first floor of one particular shopping centre. Bemoaning your potential customers shopping around technique is hardly a good way to earn their custom. We made a hasty escape back onto Orchard Road and stumbled across one guy who was particularly keen to sell a new Sony Cybershot digital camera to Ian, along with the underwater housing unit, in light of the fact that his current digital camera was discontinued some time ago and the corresponding underwater housing kit, which Ian was seeking, would not be available to him as that had also been discontinued. I was tempted to buy a Canon Ixus V3 digital camera, underwater housing unit and a digital image printer and took note of the collective price quoted.
We checked at Singapore Airlines as to how we change our remaining flights, if required, then Borders beckoned us inside for over an hour during which I collated information on dive sites in Malaysia and Thailand that may be of interest to us and I researched some underwater cameras in some diving magazines. I was absolutely fascinated when I came across an article in one of the diving magazines praising Herbert's Deep Blue diving operation in Tonga. The guy was so excited about his diving experience from Nuka'alofa I could only imagine that he had the use of his own equipment, had plenty of air in his tank and wasn't subjected to the disgusting emissions of Herbert's faeces from his alimentary canal. Either that or he didn't have to pay.
Soon after Borders I found a noodle bar, Nooch, which served us an excellent meal at a reasonable price and had the added bonus of playing Coldplay throughout our meal which went down extremely well with me.
After lunch we continued our enquiries and walked back down Orchard Road on the other side. Halfway down we returned to the keen guy to check prices and alternatives. He was still keen on selling a package to Ian and we left him that way.
We then spent an hour researching cameras online before resting in the hotel, Ian taking to the third floor swimming pool to make plenty of splashes.
When walking to Little India we encountered some extraordinary traffic lights whereby the sequence completely bypassed the pedestrians and we had to risk life and limb to cross the road, at speed! The walk to Little India revealed that our city map is inaccurate as the place it led us to was a vast expanse of utter silence and in fact we had walked through an area that was very much Indian influenced. We settled for a curry in a side street where most of the main courses cost SGD 5 and were served on banana leaves! Ian spoilt himself by ordering dessert while we got engrossed in an Asian representation of Wheel of Fortune.
Another brief stint in a cyber cafe gave me the opportunity to express my sorrow that I didn't accept my parents generous offer of buying me a digital camera before I left England.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.