Meet me in the Blue Mountains!
After our detour via Brisbane, we arrive one day late in Sydney and immediately set off to Blackheath in the Blue Mountains to meet my long time friend Madeleine. She has a surprise for us, a most interesting place for us to stay. Redcliff is a mansion literarily built on the edge of the Shipley plateau. The house is enormous with many rooms and decks overlooking the Kalimbla Valley, with nobody else around. Europeans only discovered the Blue Mountains in 1813 and it took them 24 years to find a way across the mountain. There is much to see and enjoy. We start in Katoomba and surroundings visiting the Three Sisters and Echo Point. There is also a Wine Festival in the historic Carrington Hotel with winemakers from regions I had never heard of from nearby towns of Orange and Mudgee. I very much like the Shiraz and Pinot Noir from the Burnbrae winery.
More photos available at http://www.postmodemsociety.com/Oz1/Oz1.html

Standby in Singapore
We arrived in Changi airport as we had hoped for in the early evening of the 25th. As all the connecting flights were all much overbooked, we did not even try to continue, but headed for our hotel in Changi Village. It turned out to be a delightful place far from the hustle and bustle of downtown Singapore. After a good night's sleep, we returned to the airport in hope for a departure on the early morning flight to Sydney. There was only one seat left on the plane and we decided to stay and try the night flights to Sydney in the evening. So what to do? The tourist board has a very nice welcome center at the airport and soon their bus took us to "Old India" in the center of town. Although 77% of Singapore's population is ethnic Chinese, there are also enough Indians and Malays to establish their own quarters in the city. The Hindu temple was full of very colorful worshippers. Narrow streets, full of shops of all kinds are around the temple. It only takes a very short walk to get to the Arab quarter, which is in fact more mostly Malay. The mosque, built in 1824, is very impressive.When Sir Stamford Raffles landed on this island in 1819, there were already more than 1000 ethnic Malays living in the area. Singapore without a visit to the Raffles Hotel is unthinkable, the Nasi Goreng lunch in the Courtyard was delicious. Before going back to the airport, we visited the recently reopened museum of Asian History, highly recommended! We were unsuccessful again to get on a flight to Sydney however a later flight to Brisbane had a few seats left....
More photos available at http://www.postmodemsociety.com/Singapore/Singapore.html