Singapore to Delphi

We're off. The overall program is Brisbane - Singapore - Greece (2wks) - France (1 wk) - London (1 wk) - Iceland (3 wks) - NYC (7 wks) - San Fran (1 wk) - Hawaii - Brisbane. Back mid-August. Currently in Meteora (Greece) - see next post. To get here we stopped off in Singapore for a night then flew over to Athens and drove to Delphi to see the ancient site and museum. They were all great. Here are some pics....

Singapore is more impressive each time we visit. So well organised and green. The food is great too. Shame it's so hot!...

One reason it's so well organised is because of the strong central control, which has been controversial over the years....

The Boat Quay is a very busy restaurant strip along an old townhouse strip towered over by modern buildings....

The Hawker Centres are great for eating in Singapore - this one is in a historic building, once over the shoreline and now about half a kilometre inland (after reclamation)....

Fort Canning is a beautiful park with some historic ruins and very interesting gardens....

This painting from the mid 1800's was in the National Museum and shows the original shoreline before reclamation - Singapore looks nothing like this now! The bay in the foreground is gone and now has a financial district of high-rises...

The Museum of Asian Civilizations is great. It had an exhibition of 80 model Chinese pagodas from 1915 which were really interesting (made for the San Francisco World Fair) as well as a 'set' of 106 little wooden Chinese characters doing different things from the mid 1800's, a gift to a French admiral...

Changi Airport is pretty remarkable. They make a huge effort to provide special places to bide the time - this one is the Spectacle Garden....

After landing in Athens we drove to Delphi. On the way we visited a historic monastery complex (Moni Asios Loukas). Very interesting and atmospheric. Lots of brickwork. Lots of paintings....

Delphi was great. The ancient site was of huge significance. It was active for almost 1,000 years as a common centre of religion and wisdom for the different city-states of Greece. The heyday was about 6th to 3rd century's BC - so really old! It's where the 'Oracle' (always a woman) would be consulted for decisions relevant to war, finance and personal matters. The Oracle was likely doped up on some kind of fumes from a cauldron and would be famously vague. Alexander the Great was so annoyed by it he started to drag her away by the hair until she conceded '...I meant to say you are the greatest warrior'! Something like that....

...all that's left of the Oracles hangout...

The athletics stadium, with starting blocks and seating...

The setting is spectacular...(short video)....

The museum had amazing things contrasted against fairly basic presentation. This was a larger then life-sized chariot driver in bronze - from about 500BC or so...

Delphi town also had a great setting looking down into a gorge...

The view from our room/balcony was awesome. The plain is all olive plantations....