It is hard to know exactly when today began. We boarded a flight in Copenhagen late yesterday morning, flew for 12 hours and landed in Singapore early in the morning.

The flight itself was a bit..... weird. We were in Premium Economy and, while we really appreciated the extra space and seat recline, we both commented that long haul flights have changed in character over the last decade since we last ventured to Europe. Flight Attendants are less friendly, less helpful and less visible.

I wrote a lot more about why the flight was weird but it just sounded like I was whinging so I've deleted it (spoiler alert: infrastructure issues and meal / sleep timing).

We arrived in Singapore just as dawn was breaking.

We were quickly through the airport and presented ourselves at our hotel (The Barracks Hotel on Sentosa) at just after 7.30am. The plan was to get them to store our luggage while we did a bit of shopping and lounged by the pool. However, we were greeted with a "welcome, your room is ready". The Barracks Hotel a newish, small, quiet boutique hotel with just 40 rooms, all of which either open directly onto the pool (expensive) or have a balcony overlooking the pool (almost expensive). We've got a balcony room but we'd go with a poolside room next time - and there may well be a next time, we're impressed with it so far.

The early check-in meant we could catch up on a bit of sleep. We didn't want to sleep for too long as we have six time zones to adjust through but we had a couple of hours until lunchtime.

Our first trip was to Viva City, reportedly the biggest shopping centre in Singapore. This was just two stops away on the free Sentosa Express monorail tram thingy. Linda needed to get some new sandals and I had spotted a Shake Shack, home of the Shack Attack frozen chocolate custard. We both got what we wanted. On the way back to the hotel we stopped to admire the beach.

Unfortunately, the beach is closed due to a recent oil spill and the otters had obviously relocated for the duration but I may have mentioned that our hotel has a pool? We made good use of it.

In the late afternoon The Barracks puts on a Cocktails and Canapés hour for its guests. We enjoyed both.

For dinner, we again used the Sentosa Express to get to a touristy street of Food Trucks. We decided on some authentic looking dumplings and satay chicken although one of us would later declare that they were "too authentic".

The nightly rainstorm had arrived but most of the shops and attractions of Sentosa are connected by vast covered walkways so we took in some more of the sights before returning to the hotel and trying not to go to sleep too early.