Hello everyone!!

I'm not sure if anyone has actually bothered to read this blog, Gem's attempt at the last one was pretty poor in my humble opinion ;-) Well, I guess it was ok! We've been really lazy and not bothered to update it until now...

Singapore (17/02/2010-20/02/2010):

We flew to Singapore on Wednesday morning with Gem feeling a little bit under the weather during the flight. When we arrived at Singapore airport the first impression was that it was pretty immaculate with a big emphasis on showing how clean and tidy the city/state was. As we went down an escalator towards immigration, there was an incredibly large area in front of us with nothing in it except for some pillars and some trees and bushes. It just seemed like the government was trying to put on a front and felt like a waste of space and material - however, I'm sure it's like that in a lot of places.

Anyway, we got through immigration ok and headed towards the MRT (Mass Rapid Transportation) train service. Now, the big thing in Singapore is for the government to fine anyone for doing just about anything; jaywalking; spitting; chewing gum; drinking or eating on the MRT; and so on. So the first thing I did was to have a drink of water on the train as soon as we sat down. And then I realised how much the fines are. Nothing like back home. These are proper fines, something like $500 (Singaporean Dollars) which equates to about £235 for drinking or eating - so I was pretty chuffed I'd already run the risk of losing some money. Apart from the fines though, the MRT is brilliant: it's clean; efficient; quick; and cheap. Just like Hong Kong really.

After forty odd minutes struggling with our backpacks on the MRT, we got off at the Little India stop and immediately became lost! We consulted our map and then spent half an hour in really warm and humid weather wandering around looking for the correct street. Coupled with the weight of the backpacks and we weren't too happy!

Therefore, we decided to flag a taxi which took us on a long loop, finally ending at the Hangout Hostel. The hostel its self was really nice; the room was a double on the corner so two massive windows and then a bathroom with a good sized shower. Every morning we had breakfast in the hostel which was quite nice; for some odd reason they served bread and butter pudding as a breakfast dish but I enjoyed anyway!

On the first afternoon we were there, we went into the city and had a walk around. First impressions were that Singapore is a nice place, however, I don't we'll be able to get over the humidity! Hunger hit us so we had a look for somewhere, finally going for an Indian buffet, which was really nice and the owner had heard of both United and Wednesday!

The next day we headed to a nature reserve and had a nice walk up a steep hill and back down. Even though it was really humid but it was nice to walk around all the trees and bushes. We did look a bit odd though as everyone else was dressed up in running gear and doing all kinds of stretches. After returning from our little jaunt up the hill we were sweating like mad so we headed back for an iced coffee in some air-conditioned café (and then a Subway sandwich...). After that we headed into Singapore city and walked for miles (apart from using the MRT - bus and train, to get just about everywhere, we also walked for what felt like forever - Gem wasn't too happy about it!).

The city is really nice; there are a lot of new high-rise buildings but then there is a lot of greenery. Even some of the high-rise buildings had trees inside and on balconies twenty floors up. There is still a lot of construction going which was a bit annoying, sending us out of our way on our trek.

During the day we also had a look around a Buddhist temple which was really interesting and outside the temple there was something like a dragon dance where a few guys were banging drums and some kind of instrument like cymbals. As they made all the noise there would be one person with a dragon's head over his head who would move to the beat - we think it was to do with providing blessings to things like new shops.

In the evening we went for food at one of the food halls that are dotted all around the city. We settled for Indian seen as a lot of the food in HK and Singapore was laden with some kind of shellfish. We chose something that looked like a pancake with food in the middle. It was pretty good, the pancake/bread thing was tasty but the chicken I had in the middle was full of bones... so while I kept pulling pieces out of my mouth, Gem's was not too bad.

After food, we went to the train station and found our way to the night safari, via the bus. By the time we got there, we only had a couple of hours before the last bus left that meant we could catch the train before midnight - we were being tight and making use of our day tickets! Straight away we went to a show called 'Creatures of the Night' which was sh*t. It started off slow and then when they brought the animals on they started messing around with games. So in the end we only saw a couple of animals of which I can't remember any now! With an hour left we jumped on board the tram service which takes you around while providing some commentary. The only problem with the night safari is that you can't see anything unless the animals are big like an elephant or up close. Otherwise it's hard to spot them unless you focus. I guess that's a generic problem with all night safaris. If we go again, we're going to walk around instead as you can spend more time at each section. Overall it was worth it as we saw animals we'd never seen before like elephants and tigers and giraffes; can't remember any more.

The next day we had to check out of the hostel as we were flying to Perth that night. We left out stuff with the staff and went for a long walk around Singapore. We spent some time going along a river which headed to the sea and then walked past the Fullerton Hotel which was very nice and cost a lot to stay in. It used to be the cities post office and is now a popular hotel for the rich and people in finance. Most of the day we just walked around and looked at the sights of the city; later on we stopped for a coffee after we took photos of each other by an animal that represents Singapore – the Merlion. It’s a mix between a mermaid and a lion and the statue they have shoots out water through its mouth.

I hope you've enjoyed this segment and if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes, I'm sorry but I couldn't be bothered to check after spending so long trying to sort out the photos...

And on that bombshell, goodnight.