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Published: April 15th 2006
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Battle Box
Me outside bunker 14th April
Me and J got up really early to catch a bus from Melaka to Singapore, by 1pm we had settled in our guesthouse and were preparing for a blitz through what Singapore had to offer (We only have one night and a bit of the next day before flying to OZ). Incidentally our guesthouse is really good, it's called D'Simple and is in Little India, just a short walk from the bus station. We'd heard about accomodation prices in Singapore being a shock to the system after the 1 and 2 quid a night places in the rest of SE Asia and expected to play at least S$20 (7ish quid), we got in our guesthouse for just S$11- Back of the net. It's only just opened 3 days ago so everything was really clean and it had a free laundry service, free coffee and tea and free toast and jam.
We were all set to explore the delights of Singapore when the heavens opened, you could say it was Singapouring down with rain! (Sorry about that, i think these Sprigensisms must be catching!) After waiting a couple of hours for the rain to stop we ended up
just risking it for a chocolate biscuit anyways, comandeering an umberella that happened to be knocking around in the process. We caught an MRT, which is the underground Tube in Singapore and headed for the city centre. The MRT is quite hi-tech: you pay the relevant fare into the machine, press the touch-screen to where you want to go and are issued with a card which can be discarded at your destination and refunds your S$1 deposit- Easy as pie.
On arrival in the city we headed to a museum called Battle Box, which was around the area of Fort Canning, a garden area near the city centre where there is a Fort suprisingly enough. Battle Box is a museum set in an underground bunker, used by the British during the Second World War (Singapore used to be a British colony), we had a guide showing us around the various rooms, each of which had models reconstructing the events of the final hours before the official surrendur of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942. History bit: Basically the situation for the allies in Singapore was quite untenable, as with a lot of the British colonies they were not prepared
Mansion
Fort Canning Park for large scale warfare against the might of Japan, in basically it's backyard- with the British war effort concentrated in Europe it seems Singapore was pretty much neglected and didn't have the firepower to hold off the Japanese for long. The last room we went in reconstructed the conversations had between the Allied Genrals in Singapore agonising over the possible Plans of action before reluctantly deciding that surrendor was the only realistic choice to stop the bombing. Still awake?? Ok i'll carry on,
We had some "Top Gun" headphones on throughout which played usssounds of bombs falling and sirens blaring to add a bit more atmosphere! Our guide was really good and passionate, he is from Singapore and of Chinese origin, he was about 7 years old when Singapore fell to the Japanese and could recall the bombings of his neighbourhood like it was yesterday. And, boy, did he not like the Japanese! God knows how he conducts his tour when he's showing Japanese tourists around, or "The nips" as he called them?!?! He told stories of the torture that the Japanese subjected the allies and locals, especially the Chinese locals, to after the surrendur- they were tortured in
Lion at entrance to Night Safari
It was really difficult to get good photos in the Safari because of the dark, so heres a model Lion instead! the YMCA, he kept joking about it not being as fun in those days as the Cowboy and Indian portray in the song!
After the Battle Box was over me and Jonny headed to the Night Safari, as the name explains it is basically a zoo, only with the added difference that you visit it... at night! It was about 7 quid to get in, a splurge by our standards, but was definitely worth it. It had all of the big guns there: Giraffes, Rhinos, Lions, Tigers. It also had people wearing tribal dress by the entrance perfoming fire shows and suchlike. One of the creepiest bit was walking through the Bat's enclosure, or "The Bat Cave", basically the bats were on trees just by your side and if you didn't look where you were going you could walk into one of them: They were absolutely huge, seriously they were the Dan Holtby's of the Bat World no word of a lie!
15th April
Today we just looked around the shops on Orchard Road (A really famous shopping district) and caught our flight to Oz at 8:15. Me and Will went on a "Glutony tour" at the
Don't Use the Flash!
But i did anyways, as you can see. Heres a Tiger airport to use up our remaining Singapore currency- KFC styled meal (Large) followed by a McDonalkds Hot Chocolate and Muffin (This coming about 2 hours from our last meal in Singapore and 2 hours before our aeroplane meal)- Felt sooo bloated. Next stop Oz.
Mike
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