Week 45 - Singapore Part 2

Asia » Singapore
May 14th 2011

Published: May 14th 2011

Edit Blog Post

Ben and Cerri

P1000238

Singapore flag

We started our second full week in Singapore by paying an early morning visit to the Thailand Embassy as we had to sort out some visas for our trip to Thailand. The Thai Embassy was located on Orchard Road, so whilst waiting for it to open we did a bit of window shopping to pass the time. Later we joined the ever growing queue outside the Embassy and headed in, we thought we had all the relevant bits and pieces that they would need to process our application only to be told by a Thailand’s version of “Mrs Trunchball” from Roald Dahl’s Matilda that we needed to prove that we had enough money to stay in Thailand for more than 30 days, so we quickly scoured the streets for a internet cafe. Eventually with all the correct info that was needed we were given the all clear at the embassy and told to come back the next day to collect our passports and visas. After all the palaver was over it was time for lunch so me and Cerri met up with Jo at a nearby shopping mall and had something a bit different in the form or Smashed Chicken, a

P1000186

Disney Fans!

traditional Indonesian dish which was accompanied by some extremely hot sauces. With our bellies full and mouths on fire we headed back to the house to chill out for the rest of the day as we had a busy night ahead of us. That evening we picked up Matt from work and headed over to Sands Theatre in Marina Bay Sands as we had a date with Disney and were off to watch The Lion King the musical. We all had a spot of dinner first at a good pizzeria, named “Mozza” funnily enough and headed over to the theatre for pre show drinks, after a few glasses of bubbly we were sat in our seats waiting for the show to begin. The show was fantastic, a great adaptation from the original cartoon. We were all impressed by the costumes as we sang along and laughed a lot at the famous comical duo in the form of Timone and Pumba.

Me and Cerri booked our bus ticket to Malaysia the next day and then headed back into Singapore’s city centre to soak up some culture before heading back to the Thailand Embassy to pick up our passports. It was

P1000194

Beer O'Clock

a really hot day so we headed indoors to one of the cities gigantic shopping malls for some lunch, we wanted to try and eat as much food as Singapore had to offer, we ate at a food court which had every cuisine you could imagine! After lunch it was still stifling hot outside so we decided to get out of the sun and wash down our lunch with some beers so we headed back to Clarke’s Quay and stopped off at Brewerkz, a bar which also brews its own unique beers. Cerri choose an unusual cranberry beer which had won some awards at a few different beer festivals and I went with a standard golden ale for “easy drinking.” Bit tipsy we headed over to the Singapore River Cruise, here we jumped on a bum boat to view the city from a different perspective. As we cruised down the river under the sun we were told the many tales that surrounds the city, her rising fortunes from obscure fishing village to trading port, the cities people who came as immigrants from all parts of the world and made Singapore their home, and how it transformed into the global city

P1000231

Ben relaxing & looking the sites

as it stands today, by comparing the old with the new. That night myself and Cerri were cooking dinner as a thank you to Matt and Jo for putting us up, it was Mexican night at the Field household and nachos and fajitas were on the menu . . . . as well as a few corona’s!

Universal Studios was the plan of action the next day, so me and Cerri acted like a pair of kids which to be honest isn’t too difficult and entered the park all excited. We were suddenly immersed in all characters, music and shops and entered the first area, the “Madagascar” zone. As the park is still fairly new they are still building a few rides and attractions so the two of us decided to make a route for the day. We then headed to “Far Far Away” where enrooted we were easily distracted by a photo with the Madagascar Gang. From there we continued onto our first ride of the day the Enchanted Airways. As anybody who knows me I’m not a huge fan of rides never known roller coasters, I don’t see why I should pay good money to have the

P1000308

Universal Studios Singapore

crap scared out of me... If I wanted to do that I can just jump in a car when my sister is driving! So by starting off on a junior ride we hoped it would slowly ease me into the day. Sat down on the ride I was quite surprised to find that we were surrounded by very small children and their parents!!! Onto the next attraction where we were part of a Shrek 4D Adventure and then we saw Donkey Live, who sings and actually interacts with the crowd. Donkey obviously had good taste as he picked me out of the crowd and continued to tell all the children around me that I was an Ogre in training; therefore I had to carry out various tasks such as burp, fart, stiff my arm pits and pick my nose to prove how good an ogre I was! After a few more snaps with Princess Fiona and Shrek we headed to Water World, where the actors carried out a live water stunt show which was based on the biggest flop in movie history Water World, it turned out to be pretty good as the actors involved the crowd by soaking them!

P1000261

Battlestar Galatica Roller coasters!

On to the Lost World where we boarded our own “Dino Proof” flying vehicle as we soared over the park, we decided to come back to Jurassic Park’s Rapids adventure a bit later as it advised that you would get “absolutely soaked” on the ride. Ancient Egypt was next on the agenda and to my horror an adult roller coaster in the dark based on the film Revenge of The Mummy, this ride I was not a fan of due to not being able to see where you were going and that warrior mummies kept jumping out of the darkness and then set the place on fire! Cerri on the other hand loved it and ended up going on it three times, twice by herself as I was quite happy to look after the bag! The day kind of got worse for me here as the only rides left in the place were huge roller coasters in the form of Battlestar Galactica Cylon and Human, they are two separate roller coasters that start at the same time and race against each other. We went for the more mundane one first Cylon as it only speeds you at 90km/h narrowly avoids

P1000285

Smile & wave boys, just smile & wave!

collisions and propels you over 14 storeys into the air . . . JOY! Actually I surprised myself and Cerri and rather enjoyed the ride, with hearing this Cerri was dragging me to the Human version of the ride which suspends you in your seat and goes up side down four times! After all of this I needed a drink and some food so we headed to Goldilocks chicken house. This is where for the second time in Singapore I was mistaken for David Guetta by the staff working there, they asked me to sign the visitors book, pose for a few photo’s and told me how much they love my songs and listen to them every day! After which I put on the sunglasses and walked out of the restaurant looking like a true celebrity! With the interviews over we headed back to the lost world to give the Jurassic Park Rapids a go, luckily we had put the bag in a locker before going on the ride because as we tumbled through the rapids, escaped raptors and a T-Rex from attacking us and then plummeted down a waterfall we were well and truly soaked through! To dry off

P1000309

Robertson Quay bridge

we had dance with the Madgascar Penguins and King Julian and then headed for the exit, we had an awesome day and went on all the rides at least twice; hopefully something I won’t have to do again for a while!

The next day we had a lazy morning and then went out to meet Uncle Matt for lunch at Robertson Quay, here they have a very unusual looking bridge which looks like a piece of art. In the afternoon Cerri and Jo went for a bit of pampering in the form of a mani /pedi and since it was our last Friday in Singapore Matt and Jo took us out on the town. We had dinner at one of Matt’s local favourites, Iguanas a Mexican restaurant that also serves up some delicious margaritas! After some of the best Mexican we have ever had plus far too many jugs we headed to a bar called Crazy Elephant, here they have bands playing from all over the world, this night they had an American Blues band doing some absolute classics.

After immersing ourselves in everything modern Singapore had to offer, we opted to visit one of the last remaining

P1000331

The original Singapore, the last Kampong

Kampongs (original villages) in the country and spend our day in an underdeveloped pocket. This happens to be on a tiny island called Pulau Ubin, which was only a 15 minute ferry ride away. Once we’d arrived on the island we decided to seek out some bicycles to allow us to travel round and do some exploring. With our bums on the saddles we set off, cycling through the village and into the jungle towards the Chek Jawa Wetlands area. Arriving at the Wetlands area, we got off the bikes and went for a stroll along the coastal boardwalk which led us out over the surrounding sea water. As we strolled we went back to nature and spotted several unusual species, first one being the Blue Spotted Mudskipper which was a strange fish type creature that could walk on land and secondly some funky crabs with one arm four times the size of the other! The Coastal boardwalk led us into the mangroves where we continued being David Attenborough’s spotting Mud Lobsters, several monkeys hanging around and even a Water Monitor Lizard swimming around. We then cycled back towards the jetty to catch the ferry back to the mainland.

P1000411

Our last picture in Singapore

It was our last day in Singapore so it mainly consisted of making sure all of our washing was done and the bags were packed. We did go out for a final farewell dinner back at Dempsey Village at a famous curry house called Samy’s, this place is legendary as its one of the original curry houses in Singapore where they serve up your dinner on huge banana leaf.

The next morning we were up ridiculously early as our bus to Melaka, Malaysia was at 7am. We said our sad goodbyes to Gucci and Hugo at the house and then to Matt and Jo at the bus terminal and we were off on to the next part of our South East Asian adventure...

Additional photos below

Photos: 46, Displayed: 29