Singapore!

Asia » Singapore
May 25th 2011

Published: June 6th 2011

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moneysglobalrtw

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Orchard Road - day

Being greeted by all the bustle and clamour of Singapore is a marvelous start to the Far Eastern leg of our journey. The tropics bring their own mix of humidity and exotic floral scents. The mix of nationalities, mainly Chinese and Malay, is immediately apparent from the food in the shops,different languages all around and the clothes (except for the young who dress the same all over the world!). Its a clean city where everything works.
Our hotel room was high upon a corner bend of the famous bustling Orchard Road. It meant that we had a 280 degree view of both all the lights and traffic on Orchard Road right round to the trees full of chattering birds all along to the spectacular Botanic Gardens. It would have been easy to while away the time just watching from our balcony but there was so much to see and another metro system to crack.
Shopping is brought to new heights in Singapore with everything imaginable on offer. We only succumbed to a tiny new laptop for a ridiculous price and so hard to choose with 5 floors of computers on offer - boggling!
The night food markets seem to have moved

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Orchard road from our balcony

from the roads and car parks into the huge malls where the vendors all have little stands of their own. We ate well, sometimes Malaysian, sometimes Japanese and sometimes Chinese. It would be hard to starve here.
The Botanic Gardens cover around 30ish acres and are well worth the walk even in the 40 degree heat. The landscaping is spectacular and it is hard to imagine getting blase about orchids but there were so many - and each more beautiful.
There is so much history here in this small area. We were reminded of quite a bit by walking through the cathedral which had names like Malacca, Mandalay, Straits Chinese, amd many British residents who made this their homes. I have also included photos of the metro system which are self evident - spectacular - and it works!
We debated on going across to Sentosa Island as it seemed to possibly be a bit amusement parkish but so glad we did. There is an excellent cablecar ride across with wide ranging views and lots of things to do once there. Yes, there is a Universal Studios but also a fort which was a significant site from WWII, including the signing

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St Andrews cathedral

of the British surrender of Singapore to the Japanese and also in reverse the Japanese surrender to the British 3 years later. On a different note we tried out driving the Segways - little moving things with 2 wheels and battery power. You stand on it and lean to indicate the direction you wish to go. Fascinating and fun. The future!!
We could have spent much longer in Singapore but Bangkok and our Indochina Tour was calling.

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