tues day 32

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So over these next few blogs I'm gonna try and dazzle you with some facts about Singapore cause its a great little place that I knew nothing about, so here goes..................

Modern day singapore was founded by Thomas Stamford raffles in 1819 - a British lieutenant governor - changes he made are still apparent today. Much of Singapore is very British - most of the road names hill st, orchard rd etc. The buses are the same and are called buses and taxis called taxis, bridges are named after British generals and parks and museums also have British names to name but a few.
So my day started with a map and an urge to go walking, i headed down to the river and followed it to the right passing a long row of 2-3 story houses ( now turned into restaurants and pubs) overshadowed by the huge sky rises of the financial district - quite a contrast. Past the very impressive Fullerton hotel - which hard to imagine used to be a post-office! And onto the merlion - a 4 story high half lion half mermaid statue jetting water from its mouth - a prince in the 11th century mistook an animal for a lion on the island and so got its name singa - pura meaning lion city. Crossing over the Fullerton bridge to parliament sq and walking through some very pretty gardens and past stately buildings i made it to fort canning park. This park was originally named Bukit larangan ( forbidden hill) by raffles. Singapore's first British resident - William Farquhar a political officer appointed by London had a house built at the very top of the park - which was in 1859 turned into a fort. The park is beautifully kept with lots of different areas to explore. From here I headed to the national museum and had a look around, had some interesting bits on when the Japanese invaded Singapore during WWII - and when the British brought them to trial after the war for the atrocities they
Commited.

After here I wandered along orchard rd - the main shopping hub of Singapore, with shops such as h&m just along from Prada and Gucci. Stopping off for a spot of lunch I partly replaced my steps back to the river and continued back to china town to the hostel. Meeting up with phoebe we headed out for some dinner, she took me to a huge Chinese food hall full of market stall where we had a kind of porridge mine with chicken hers with fish, and then i tryed Chinese dumplings - very popular here. I mistakingly thought the steamed dumplings had a sweet filling only to find out it was fish and liver! Not really to my taste - but nice to know to avoid for next time! We headed back to the room and had an evenings catch up with Alicia. It had been a great day.

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