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Published: March 31st 2008
Singapore CBD
view from the flyerWe arrived in Singapore after a 7 and a half hour flight, we boarded thinking it was 6 hours as we were wrongly advised there was only a 1 hour time difference between there and Brisbane, grr..... Anyway it wasn't a bad flight, there were lots of films to watch, they fed us twice and they kept bringing round hot towels!
We landed at 8:15 and it was still 28 degrees outside. Singapore Airport was the best and most organised airport that we have experience so far, it took 2 mins to get through Immigration and Customs and they even gave us mints! This was a nice change from the shambolic queues getting out of Brisbane airport! We had a bit of a tedious train journey to our hostel however, had to change twice (its quite hard with enormous backpacks) but when we arrived at the station and were trying to read our maps the hostel owner randomly appeared, he was at the shop buying bread and saw us as we stood out like a sore thumb, and guided us to the hostel. His name is Yang and he helped us plan what we wanted to do, told us how
to get there, drew us maps and even gave us some guide books to read! Legend! It's a really funky little hostel in one of the buildings in a residential district, and it's pretty much how the locals live. Yang has made it very different to other hostels though using loads of re-cycled materials and bright colours in the building.
On our first proper day in Singapore we didn't want to waste anytime so we were out and about by 9am. We caught the train to Orchard Road which is a huge road filled with shopping centers, cafes, restaurants etc. We walked the length of it, and more (which was not the most pleasant walk in about 90% humidity at 10am!), until we reached the Singapore Flier. The Singapore Flier is just like the London Eye but bigger, the biggest in the world until the one in Beijing is finished next year! It took about half and hour to go around and was a little scary when you reached the top. We were pretty lucky as the pod's hold 30 people and we had one to ourselves! On a clear day we were told you can see Indonesia and
Malaysia, although we weren't really sure where we were looking so we can't say if we did or not! After it had finished we were feeling quite hungry so headed to one of Singapore's many food courts. They are really cool and have the best type of food.... cheap food! You can get a meal easily for $3-4 (under 2 pounds). Which is great coming from over-priced Australia!
That afternoon we decided to go one one of the open top bus tours, one reason being that Kim had bought new flip flops (her old ones had worn through and after much persuasion from Joe she agreed there time had come) and they were cutting her feet to pieces! We bought a ticket for only $23 that got you 5 different tours to use over 3 days. (8 pounds) We took the Heritage tour first and gt off at China Town to visit the Buddha Tooth Temple. It was a beautiful temple and we took our time going around and taking it all in. Kim had to wear a very sexy shawl as she was wearing a dress which showed her shoulders (how rude!). There was a ceremony going on
Singapore Flyer
wheely good.... in one of the rooms and you could go and see the monks chanting. We visited the Buddha tooth Relic shrine and were told by the guide that we were very lucky to see it as it is not always open and many people come and are disappointed. She said because we have a natural affinity with Buddha! Next we visited the Buddha museum and the roof top gardens and left feeling very relaxed!
We made our way back to the shopping centre via Chinatown where we had boarded our bus as we were going on a evening tour, the Red Lantern tour. We had about half an hour to spare so stopped for toast at Toast Box, amazing! Joe was slightly disappointed as you don't actually get a box made of toast, but you do get toast, and it's stupidly cheap, just as we like it!
The Red Lantern tour took us first to a big food centre where there were lots of different stalls, restaurants and cafes to choose something for our dinner. We had about an hour here and we wandered around completely absorbed in the atmosphere. We found a funky little bakery and bought
a few different things to try. After our dinner we were taken to the Red Light district of Singapore. The Neighborhood was amazing (It was also a food haven) and was lit up with hundreds of lights and decorations. We were only here for 20 mins and had a little walk, soon to find a huge line of women lining one of the side streets! Kim didn't want to take this opportunity to earn us some extra cash so it was off to the next stop of Little India.
When Singapore was founded in 1819 by Sir Stamford raffles, the country was seen by many in Asia as a place to come for a better life. So as well as the local Malay population there are many Chinese and Indian people (as well as various other countries, but these mainly). This makes for a very multi-racial society and visiting different parts like Little India and Chinatown is really cool. In the apartment blocks here they also have racial quotas where a certain percentage has to be of a certain ethnicity to allow people to mix in society, and it works really well. Anyway we had a walk around Little
India and looked in a few shops before heading back to the bus which then dropped us off at the train station to go on back to the hostel.
On Sunday we decided to pay a visit to Singapore Zoo. We walked over to the train station to try and hail a taxi, this took about 20 mins as there was a bit of a queue... It only cost $6 (2 pounds 20p)to get there, amazing! We bought a package for only $30 which gets you into the zoo and the night safari (which we decided to visit the next day). We spent about 3 hours at the zoo, having a wander around and catching a few of the shows. The zoo has a "no cage" policy and only used trenches and moats to keep the animals in the correct area etc, well apart from some of the huge cats.... They many do breeding programs to try and increase the numbers of many endangered species and also educate people.
After the zoo we headed back to our hostel to change as we were off to Raffles for Singapore Sling, we couldn't leave without doing that! It's hard to
describe how humid it is, you have a shower, walk back into the dorm and you're already sweating! We got the train (thankfully air-conditioned) into the city and made our way there. We were greeted at the door and shown to a table. We did try and not look too much like excited tourists but we had to take a good few pictures! Our drinks arrived with a complimentary bowl of nuts, but then it did cost almost $50 for the 2 drinks.
Next we boarded another tour bus for a "moonlight" tour to Sentosa Island to see the "Songs of the sea" show. We had an hour to have a look around before the show so we went down to one of the beaches and paddled our feet before having a quick snack and finding some good seats. Out in the sea you can see hundreds of ships all lit up which looks really cool. The show on Sentosa was really good, some cheesy sing-a-long songs but the water jets, lazers and fireworks were fantastic!
For our third, and final whole day, in Singapore we headed first to the National Museum. We spent a couple of hours
walking through the various exhibits and learning a great deal about the history and culture of Singapore. We got these little computer things which you hung around your neck and listened to the earphones and used as an interactive guide. Pretty cool! After the museum we had a walk around a few markets and a few more temples before making our way to the tour bus stop for our last tour of the city. This tour took you all through he city and explained how the people lived and showed you all the different styles of housing.
We made out way back to the hostel around 5 as we needed to pack and do some washing. After getting everything ready we made our way to one of the local food markets, which was right downstairs! for dinner. Joe had a great time trying to eat very long noodles with chopsticks! Because we are staying quite far out of the city, we kept getting strange looks from people as they don't get many tourists around! Everyone was very friendly though and eventually the chopsticks were mastered.... kind of....!
That evening we made our way to the Singapore Night Safari!
This is a zoo for nocturnal animals and we enjoyed it much more than the day zoo! We actually managed to see a fishing cat catch a fish and a flying squirrel flew just above our heads! There was a really good show at the end, although no matter how many times they said "NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY" people still used their flash. This annoyed us and we told several people off! It damages their eyes!
Because taxis are really cheap here we used one to get to the zoo, but coming back our driver got lost and it took us 3 times as long to get home. We seem to have had quite alot of taxi drivers get lost since we've been travelling! When we finally did arrive he just said "Pay me whatever!" So we gave him $6 which was how much it should have cost!
We've had a great time in Singapore. It is a fine city as our tour guide said.... a fine city as in you get fined for many things (littering etc), but it makes for a much cleaner place. If anyone gets a chance to come here, you should! It's an awesome
place and if you want to do some shopping then here is the place to do it!
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