Singapore

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Singapore.

If someone had sat me down a few days ago and tried to educate me on the sheer number of shopping malls in Singapore there is no way that I would ever have understood. It really is completely mental!!! The amount of wealth here is ridiculous which being me I can only describe as suspicious. I'm yet to do my research but for a country who has only had their independence from Malaysia for 44 years they are incredibbly rich. Their high rise banking district is home to no less than 180 international banks, everywhere you walk you are attacked by Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein and Harry Winston trying to sell you their rubbish and what's more is that a lot of people here seem to be able to afford it. Wherever the money is coming from I'm sure there are some poor innocent people being exploited or killed in the process. If someone has the answer I would welcome an explanation.

However Singapore has done a lot of things right. They have pedestrian crossings whcih actuall work (after being in Thailand this is somewhat of a luxury), to make things even better, the crossings actually have a countdown on them so you know how long you have before you can cross the road. The taxis are all meter taxis (another luxury, you no longer have to argure your way down to 25% of the original asking price) also they say 'taxi' on the top if they're available or 'hired' if they're not..... obvious!!

What's also obvious is the laws that they've imposed here to make their city a better place. We had a nightmare with immagration and before we'd even got to our hotel I was not fond of the place. We wore woken on our train at 6 AM (in fact I was woken and Rachel strangly wasn't which led me to believe that she must have been killed in her sleep so I shouted at her until she did wake up. She didn't like this.) where we were told that we had to get off the train and go throught immagration. We had to take all our luggage off the train, walk down the platform, fill in a form, queue, have our luggage and ourselves scanned then remain locked in the station until they had had a chance to inspect the wholed train and were satisfied that we could proceed with our journey.

After spending a day in the city I could completey understand why this happened, they are stirct and for a good reason. It is illegal in Singapore to litter or even to chew gum and they are some of the cleanest streets I've seen. You think that people wouldn't obey these kinds of laws but the truth is that people are all talk and if the laws are there then they are rarely broken.

In terms of getting moeny from tourists they are also very clever. At the boat quay amongst other places you will pay around 7 pounds and 50 pence for a pint of Lager. I personally thought that this was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen but following my amazement my natural instinct was to have a beer! The most amazing fact I have learned so far was regarding the new casino. They are having a new multi million dollar casino and hotel complex built. Everyone knows that casinos make money but they can also ruin lives. That's why the government will permit free entry to anyone visiting the country and anyone from Singapore will be charged $100 just to walk through the front door. On top of that, if any member of their family feels that they have a problem and don't want them gambling any more, all they have to do is say the word and they can have their relative banned for life... Genius!

In terms of our time here, It's a rich city and we still have a lot of money in the bank so we decided that we would be rich too! Our hotel is the nicest place we've stayed so far, we've been sleeping in until 10 and having swim our our pool which we have all to ourselves before going out and doing some shopping. We have discovered 'Toast Box' which is just the best restaurant chain I will ever find, we have brought new books which are very hard to come by in Asia. We've ridden the 'Duck Bus' and the 'Flyer'. Singapore seems to be a bit of a competition who's got the most money or the biggest penis, our tour guide took some pleasure in telling us that the 'London Eye' is 135 meters tall compared to the 165 meters of their new 'Flyer' (however by next year the good old Chinese will obviously be completing their 210 meter wheel). We've also today visited the Botanical gardens whcih beleive it or not are particularly lavish and expensive looking.

The highlight for me was when were faced with having to cross 'Cuppage Street'. I convinced Rachel that no one would look at us strangely if we cupped our bits as we crossed the street. They probably did but I had fun.

It's almost impossible to beleive that we're getting a flight to Australia at 9 AM tomorrow. We spent so long waiting for this trip and the first leg along with a months worth of time has already passed us by. I'm excited about Perth. Rachel and I agreed that we will not sample a glass of wine until we reach the Margret River vinyard and knowing that that is just around the corner makes me wee a little bit with excitement. Also I'm looking forward to meeting Humphrey. After just 7 days in Perth we fly to Adelaide to meet our four wheeled friend who will be escorting us around the East coast. Incedentally some of the too much money we have spent in Singapore was to buy Humphrey a portable DVD player as a kind of welcome present.

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