Advertisement
Singapore, 15th - 18th April 2010
So it was the job of Qantas flight QF5 to take us to Singapore and that it did. The flight was stopping in Singapore to refuel and then carrying on to its final destination of Frankfurt. About an hour before we landed the captain came over the tanoy and said that due to some volcano that had erupted in Iceland there was a big ash cloud, so the continuing onwards flight to Frankfurt would be delayed a little, but should only be a few hours…little did they know…
Anyway, that didn’t bother us as we cleared Singapore immigration and made our way to the MRT tube station. It was easy to navigate our way around, especially as English is Singapore’s first language, making the signs easy to read. We did subsequently find that although English is their first language not many Singaporeans actually speak it. We got off at Outram tube station where Matt and Sarah, two of Doddy’s uni mates were waiting for us. They lived ion the Chinatown district of Singapore and on our way walking back to their apartment we could definitely tell we were in Asia due to the
The new casino
With ship like roof. Can you see the palm trees on the roof? differences in our surroundings and 100’s of mopeds. We stopped at a small hawker place (café type thing) and relaxed and chatted with a few beers catching up on the last 7 years.
Friday 16th
Having spent the night at Matt and Sarah’s we had a relaxing morning before heading out at around midday for some lunch at the hawker centre we’d been at the night before. Lunch was great and we were both impressed with the prices, it was great to be back where eating out is cheap. From there we caught the MRT to the Indian visa office to try and organise our visa ready for when we visit the country. However this was unsuccessful as they can’t issue visas for non-Singaporean residents.
We the walked down to the Merlion statue by the waterfront, slowing our place somewhat as it was so hot. It had been warm in Australia but this was a lot hotter and much more humid. We took all the obligatory tourist snaps and then set out for a wander around the rest of Singapore. We took in the harbour where the huge new casino, with a ship shaped roof was being
built, the business district, the cricket club with open boundaries very close to the road and passing cars and Raffles City a huge shopping mall (complete with Marks and Spencer and Top Shop) where Doddy could try on some suits to see what style he’s going to have tailor made.
We then wandered back to the harbour and caught a river taxi up the river to Clarke Quay. The taxi ride was narrated in English so was an enjoyable way to learn about Singapore’s history. We then walked back through busy Chinatown to Matt and Sarah’s, where after freshening up we set off to watch a game of footy. Matt is the goalkeeping coach for Gombak United, one of Singapore’s Premier League teams, it was a good game and interesting to see how calm and collected the crowd were compared to the UK supporters and especially when compared to the crowd at the Maracana in Brazil. After the game was over we all went to little India for a curry. The area was again bustling with people all going about their daily life. We enjoyed a delicious authentic Indian meal before getting a lift back on Matt and Sarah’s
Vespa mopeds. They each had one as they found them the best way to get around the city streets. It was the first time I had been on the back of a bike and it was a great way to get back to the apartment.
We has a late get up on Saturday morning and once up Doddy went out to get some breakfast, trying to decipher what the most breakfasty type offering was from all the rice and noodles on offer. We then went with Matt and Sarah, cruising once more on the Vespas to book our bust ticket top KL for the following day. It was around 20 pounds for the two of us to travel ‘super VIP style’ from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, bargain!
We then left Matt and Sarah and walked to Raffles hotel for the obliugatory Singapore Sling cocktail and to eat monkey nuts, throwing the shells on the floor (a long standing tradition at the bar at the hotel). Whilst there we got chatting to an older couple from the UK who had been on their way back from Australia when the volcano had erupted and had been stuck in Singapore since.
Apparently at the airport there were signs up asking local Singaporeans to take extra travelers home with them if they had room as there simply were enough hotel rooms available.
From Raffles we caught the MRT back to Matt and Sarah’s, who had now both finished work so we could enjoy a few beers with them before heading to a BBQ that one of their friends was hosting. We had a really nice evening and enjoyed meeting Matt and Sarah’s friends.
Sunday morning soon came round and we were up fairly early to catch our bus to KL. We had a great time with Matt and Sarah. It was nice for me to meet some of Doddys uni mates and of course great for him to be able to catch up with mates he hadn’t seen in 7 years.
The bus was a nice and comfy South American style bus with big reclining seats and once across the border into Malaysia we were both fast asleep for the majority of the journey.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.451s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 8; qc: 55; dbt: 0.2812s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb