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Published: October 20th 2006
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Singapore Sling is the name of a Singapore cocktail - not that it matters, it just sounded like a good title. Welcome to Singapore PeterPopper. Thank you please. Singapore is a country, a city and an island... nice!
I had heard on the grape vine about a cool backpackers place called Sleepy Sams so I booked in advance. Compared to most places in Asia Singapore is pretty expensive. Although I've been travelling for quite a while now this was the first time I would be sleeping in a dorm room. Time to dig out the ear plugs! Sleepy Sams is a really nice backpacker place - immaculately clean, nice decor, amazing bathrooms, free breakfast all day long, cool people, great building, top location. Enuf said.. Its just mint. On arrival I didn't really have much time to do anything, except of course eat a Moroccan kebab. I slept well on my first night. All good so far! Safe as houses.
In Singapore there are no seasons. The weather does not change.. It’s always hot and humid with the occasional bit of rain! It’s near the equator you see. On my first day in Singapore it decided to rain... even
so it was still hot and extremely humid. When it rains in Singapore you can either eat or go to the shops... I decided to do both and headed to Orchard road, Singapore's main shopping street. The best thing here was the trees... they were red with big white spots, but I got the feeling they were artificial! Anyway there are enough shopping centres and precincts here to last forever. Too many for my liking. I checked out some futuristic stuff and escaped the rain, before trying some Singapore food. Correct me if I'm wrong but Singapore doesn't seem to have much food that is distinctly Singaporean... apart from 2 things. Chicken Satay and everyone knows what they are, and Chicken Rice. Guess what that is? Its Chicken... with rice. Perfect. It must have taken an amazingly creative and wonderful chef to think that one up! I decided to try it and it was like rice with chicken. Tasty - ish. When the rain had stopped and I was fed up with the number of shops I headed to Chinatown. Everywhere I go seems to have a Chinatown. They get around a bit don't they... these Chinese folk. I didn't
spend that long here as I have know seen enough Chinatown type stuff to last me forever. Maybe one day I will actually go to China to see what it’s really like! To make myself feel more intelligent I went to the Singapore gallery - there was some pretty cool stuff there though. Bits of this. Bits of that. Some cool photos, models and the odd bit of information.
As a may have mentioned before it’s important to eat Pizza wherever you go. If you don't you may not find that perfect 10 out of 10 pizza that you've always been searching for. On this fine night I had a pizza at Clarke Quay, a pretty nice place near the river with lots of cool bars and restaurants. I got a bit mixed up with my currency conversion and didn't realise how much it actually cost until I had eaten it.... A lot. It was a really good pizza though. 7 out of 10, which is pretty damn tasty by my standards. Later I walked down the river to see some cool buildings and some bright lights to feed my hungry eye's. Pretty neat but the place doesn't seem
that busy. Maybe it's because it’s a week night.
If you go to Singapore you have to go to the Zoo and the Night Safari. They are both amazing. Previously I wasn't the biggest fan of zoo's and seeing animals locked up in little cages but this place changed my perception a bit. The animals are in pretty big enclosures and instead of barriers and fences they have moats where possible so it’s like the animals are just hanging around in front of you. In some places the Orang-Utans, monkeys, Chimpanzees etc. are just playing in the trees above the paths. It’s a cool place. There’s this one area called the fragile forest.. Lots of bats, butterfly's, sloths, tree kangaroos, just wondering about the place with the humans. One woman got pissed on. Bad luck I say. Loads of cool animals here anyway and I got to meet some top wildlife. There were also a lot of Japanese/Korean people here many of whom wanted to have there picture taken with me. Strange - Maybe they thought I was one of the animals or something. Not sure. Oh well.
I spent all day at the zoo, and when it
got dark I headed next door to the Night Safari. It was like a Jurassic Park ride with animals instead of Dino's. It was really really really really really really really good. The animals were lit with dim night lights so they weren't really aware of the tourists going by on the little cart things. There weren't any visible barriers so it was like seeing them in the jungle, at night. I liked the lions... grrrrr. There were also these walking trails around the place and in some enclosures there were bats flying around your head and hanging next to you and these flying squirrels that scare the shit out of you as they glide past you. I had a mint time here - well recommended!
Sentosa Island is a little Island just off the coast from Singapore. This is where I spent my day. It’s extremely tourist orientated and is basically an Island full of tourist attractions. Aquariums, dolphin shows, beaches, golf course, butterfly garden, this and that. I made my way to this place on a cable car from the harbour with some great views on the way over. Once you arrive in the cable car you
have a few options to get to the man made beaches. Bus, walk, or my choice... the luge. The cable car station is high up on a hill and they have built this luge track right the way down to the beach. You go down on these small go karts that are low to the ground, go pretty fast, and can turn at high speed due to their low centre of gravity.... amazing fun. I had 3 goes, each time taking the chair lift back up. I checked out the man made beaches which were a bit weird but good to have a dip on this hot humid day! Singapore doesn't have a lot of beaches so they basically built some. After some lunchtime curry, (having withdrawal symptoms), and a walk over the bridge to the southern most point in Asia, I headed back on the cable car, continuing up to Mount Faber with its strangely attractive cable car station and some top views of Singapore. Then it was back to Sleepy Sams via Little India for some Asian Magic! Ari-Rinky-Tinky!!! A good day out, the luge being the highlight! Brilliant!!!! Nice one! Safe.
On leaving day I headed
to the Botanical gardens and to orchard road to buy a mini tripod for my camera as mine melted and broke. I sweated a lot on this day!
Then it was time to leave... I took a mini bus to the airport where I would be leaving Singapore and the land of Asia.
It's a shame I was here during the week as the previous weekend and the weekend after I left there were some good DJ line ups and some mint looking clubs... like Zouk. Oh well maybe next time. See ya later aligator!
That’s all for my stopover in Singapore... next stop Australia!!!
Laterz.... PeterPopper :-)
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