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Published: February 27th 2009
Singapore 21th - 25th Feb
We landed in Singapore after 6 hours on a new Airbus plane, very good plane with loads of room, however I still only had about 2 hours sleep (at least 2 hours less than Greg did).
Spent the first night in the YMCA on Orchard road which was a little over budget but nice to recover from 7 weeks in India. The first day we walked around the city taking in the sites. Singapore is probably the cleanest city I’ve ever been to, it’s a bit like a large Canary Wharf, the transport works, there’s no litter, everyone recycles, everyone waits calmly to cross the road, every building is pumped full of AC, malls and shopping centers line the streets and even the homeless (of which there are 2) are clean and tidy. There are even posters warning people that low crime doesn’t mean no crime (nice to be able to boast about this). I’d describe it as a city with all the bad stuff removed.
We walked into China town which is basically 4 streets of food and Karaoke bars, and all of a sudden the rain came, moving up the street
from behind us and the heavens opened. There is only 2 types of weather in this tropical city, sunshine or rain and at this time of year it tends to rain every afternoon. The rain lasted about 15mins so we stood undercover talking to a Malaysian man about where we should visit. That evening we went for food and beer, a little more expensive then we had been use to at 5 pounds for a small beer.
The next day we moved to the Inn Crowd Hostel in Little India, it’s about time to really start backpacking and mingling with other travelers, which is ironic because in the hostel I randomly met a guy I worked with at GE. In the evening we went to the Esplanade theatre on the bay to watch a free concert, followed by expensive drink at an interesting establishment known as the 4 floors of whores - truth was in the name that’s all I can say.
On 23rd and 24th we did an open top bus tour around the city so see the main attractions. Including the botanical gardens which houses a famous Orchid garden, an Orchid is the national flower of
Singapore and for S$10,000 you can have an Orchid named after yourself, we saw the Madonna Orchid, Margaret Thatcher Orchid and the wonderful Ricky Martin Orchid.
In the afternoon we headed to the long bar in Raffles for the famous Singapore Sling, this cocktail that was created in this bar in 1910. The bar has a lot of character and monkey nuts are served by the bucket load, so the entire bar in covered in shells. To old dears were downing pints on Guinness, hats off to them.
On the evening of the 24th I met my old boss from GE, Lionel, who now works in Singapore. We met in the new asia bar on the 70th floor of the highest building in Singapore, very impressive views. This was followed by dinner at Clark Quay famous for giant Chilly Crab and sea food. Then onto Boat Quay for drink and Shisha’s, was probably the best night out since we have been away so big thanks for showing us the high life.
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JOHN EDWARDS
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SINGAPORE
WONDERFUL PICTURES OF SINGAPORE "EVENT" YOU LOOK TO BE HAVING A FABULOUS TIME. I LOVE THE BLOG COMMENTS AND PICTURES. ENJOY MALAYSIA AND KEEP THE "TRAVEL GUIDE" COMING.