Singapore

Singapore Air

The flight was fine, but the seats were pretty uncomfortable, service wasn't the greatest either. I'd heard such good things about Singapore air, but they mustn't have been talking about economy! Annoying subtitles on the movies and everything. At least we were on time!

Chapter 2: Asia

Singapore

Arrived at about 5:15 am and even at that time the baggage guys are more switched on than at home! People seemed to be stalling on their way out of the plane so we walked first and were pretty much first at immigration. We were scanned on the way down the steps to see if we had swine flu – we didn't... Our bags were out soon after, we grabbed them, got some cash and headed for a taxi. It started pouring with rain, a fact that didn't go unnoticed. The temperature was also stiflingly hot – especially what we had become acclimatised to! So, I told Nikki we would be arriving at around 7 or 8. We rocked up at 5:45. Woke her up, had a chat before she went to work and we settled down to sleep. After a few hours catching up on sleep we headed to the pool – a nice change from the previous 7 weeks – and chilled out some more. Met Mark, another TGRD person out in Singapore, lounging around there too. Nikki's place was an apartment in a complex called “Treetops” and it was very swish! Maid service, free breakfast, good location, all good.

After not venturing out of treetops on our first day, the next day we actually managed to leave! We spent the morning in bed, by the pool and relaxing before heading out via the subway to Chinatown, poking around the market stalls on the streets and venturing into the Buddha Tooth temple. We wandered down from Chinatown to the offices in the main Central Business District, a fine, tall stock exchange building was our choice of loitering spot. Nikki met us and we headed to Clarke Quay for happy hour drinks – only $20 for a jug of cocktail – that's about 10 of your english pounds. Cheap in Singapore. We got a little carried away and ended up eating at about 11:30 in boat quay – chinese food – before ensuring Nikki got home late at 1am on a school night!

Next day went the same kind of way, relaxing, headed for Little India for a wander around, grabbed some fine Indian / Nepalese food and walked back – must have been 3 or 4 miles. It was made easier by seeing the sights of “Orchard” - the shopping mall stretch. Boy, they love their shopping! We saw the queue starting for auditions on Singapore Idol and a guy asked us if we needed help and directions getting back – we were just checking out how far it would be to walk! We knew where we were going, but thanks to you, helpful guy, anyway!

Saturday was hot, Nikki went to the zoo and we just stayed and relaxed in the sanctity of an air conditioned room, did washing and Jenni embarked on a Bones marathon over the next couple of days, to catch up on the ones she hadn't seen. Headed to Chinatown for something to eat.

Sunday, we headed to Sentosa island, like a sort of fun resort off the coast of Singapore. We took the cable car – which Jenni didn't like – across to the island. We had a wander about, went to Underwater world, like an aquarium with touch pools for stingray – the people were so stupid though, grabbing at them and so on. Annoying. Like when there was a pool of Starfish and some guy was picking it out of the water right in front of the sign that says “don't pick up the starfish”. Yet the staff just let them get on with it. There was a nice tunnel feature with a walkway so that you could see the fish underwater. After that we headed back, took the cable car at sunset which was quite nice then had dinner in a food court. A bit scary, but we managed. Grabbed some apple pie and ice cream on the way home and took some back to make heatstroked Nikki feel better too. More Bones ensued..

We had to be up and out by lunchtime on the Monday as we were moving on. It had become difficult to leave somewhere that was so nice and welcoming! We could have stayed for a while. It was nice to be able to get to know Nikki better as well.

We did get to see the four floors of whores, some ladyboys and other exciting things in Singapore!

It's funny, after all their money spent on buildings and having a great city, I expected more of their central train station. A little run down, the food court a bit disgusting to be fair and yet again we were scanned for swine flu on our way out! We got our immigration form for Malaysia and headed through. The immigration guy stamped it and off we went. The train we were catching went direct to Kuala Lumpur and took 7 hours, so we were hoping for a nice quiet, bit luxurious seat – but I only booked 2^nd class. It was alright, but no first class! The train stopped at Woodlands checkpoint on the way out of Singapore, we got stamped out of Singapore, but not into Malaysia. That story will no doubt drag on...

Overall, Singapore was very clean, very safe and that leads to it being a bit sterile. It's fairly expensive too but some things were reasonable too. Wouldn't want to spend too long there under my own money!