Singapore Slingers

Wednesday 17^th February 2010

The dreaded sound of the alarm clock woke us at 4am on this morning but considering the early start we didn’t actually feel too bad.  I’d sorted all the packing the night before so all we had to do was get dressed and walk out to the shuttle bus that the hotel provided to take us to Auckland airport.  We were the only people on it!  Once we’d checked our backpacks in we ate some bananas and left over garlic bread for breakfast, some people can’t eat that early but as far as my stomach is concerned if I’m awake it is breakfast time.

The flight from Auckland to Melbourne wasn’t bad, we went with Virgin blue and got what we paid for!  Slept for most of it and watched some family guy.  The first thing we did on arriving in Melbourne was go and get a second breakfast, a full fry up this time and a massive cup of coffee each.  Then we holed up in an Irish bar and watched The invention of lying followed by Gamer (it was 8.30 our onward flight to Singapore wasn’t until 17.00) and bought the minimum amount of drinks necessary not to be kicked out.  When you have long waits for public transport it is handy to have a boyfriend who is addicted to downloading things off the internet!

Bye bye New Zealand, Hello again Oz (That's Oz in the picture)

By the time those films had finished the check in desk was open so we went through to departures and I had a little snooze while Gareth got very excited about flying on the new A380 (which for those of you who don’t know, like I didn’t, is a relatively new aeroplane and is the biggest passenger plane around).  Then we basked in the glory of Singapore airlines.  It’s been ages since we flew on a proper non budget flight and we felt like royalty. Our flight out from London was even with Air Asia and they don’t even feed you!  But Singapore airlines plied us with free drinks, snacks, food and entertainment.  We had to sample one or five Singapore slingers, seen as we were going there, and can confirm that they are very nice.  We had a whole row of four seats to ourselves but didn’t sleep because we didn’t want to get jet lagged, and anyway, who can sleep when they have a Who wants to be a millionaire game on the entertainment system at your seat.

The A380, it's very big, I think they're over compensating

Me sharing Gareth's enthusiasm about the A380

Gareth moving from A380 to Sim city, this is turning out to be a good day for him

It was such a nice flight that I didn’t want to get off but luckily we went from luxury to more luxury by landing in the proper terminal not the budget terminal we usually get kicked out into.  It was a lovely airport, more like the lobby of a posh hotel and the easiest one to navigate I’ve ever been in.  We easily booked a shuttle to our hotel, which left immediately and when we arrived were told our room had been upgraded (free of charge) to a deluxe room.  I have a feeling that they say that to everyone anyway but non-the less we were both pretty happy with that and with our first experience of Singapore in general.  By that time though we had been awake for 24 hours straight and I was ready for bed, although Gareth still found the energy to play 2 hours of Sim city 4.

Thursday 18^th February 2010

We made sure we got up at a reasonable time this morning to combat the jet leg and set out in search of breakfast.  As always seems to happen to us when we’re in a new place and are too hungry to wander round for ages looking for somewhere good we ended up at the closest place which happened to be McDonalds, they had free re-fill coffee with breakfast so we had 3 cups each and were pretty lively.  They like their coffee strong in Singapore.

The Furama Riverfront, Bit of an upgrade from camping.

After that we decided to explore China town and the Buddhist temple there which was impressive, Gareth left his hat on and was asked to remove it!  We had a Thai iced tea at a street stall and then went in search of lunch.  

Chinese New Year decorations

Gareth had a little tantrum in china town because of the heat and all the people, bit of a culture shock after sleepy NZ.  This is him mid tantrum.

This is what I looked like watching Gareth's tantrum

Buddhist temple

After that unhealthy breakfast we wanted something good for us and went off on a search of the hawker centres as they’d been recommended as good cheap places to eat.  We ended up at a stall called “Mr Bean” with a water melon smoothie and two pots of bean curd!  I had almond flavour and Gareth had one with rice balls which turned out to be the better of the two.  Mine tasted a bit like cold, solidified semolina made with water and no sugar! But it’s good to try new things even if it doesn’t always work out. Gareth’s was sweeter and creamier and the rice balls had ground nuts inside.  (No innuendo intended, it just sounds rude).

Nice watermelon drink

Nasty bean curd

Singapore architecture

Hindu temple

We then headed back to the hotel to enjoy a bit of air conditioning (it’s a bit hot in Singapore).  Then back out again to china town for dinner.  The food we had was really nice but they were really busy and seemed to be cooking some on site and bringing some up from down the street so I got served about half an hour after Gareth and the Chinese filled pancakes we ordered never came but it was ok because we’d eaten enough anyway.

We hadn’t decided to go to Singapore until we met a couple in New Zealand who lived here and what they said intrigued us.  It’s a country so small that it’s essentially just one city and has a population of 5 million in an area no bigger than 274 square miles, which is about 18,000 people per square mile.  The population is made up mainly of Singaporeans (obviously) Malays, Chinese and Indians. The whole place seems to be managed down to the smallest detail.  Any cultural or religious tension (between the main religions of Buddhism, Islam and christianity) is very quickly stamped out and even the apartment blocks everyone lives in have quotas they must fill for different ethnic and religious groups so there is no segregation.  Little posters keep catching your eye instructing people on everything from the correct way to wash your hands to how to go about ordering food at a hawker centre.

Friday 19^th February 2010

Today we decided to explore the marina area and set off walking, it’s very hot and you can catch buses or the underground system they have but we thought it’d be better to walk there so we could see the city on the way.  There’s lots of amazing architecture, both old and new that we would have missed on the bus so it turned out for the best.

We explored the posh Clark Quay area near our hotel (I say posh, most of it is, but it also contains the first Hooters in South East Asia) then joined in some of the Chinese New Year madness at the marina and explored one of the city’s many many shopping malls, I needed to buy a bikini for Borneo and because the hotel had a pool!  Then headed back for some dinner in China town again.  Gareth did a run at the hotel gym then we both went for a dip in the pool which was freezing and my brain took over and made my legs do breast stroke kicks which really hurt my knee!

Clark Quay

Central Singapore

Chinese New Year at the Marina, the weather looks bad but it wasn't.

Saturday 20^th February 2010

We decided to try and get away from the hustle and bustle today and headed for the Singapore botanic gardens which are home to the only surviving patch of rainforest in Singapore.  We stopped on the way to buy a picnic lunch including soft shell crab flaboured Pringles and Japanese pokeys! (Little sticks of biscuit with sugary coating).  The gardens were lovely and we paid a bit extra to visit the orchid gardens, they have a special celebrity orchid patch that contains, amongst others, a special Princes Diana orchid!  By the time we’d walked all round it we were pretty tired and hot so we jumped on the bus back to the hotel to get showered before heading back out for dinner.

Princess Di orchid (R.I.P)

National flower of Singapore

Funny squirrel

We decided to head for Little India this time, which was absolutely amazing and very different to the rest of the city, a total culture change!  It was so full of colour and lots and lots of shops selling gold jewellery which made Gareth a bit nervous.  In fact it was so like visiting actual India that I found myself wondering how we’d pay for the food seen as we didn’t have any rupees!

We had a really nice meal and a chat with our friendly waiter who seemed very anxious that we shouldn’t leave Singapore without visiting the casino, we assured him we would just to put his mind at rest but we never did.

Sunday 21^st February 2010

We think today might be Richmud the J's birthday, but we're not sure.  Nobody mentioned it and it doesn't say on Facebook so all we have to rely on is Gareth's memory, which isn't very reliable when it comes to peoples birthdays.  We do suspect that it's in February at some point though although it could've been January, either way he deserves a mention.  Happy birthday Richmond.

Gareth:

Here is a game of spot the Richmut. Have a go at guessing which one is Richmend.

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

Yes that's right, you got it, it was a trick question.  They are all pictures of Richmurd.

Happy Birthday Richmmm.

Alice:

We had to spend our last day in Singapore sorting out accommodation in Kuching and flights home.  Unfortunately the weak pound has been a bit of a drain on our resources and we’ll now have to leave Thailand, Vietnam and China for another trip.  So, for those of you who don’t already know, we’ve booked flights home for the 26^th March.

Today was also the day that our Chinese steamed bun addiction started!  I’d been eyeing them up for a while and thought they looked nice, they’re just steamed (so warm) light buns filled with all sorts of things from Custard to pork ribs and they’re absolutely delicious.  We now go out of our way to find them but haven’t gone as far as eating them in secret yet.

We had to wait around for a bit in the mall we’d been using the internet in because there was an immense tropical down pour, we tried to set off back to the hotel in a lull but ended up getting drenched anyway.

We went for a work out in the gym (feeling a bit guilty after all those pokeys and steamed buns), Gareth ran and I tried out my knee on the recumbent bike machine, it didn’t do too badly.

So that’s it from Singapore and we’ll see you in the next blog!

Blog off.