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Blog : Singapore
In Melbourne we caught a shuttle bus from our hostel to the airport for our first international flight in quite a while and boy were we all excited about an eight hour day time flight and a movie marathon/mega catching up on blogs session!! We enjoyed some tuna fish cakes and a coffee and brownie in the airport whilst we were mooching around waiting for our flight... Australian airports are really weird because they have as many shops and 'duty free' on the Land side of the airport as they do on the Air side! When we were queuing for our coffee so really sweet man came up and offered us his food buzzer and said hed ordered a toastie but it hadnt come in time and he had to run because it was the last call on his flight! KV took him up on his offer - free untouched food, why not(!) - and literally it came about 30 seconds after he had dashed off!! Om nom nom!
We flew with Qatar airlines, very swanky! They have us nice pillows and blankets and even socks when we asked, because the air con was so bloody freezing! And there was absolutely millions of films in their library, i watched black swan which was terrifying but really good and then almost famous, which i loved!! The food on the plane was really good as well, al and i got served first obviously (vegetarian!) and had some Cous Cous number which i managed to spill all down myself and I'm still pulling Cous Cous balls out of my day sack now a couple of day later!! But we missed out on the normal pudding of cookies and cream mousse because the vegetarian meals are a catch all for vegans too... So i pressed the call button and asked for extras - we got them too, bonus! Then there was fresh fruit and ice cream offered and hot chocolate (cadburies) with marshmallows! It was a seriously calorific plane journey, especially as we were just sat on our asses the whole time!!
We arrived in Singapore pretty late, about 10 or 11pm and by the time we had managed to suss out which MRT line we wanted (their tube) and managed to somehow catch the last train of the day(!) we got to the closest stop to our hostel at about midnight... We were worried about walking through the city and what looked like china town on our little map in the middle of the night with our backpacks on and that wed look like sitting duck targets and also that the hostel might not be open an oh wow we got out knickers in such a twist but it was absolutely fine, Singapore is literally the safest city in the world, the people are very obedient and respectful of all the laws (even the crazy jaywalking an no chewing fun ones) and there are huge penalties for the smallest of crimes, which triple if committed against a white person (random?) and both caning and corporal punishment are in force here! So we were absolutely fine walking to our hostel, which was about ten minutes and then the reception was open and staffed and located in a really nice area, which we later found out was just on the edge of club street, a big ex pat community with lots of swanky European bars and restaurants - Score!
The hostel its self, The Matchbox Concept, was really cool too... You had to take your shoes off as the first thing you do when entering, which makes it a pretty clean place. We each had our own little pod or box with a bed and a little window on either side that you can open to chat to your neighbours and the boxes are stacked on top of each other, two high. KV and i were on top bunks, which were about 5ft off the floor and pretty hard to get in and out of! The dorm was a girls only one and absolutely tiny! There was ten of us crammed on top of each other in a room no bigger than a normal persons bedroom! But it was nice to have a bit of privacy and a different experience certainly! After we arrived, we all pretty much passed out as we were all knackered from so much travelling and with the time difference (only three hours but it made half midnight - half three) we were feeling the sleep burn and all went straight to the zzzzz land!
The next morning kate and i went for a little walk to explore whilst al was getting up. our hostel was right on the edge of china town and we enjoyed wandering up and down the little streets ad seeing all of the oriental lanterns being hung, to start the chinese new year celebrations! We brought some beginners chopsticks as well because they were so cute with big pandas at one end, holding them together, so the girls could learn to use them! We went to the maxwell food court next, at the end of our road (quite famous we later found out, a local food court featuring in many tourist to do lists!) and KV and i both said wed try something different for breakfast, i had a dragon fruit juice and she guava... Both were a bit odd but quite nice! Kate then had a red bean pancake which was a sort of stodgy-er version of ours with a sweetish filling and i a Chinese donut, which was basically a savoury churros (deep fried (healthy!) batter) and although didnt actually taste of anything, i managed to polish him off! We went back to maxwells with Al for lunch and again all had different things. We went back to our favourite fruit juice stall and i got some fresh fruit kebabs which were delish and soo cheap and al tried banana fritta which was like hot banana in a fish and chip style batter! For actual lunch we went to a stall that had a pretty big Q, a sign that we weren't going to get the s***s we thought and we could also see the food in front of us to choose from, sort of buffet style! I had rice, beansprouts, crumbed prawns and a fried egg which the server literally just picked up in his hands and plonked on my plate! The whole lot was then covered in soy sauce and chilli! It was actually really delish, although quite hard to eat the rice with chopsticks as the sauces stopped it sticking together - i guess eating it grain by grain is a pretty good diet though! I think the girls gave up with the chopsticks after a few minutes!
After we were throughly fed and juiced at Maxwells we walked up the Main Street and just marvelled at the huge skyscrapers and cleanliness of the city! We came across another little market in the bottom of what looked like a big apartment block, selling cartoon decorations for your mobile, bits to go in the earphone hole and stickers to go on the iPhone menu button... At first i kinda didn't get the whole cartoon craze but the more of Singapore we saw the more i warmed to it! We kept walking and past a big techno shopping mall which we popped in - Funan Digilife mall. It was incredible, about eight floors packed full of gadgets and gizmos and techno stuff! V cool and v cheap! I managed to replace my iPhone charger and with an English plug!! Then we crossed the road over to the raffles empire, which was another huge shopping mall underneath one of the Raffles Hôtel buildings, we wandered around for a little bit, laughing at how many english brands we could spot, M&S, new look, mango, zara, gap etc and then we wanted to carry on wandering but outside there was the biggest tropical storm wed come across... Even the locals were taking pictures of it, on their iPads of course! It absolutely shat it down, with huge wind and thunder and lightning too. We had to have another wander around the whole mall whilst we waited for it to pass. More boring that first thought when your looking in shops that you really can't afford! The prices here are funny, they're either super cheap... Our whole maxwell lunch was £2 but a costa coffee in the Raffles empire was £7! Crazy!
Once the storm had passed we carried on walking up towards Bugis market, that the hostel reception had recommended to us... We ha no idea what to expect and were amazed at the size of it when we found it! It was huggggeeee! And sold mainly clothes and phone cases (seriously they're obsessed with them over here!) and everything was dirt cheap! Some stands sold complete s*** and others some good stuff and we got burried right in the middle of the market, which used to be the Singapore red light district and even had street names for within and in-between all of the stands... Some of them looked like proper established shops as well and there was a couple of hairdressers and nail places!! The girls brought a couple of bits but i couldn't really find anything that was my style, everything was a bit pastel coloured or too lacy for my liking! Obviously we manage to sniff out the food street as well and we all tried different snacks... Al and I had green coloured 'wafers' with choco and blueberry fillings... They were a bit like our waffles and KV had a crispy pancake with a chocolate filling but the chocolate was proper cooked so it was like when you accidentally boil it when your doing a fondue! Weirdly nice! All the things were about 70p an it would have been rude not to have a freshly squeezes juice as well! The market was so closely packed and the air really dense and humid and we were all quite sticky so an iced drink was just the ticket... Singapore is very humid at the mo, its their rainy season which we didn't realise so it isn't actually very sunny, just incredibly sweaty!
We caught the MRT back home and had a little rest, faffing about on the wifi before showering and gettin ready to meet a friend we met in Byron bay who actually lives in Singapore and had offers to take us for dinner and give us some tips on the city! He met us at our hostel and took us to Club street, the one next to ours and told us that it was a really trendy location. We went to a bar with a happy hour but the drinks were still really expensive in comparison to the food wed been eating in maxwells! My G and Ts were about £10 each... Apparently alcohol is taxed quite heavily here. We then met with another friend of his and we walked a short way to a Japanese dumpling restaurant that he said always had a queue and was highly recommended, but it did absolutely no vegetarian food so we upped and moved round the corner to a Korean BBQ place, which looked quite cool, with a massive chalk board on one wall with loads of comments and messages on it, we wrote one before we left! Mike ordered all the food for us, a selection of meats, tofu, veggies, rice, mash potato and soups and you each got given what looked like a lunch tray with little compartments in it, each with a different sauce or relish and one larger space for you to eat from. In the middle of the circular table was a bbq grill that the waitress put some bacon-y looking meat onto and then later some small steak slices, which were absolutely delishious!! We drank sake, which we had served to us in shot glasses and christ, that was enough for me! It was like drinking tequila or something it was so strong and made me shudder and pull a funny fave everytime i took the smallest of small sips! Al had about four or five glasses but i found it hard to be polite and just finish the one! We next moved onto a bar round the corner which was meant to have a pretty good live music scene and be quite hustle-y bustle-y at the weekends... On a Tuesday night though we were the only ones in the entire place, apart from one small indian man surrounded by Singaporean 'drink girls' sort of prossies that you buy a drink for in exchange for a bit of a fondle but no more! We saw a back door open at one point though ad there was about fifteen other drink girls all lined up and that looked like the manager would ship out half a dozen or so to the next single man that might come in! A strange concept!
Unfortunately Al woke up not feeling so well the next day, with a dizzy head and very tired so we left her to have a bit more sleep and headed out to do some more exploring... We found a place on the walk that sold a local Korean delicacy, honeyed and chillied pork... It sort of looked like bacon and we brought a couple of rashers, which came to about £2, an expensive delicacy but a fun one to try! We then walked past another shopping mall and popped into a Japanese bakery where we tried steam cakes. Mine was maple and raisin flavoured and it had the texture of very fluffy scrabbled egg and was super light, not stodgy like normal cake! We walked and ate and arrived at Clarke Quay, another cool hang out and i got serious dejavu remembering the boat tour we took when i came to Singapore before and sailing past the building with multi coloured window shutters and then the pastel houses on the river front! This area was Clarke Quay, it had lots of exclusive looking restaurants, bars and super clubs. We spied one that we fancied going back to, it had big cartoons all over the walls and it was a really funky and brightly coloured building, so wrote down the name but i cant remember it now!
We met Al back at Bugis market, where wed walked for a late lunch, KV tried tempura sweet potato with sour plum salt and they were super tasty and i had thai tofu which although really nice, was a bit disappointing because it was just deep friend tofu, drowned in thai sweet chilli sauce! It was so hot and spicey and the market was uber humid that i genuinely had beads of sweat running down my whole face and i had to go and find a stand with some air con to dry off and cool down! Oh and it would have been ride not to have a fresh iced kiwi juice for £1 wouldn't it! All three of us had another scout round the market and made successful purchases, the girls even managed a bit of haggling! I brought a cheapo pair of little slip on trainers as my toms are still giving me horrific blisters and so im scared to wear them and therefore brutally ive just been seeing them as a dead weight in my back pack! But hadn't wanted to throw them out incase we went trekking or something like that (my feet would be completely shredded anyway though so that logic doesn't hold!) KV got a couple of nice tops and Al a gorgeous flowy white shirt and a nice skirt, all for less than £20. As much as possible we are all still trying to live by the one in one out rule too.
After a good few hours wandering around Bugis market and discovering floors upon floors of clothes stalls and jewellery and shoes and phone cases and hair pieces and god everything a girl could possibly want, even these weird strap things that you fasten round your hips and it pulls skin from your back and thighs to make your bottom bigger and more rounded!! Weird right? The girls who buy that should just try our diet of deep fried everything for a few days!
We were planning on going to the night safari and so we jumped on the MRT home to freshen up and use the wifi to check how and where to catch the shuttle bus (which we thought was free, it wasnt! And thought went regularly, it didnt! And picked up from near our hostel, nope!) we had our tea in Maxwells, i had Pad thai with prawns which was really delish and made us all think of Krista as it was her fave dish down the east coast! Once we got back to the hostel we all climbed up into our beds and did the usual ten mins of surfing the net before really thinking about what our next move was... We slowly got ready after a little nap and then looked outside and saw that it was raining and it was a pretty unanimous decision to sack off going to the night zoo, especially considering our discoveries about the not so great direct shuttle bus. We justified it by saying wed use the time to do some research for the rest of the week, but we actually ended up watching TV, making our telephone calls home and generally dossing, very lazy of us! It was nice though and thoroughly needed! As we hadn't originally booked to stay so many nights however, the girls dorm we were in only had two spare beds so i had to sleep for one night in the mixed dorm, which was actually a lot nicer. It was much more spacious and cool and the bag lockers were way more accessible and even though there was probably 30 beds including doubles (weird?!) there was a lot less s*** all over the floor and space to actually move! It was a pretty good nights sleep.
The following morning we decided to try out a different food centre, another that was recommended on lots of the top ten to do lists. It was a little bit of a walk but we got to see the business district of the city, which was very similar to canary wharf in London, with its big talk glass fronted office blocks, with luminescent company logos at the top. There was probably as many western looking people in this area as there was anyone else! Lau Pa Sat food court was about three times the size of our Maxwells and sweaty as f***, with very limited air con! Although there was more food choice and variety. .. We had to do a full loop looking at all of the options before deciding and we played the locals at their own seat reservation game, each using a packof tissues placed on a stool to prevent others from sitting down in the ever so crowded centre and save us a table to eat at once wed purchased our food and it worked! It looked like one of the only unoccupied tables in the whole place because we had pre-reserved it!! I went once again to the stall with one of the biggest queues and asked what was good from the buffet style offering... I dont think the dude understood a word of what i said and happily started piling my plate high... I tried to say vegetarian only and managed to avoid some dodgey looking dried fish but i think some of what i convinced myself was chicken was actually pork! I tried lots of different bits, spicy cauliflower and broccoli, sweet and sour meat, soy rice and salt and pepper prawns with tofu (yes I'm pretty amazed i haven't been ill yet too!) and it was all pretty alright... The girls tried different stuff to but a combination if the massive humidity, hot food and spice literally made us pour with sweat and because if the whole saving seats thing, no hawker stand has napkins so we couldn't even mop our brows, we just had to sit and sweat and on poor old al and i it was very visible! Literally made mouthfuls of my food taste salty! To wash down our dinner and try to cool down we had a nice fresh fruit juice, i had green apple which was really refreshing, but more expensive than trusty maxwells so we felt a bit ripped off! After our juice we literally ran to the MRT station as they're so heavily air conned we thought it would cool us down and we spent a few seconds standing under the vents just drying off!!
We caught the train to orchid road, the famous shopping street in singapore, where seriously every building along the road has its own massive - and we talking eight or nine storey - shopping centres with every brand and designer under the sun! At first we didn't even know which way to look, let alone go! But quickly we realised there would be very little we could actually afford and so made a bee-line to a cluster of shops we recognised... Topshop, h and m etc. Orchid road really reminded me of vegas with all of the swanky looking hotel buildings and glam fairy lights and what not everywhere. I was also amazed at how good all the women looked... Like seriously how their full faces of make up had not slid off their faces or how they didn't have huge party pit stains i will never know!
After a few hours of shopping and browsing and a few purchases later - i got a pretty tie die esque dress from topshop for £10 and my expensive face moisturiser which is almost run out and i was despairing about - we started making our way from Orchid road and towards little india for dinner, before attempt number two at going to the night safari! Wed been told that little india had amazing food to offer and so we were all quite excited about an early dinner and as we walked through the sort of studenty part of the city i am sure we were all fantasising about curries and popadoms and naans and whatnot! When we arrived we were confronted with a massive amount of decoration hanging across the street, similar to the lanterns in china town and a whole road was closed to traffic due to the 'pengal celebrations' which we learnt was the indian harvest festival. Before we explored though we wanted food as having done so much walking we were all pretty hungry. I have to be completely honest here and say that at first i found little india and the food court quite intimidating... I think newly refurbed maxwells had lured us into a false sense of cleanliness and the Chinese/Asian culture is a lot more exposed to white girls in shorts and t-shirts as kate wisely summed up when we were being very obviously eye raped... In many indian and Arabic cultures their women have to cover up a lot more! So it took a couple of deep breaths and a few minutes for me to feel comfortable again. I think the girls were feeling the same as we did a loop of the food court without anyone saying anything and just as we looked to be coming to the end i spotted a roti shop, although they call them pratas here and they also sold kotu... Immediately i felt at ease as i remembered being in sri lanka with clairey and literally living on chocolate and banana roti (sort of a bit thicker and denser than a pancake and maybe crispier too, but delish) so i ordered one and sat down and soon both girls were following suit! They were cooked freshly in front of us, with the same kind of kneeding technique, remember the one clairey, when they wheeled the very thin dough around their heads?! And seeing kotu on the menu made me relax as well, as Sri Lankan delicacy, literally translated as chopped up! We had it in Sri Lanka with veg, chicken, egg and rice but here in the little india food court you could get kotu pratas - chopped up pancake - yummy! (Made me think of kieser-schmarn)
Next we took a walk down Campbell lane, the street closed to cars to see all of the market stalls set up and we came across a little farm set up with real giant cows and goats, next to what looked like a stage, with Pongal celebration decorations. Weird seeing Japanese tourists taking pics of the cows!! I loved walking down all of the windy streets though, being hit by different smells, some so spicy they literally hit the back of your throat and actually made you cough! And there were packets of bindis for sale everywhere, i found some sweet little ones that i wanted to by and there was a sign above them saying two for SD$1 so i got my 50c ready for just one packet and they tried to charge me SD$3 so i was having none of that! It really annoyed me that the shop owners tried i take the piss so much, just because i was a westerner! Gggrrr... So no bindis for me. Al found a cute little bag that she liked, with a gold elephant on it though :) we walked past millions of 'pure vegetarian' restaurants which made us feel happier about eating in india as some places have been hard for Al to find food without meat in! Ive sort of half fallen off the vegetarian bandwagon, although I'm only eating meat when a) i can see it and b) i know exactly what it is! I think after Singapore i night become more strict again! On the way out of little india we had a quick wee wee break and near the toilets in another shopping centre was a soy drinks place, that sold loads of different flavour frappes, all made from soy milk, so i had to try one, for only about £1! I had a mocha one and it was nice but had a bit of a weird toast taste to it! Al had a coffee one and vidster a chocolate pancake... Om nom nom!
We had brought all our stuff with us so that we could go straight to the night safari next but we hadnt looked at the exact pick up points and shuttle bus times, we just remembered seeing a bus near our favourite Bugis market and thought wed be able to ask or hook into some wifi to check... As we walked up the road we spotted the bus at the other end of it and i absolutely pegged it to catch it before it went at the lights change, but i got there and there was no driver in it and it looked parked... We asked a few people sitting around whether they knew anything about the shuttle but they didnt so we divided and conquered... Al say by the bus in case the driver came back, KV dashed into Bugis to get us all tempura sweet potato for our dinner and i went into the shopping centre to find out what i could from the info booth. We had missed the last bus, it was not free and did not pick up from anywhere near where we were - great! But i really really wanted to go a the previous time i had been it had been tainted by sleep deprivation and sweaty school PE kit! So we worked out how to get to the night safari using public transport and in the end it worked out cheaper than the direct shuttle bus and although a bit slower we all felt a big sense of satisfaction for successfully navigating ourselves there... Well done us!
At the night safari you catch a tram around the majority of the park, you gives you a running commentary of what animals your passing an although its dark, there is clever moonlight lighting which means you can still see the animals and some of them are super active at night. The guide had a really funny accent, which went up at the en of every sentence so we got fits of giggle for the first ten minutes as fittingly we went past hyenas and tigers! We then jumped off the tram at the first station to do a walk through the wilderness and go to see the leopards and flying squirrels and lots of other cute little animals. Hilariously we saw the flying squirrel and it had a massive wee above us which was pretty grim and then we were all pretty freaked out by the fruit bat cage, wed seen them in Melbourne and they were quizzing around the cage so we were wusses and bypassed it! We nipped quickly to the toilet and brilliantly in the ladies on Singapore they usually have a children's toilet or little boys urinal and we thought this one was so funny! Al stood next to it and it made her look like an absolute giant! and i couldn't resist a wee on it... The hardest thing in the world squatting that low and aiming in a pretty small hole! Enough of that anyway... Back on the tram again we saw elephants that were huge; Giraffes which weren't as tall as i thought they would be; a s*** load of deer; the tram actually clipped the horn of a buffalo; hippos in their 'mud spa'; rhinos which were actually terrifyingly big and you wouldn't want to mess with them; sleeping lions and loads of birds with long skinny legs... It was soo cool! We didn't get off the tram again though to do any other trails because we wanted to catch the 1030pm Animals of the wild show that the ticket guy had said was really good! I was f***ing pissed when another dude in night safari camp uniform said that the 1030 show was only at weekends- b******s!! We did have a giggle in the gift shop though, trying on silly fluffy animal hats and playing with the stuffed teddies!
We got back to the hostel at about midnight, having been via maxwells on the way home to satisfy the girls tummies... We found a place that sold egg and onion roti and so they tucked into their midnight snack... The food court was full of young people drinking at that time of night and playing cards... They all looked pretty trendy and probably underage although i found it very difficult to know... We felt right down with the kids! And then we crawled into bed afterwards and conked out pretty much straight away after our long day walking around!
We had the best intentions in the world to wake up early and all our alarms went off at eight and Al even said come on girls, up! But nope, not a chance we three lazy bears were getting out of bed before 9am! Once we were up and had decided to go to the south east island of Ubin via train, bus and ferry to go mountain biking, we headed to maxwells for breakfast, back to the roti shop! I had a plain roti and brought so e fresh pineapple and green apple from another vendor and had sort of a fruit pancake, it was delish! Although i had to have a cheeky Chinese coconut pancake as well because i wasn't full, the roti was a diddy one! In the middle of brekky kate suddenly s*** herself that we hadn't actually extended our matchbox hostel booking and we were due to check out in half an hour or so, so after my pancake we dashed back and asked if they had availability for the next two nights, assuming the whole time that they would. It was a bit if a shock when the guy at the desk said they were fully booked and i joked about being able to sleep on the lounge on the top floor, on the bean bags and miraculously he said yeah ok then £5 each! We weren't actually sure whether that was a yes we could or if he was giving us a room in the end as he handed us a key! But after a bit of clarification yep we were defo just sleeping upstairs in the lounge! £5 instead if £20 a night was pretty good though :) we managed to move all our big bags to the baggage storage room and put our passports into the tiny locker wed been allocated (this was what the key was for) and avoid the late check out fine! Phew...
At lunchtime, instead of the 9am start we had orginally planned, we headed to changi ferry port to get across the the island Ubin. Wed heard that it was naturally very beautiful and was how Singapore had been like 30 years ago, with straw huts and no running water... So we were excited to see something a bit different, instead if all the shopping malls and technology centres! Ubin was also famous for its seafood apparently and after a short wait for the ferry (it wouldn't leave until twelve people had turned up and wanted a ride) we made a bee line to a small looking restaurant with plastic yellow chairs and a few other people eating to have a late lunch! Feeling a bit adventurous i had prawn balls which i had to convince myself i liked... There were tiny shrimps inside and then padded out a lot with what i sincerely hoped was mash potato but really could have been anything - lard is another delicacy! Bleughhhh We ordered some veg fried rice as well to eat three ways but it came with tiny battered fish in it an millions of them - sardines or something tiny! And they had their heads on and everything, i didnt like the crunch of the batter, it made eating whole fish a lot more gross and my stomach really turned when i picked a lone eyeball out of my rice - yaggg! After our lunch escapades we rented mountain bikes and helmets which you had to pay extra for and set off on a leisurely peddle around the island and towards the mountain bike park which we thought wed try our hand at!! It was at this point else realised how fat and unfit wed all gotten as we were sweating like pigs in a china shop and pretty much having heart attacks in the humid heat! Al was plotting another horror story out loud as well and as the island was so deserted and quiet, we all started to believe it and got a little bit freaked out... We did a couple of the easy mountain bike tracks, which wernt easy with a bike with gears that jumped only between 2 and 7 - impossible! My whole outfit was absolutely drenched by the end of it i was so hot and sweaty as i felt seriously bad about sitting in such close proximity to other people on the bus and train home :/ i stank!! The mountain biking was great though, we got to see some really beautiful parts of the island, like a massive tranquil lake and little settlements but we did also see where obviously tourists had set up camp and left all their rubbish behind, which was a bit of a shame... The view back to the coast of Singapore was littered with big oil stations and huge ships as well so I'm glad we ha decided not to go to the beach (because it wasn't sunny!) as it wouldn't have been that nice!
Obviously the second we went home we went straight to Maxwells food as we were hungry an knackered! The girls had egg and onion roti again and i tried Popiah, which were like little Chinese pancakes with a spicy paste and a sweet plum sauce and salad, veggies, egg and peanuts inside them - they were so gorgeous :) we all then flopped when we got in, in the lounge room and sat and watched a movie - how to loose a guy in ten days, a classic kate Hudson depressing film!! We had said we would meet the Byron guys as it was one of their birthdays and they were going to a bar we ha thought looked swanky nearby our hostel... So we all slowly started the showering and washing hair process, which took quite a long time as we were all feeling quite lethargic! But eventually we were ready and after a good of tiger beer for the girls (not me - bleughhhh) and spilling it all over my bed, we were ready to go! We walked round to the Vault, feeling a little nervous as you had to be 23 to get in i had said on their website and pretty shortly we were making our way home again as the club was full and the boys had maxed out their guest list! It was a bit cringe walking back in about five past midnight having left only ten minutes earlier! We did managed to use the time to do some research on busses to KL and what we wanted to do the following day. And then we all passed out for the night in our little lounge bedroom which although cramped was surprisingly comfortable and i slept well!
In the morning whilst KV was getting ready, i went to the roti shop in maxwells for breakfast ad sat and age my egg and onion one, with curry sauce and one of the very old workers, who had recognised me from our previous visits and beckoned me over to sit next to him and eat... he chatted away to me in indian and he seemed to understand when i chatted back in English but i had no idea! all the other workers at the stall laughed at us and said i looked like his girlfriend, but he was the most adorable old man with no teeth, very brown wrinkly skin and a mop of stark white hair - he couldn't hurt a fly! KV hand i went off exploring when we were both breakfasted and we walked over to the Marina and had a look at all of the amazing buildings and took some tourist photos in front of the marina bay sands hotel and everything and we visited the Merlion park, which had a big statue of a half lion half. Mermaid, shooting water out of its mouth! We did have to stoop into the souvineers shop at one point though just to stand under the Aircon vents and dry off all the sweat - disgusting! We decided next to get the train a couple of stops and head up to Arab street and Kampong Glam (which is supposed to be the me red light district of Singapore, although we didn't see anything untoward going on in the day). Arab street was really cool and Middle East-y with Shisha bars and material/sari shops everywhere and i fell in love with a pair of Ali Baba trousers, which i now massively regret not buying but at time i thought they were too expensive - £10!! It was obviously an affluent area though as there were lots of very nice cars floating about and incredibly good looking women! And we were very diligent, we walked to the bus station as well to enquire about Sundays bus to KL - times and prices etc and we decided to get on the 1200h bus Mylasia bound. I did have some exciting food in a food court near the station, little waffle type things called egglets. They had a crispy sort of shell and a google waffle interior and came like a big mesh of egglets that you sort of snapped off! Werd but so good and mine were chocolate flavoured...om nom nom...
Back at the hostel we had a few hours of making phone calls home which was really nice, good to hear what everyone else is up to and probably good for you guys to hear me say its raining or stormy or clouded over!!! We got dolled up again though i wore exactly the same thing as the previous night, my New Year's Eve dress and i popped on a slick of red lippy to feel posh and set off for 1 Altitude, the highest al fresco bar in the world. It ha a strict dress code - pretty much dress to impress and hell no to flip flops; weirdly a different age restriction for girls and boys, 21 and 23, something to do with maturity i wondered ;) and lastly a £15 cover charge that included a drink from the bar. We all ordered Singapore slings, it would have been rude not to(!) and they are now my new cocktail of choice, so yummy! The view from the rooftop bar was absolutely incredible! We were up 64 storeys and had a 360 panoramic view of the Singapore skyline at night, with all the twinkly lights... Yes sure it wasn't your typical backpacker night but wowzer it was great!! And we then made our way to Clarke Quay, after wed finished out initial drinks to go and find somewhere to have a dance... When we got there, there was absolutely millions of backpackers, ex pats and locals sitting and drinking on a pedestrian bridge in the middle of the quay... It looked so cool and was a people watchers heaven! We got into the Q for 7.11 supermarket and the girls got some beer and i a Pepsi and we settled ourselves on a little spot and reflected on what a good time wed just had and how much we had actually enjoyed Singapore! We got chatting to a few people who had come from thailand and just arrived in Singapore so we swapped lots of useful tips and i am incredibly excited about Ko phi phi island now, from what they said!! Before we knew it, it was nearly 3am so we decided to give going to an expensive club a miss and head home as we had to be out of the lounge room by 9am the following morning and we were aiming to be at the bus station quite early to cross over into Malaysia and next stop KL! (Obviously once again we went via maxwells home to our favourite roti shop where they'd started greeting us as long lots friends! We all felt kinda sad to be leaving them as they were all so sweet, especially the grandad!)
We got up relatively early on the Sunday, bleary eyed and grumpy though and packed out stuff in almost silence and checked out of the hostel, having settled our bill... We probably could have walked away having not paid, they were that trusting but because of that and the hostel karma that KV keeps going on about, of course we did pay up! After a quick maxwells breakfast and a roti for luck we headed on our way, via an uber executive coach to Malaysia!
- comments
Debs Lawson Please don't stop telling us all about the different and interesting food you are experiencing - love hearing how your horizons are broadening and becoming more adventurous about what you eat!! No separate blog, keep it altogether, it's just perfect and well done for remembering a d capturing so much day to day detail - almost makes me feel like I'm with you! Love xxx