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Dan and Lu's Travels
The fridge finally arrived at the Singapore border about 6am. We were shoved off the bus into a throng of people seemingly going to work. Malaysians obviously cross the border daily to go to work in Singa. We had no clue what to do but a friendly passenger who spoke no English helped us. We got dropped off at a travel agents at 7.30am and encountered about 10 of the rudest people we have met since being in the UK. We didn't have any moeny so we needed an ATM and we didn't know where in Singapore we were so we needed a map. We cam to the conclusion after a coffee break that as we were in a 'rich' place now, and they don't need tourism like they do in the rest of southest asia it'll take a little bit longer to find someone who cares!
We found a helpful taxi driver and an address of a hostel. Sleppy Sam's was a lovely stylish hostel with dorm beds (argh!) and really friendly staff who let us leave our bags so we could check out other hostels. We did but ended up there; not what I expected of dorms and was quite impressed.
We checked out Singapore for a few hours. Walked to the theatres on the Esplanade, by the river, which is a n astounding structure that looks like lots of giant fly eyes. It houses theatres and galleries and cafes and general cool artyness. We then headed for the river where Sir Stamford Raffles first landed and claimed Singa for Britain (how very colonial of him...).
Singapore is a contrast to anywhere we've been over the lat 2 months so I'm not sure whether I can give a good, true impression of it. Its certainly not like any other city I've been to, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. The first thing we noticed is that evryone obeys signs. They stop at red lights (given, they do that in most other places). But NO ONE crosses the road unless the green man is flashing. Slightly robotic if anything. And you can get fined for anything.
There are some gorgeous colonial buildings, you kind of feel like you're on a film set. Maybe that's the thing with this place, it feels slightly fake, almost like its trying too hard to be a city with an identity.
But we had a good afternoon in the city and the art galleries and a good night in some bars. We had a few 3-year-anniversary cocktailsin a Morrocan bar then found an English style bar. Sorry for being saddos but I never believe that English style bars can be like the real thing. But this was, right down to the Brit Pop, Walkers crisps and city workers drinking Guinness and leering over the barmaids. We bought a Tweey Pie cuddly toy from a deaf man who almost made us both cry.
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