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Wahooo!! No more long bus journeys (well, at least not for a while!!)! It took us 5 hours to get to Singapore via Jahor Bahru and I have to say it wasn't that bad! I think were getting used to this travelling lark!! We arrived with no money which so far hadn't been a problem as usually its easy to find a cash point to get the new currency out. However this time the nearst cash point didn't take foreign cards so we had a nice trek down the road with all our stuff to find money to get a taxi to our hostel!! Luckily we got sorted and arrived at the 'Inn Crowd'. We had arrived on Chinese New Years Eve so we headed out to China Town to see what was happening..... it was mental!!! There was a Tibeten market on for the celebrations and it was the last day to there were loads of people there trying to get last minute bargins. We had a look around (as much as you can when you're packed like sardins in a tin!!) and found a stage where there looked like something might be going on.......2 hours later nothing seemed to be happening so we set off in search of the New Year fireworks someone had told us about. We went to Esplanades where there were fireworks set off along the bridge, it was a really good display at 12 midnight to see the New Year in (probably better than the ones in Hong Kong on the 31st Dec!!). We eventually made it back to our 17 bed dorm to crash for the night.
We decided to explore by foot on our second day in the city. We went over to the Padang and saw the old cricket pitch, city hall, the supreme courts, old parliament buildings and Raffles landing site. Walking along the river we went past the Fullerton Hotel (which is the old post office) and ended at the Merlion (a strange Lion/Mermade statue with water spouting out of its mouth!!) for a quick pit stop as it was getting really hot. We then headed back along the river to Clark Quay and into Fort Canning park. It was really nice walking around the park in the shade of the trees, it didn't quite seem like you were in a city (except for the large office buildings in the back drop!!). After a nice relaxing afternoon we headed back to the hostel in search of dinner!
Ah the most exciting day - The Zoo!! We got up early to head to the zoo for the day, it was soooooo much fun! We saw Bengal White Tigers, a Komodo dragon, White rhino and many other wierd and wonderful creatures that we've never heard of!! We had a great day!! And it wasn't over yet!! At 6pm when the zoo closed we went over to the Zoo Night Safari (which I'm told it the only one in the world!!). First on the agenda was the tribal fire dance, and this is the best bit..... Dave got picked to go on stage!! They striped him to the waste and got him to put a fire stick inside one of the tribal guys mouth while he sprayed lighter fluid everywhere. It was so funny, he looked so scared (he thought they were going to make him try the fire breathing!!)!!! The guy then made him do a dance on stage infront of the crowd (it was......amusing shall we say; I pretended I didn't know him!!) before blowing fire in his face! We then set off on our night safari walk. We got to see a fishing cat, tigers, lions, cheetahs, a leopard, hyenes and leopard cats followed by the Creatures of the Night show which was a great way to finish the day (apart from the HUGE snake!!)!! We headed home shattered but having had a brilliant day!
After a very hectic day at the Zoo we decided to have a nice long lie in before heading off to the 'plastic fantastic' island of Sentosa!! It has several man-made beaches and lots of 'fun' things to do (for kids but not for adults!!)!! As it was a weekend it was packed but we managed to go to the 4D cinema which was great fun being sprayed with water and all sorts of other special effects! We looked at going up the Carslberg Tower but it was a bit lame after all the really tall towers we've seen through out our trip!! We headed down to look at the (plastic) beaches but they were a bit naff and so we decided to just get an ice cream and then head back! The evenings entertainment was a trip to the famous Raffles Long Bar. We doned our glad rags and headed out in search of Raffels Hotel! When we got there we found in fact that you don't really need to dress up (but it was fun anyways for one night!!) but still enjoyed out Singapore Sling at the bar (or I did anyway, I think Dave would have prefered a pint!)!!
Our last day in Singapore was quite layed back as we'd managed to fit almost everything in already!! We had a guided tour around Kampung Glam (well, Dave with a self guided walking map!!), the local Arab area, followed by a trip to Changi villiage, bit of a mistake this one - it took us AGES to get there!!! We ended up wasting most of the afternoon trying to get there and so didn't have that much time left to spend there (though luckily there wasn't anything to do really other than look around!!). We packed up in the evening as the next day we had to take our first flight in 5 weeks!
As our flight wasn't until later in the day we spent the morning walking around Orchard Road, the famous shopping area, though unfortunately due to low funds and expensive prices we couldn't buy anything!! It was then on to the airport to catch our over night flight to Sydney, Australia!
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