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Since i never learnt how to say hello in singaporean and they speak english anyway, ill just say hi!
So as you may have guessed i am currently residing in the lovely copthorne orchid hotel in singapore, and tonight is my final evening here after a lovely relaxing and cultural week of food, shopping, some more food and lots of sleep :P i must admit i have completly used this week to recharge my batteries after Vietnam, much to the maid's annoyance when i refused to leave my room by 10am for her to clean!
let me start at the beginning, after a very early start on on wednesday, i left for the airport in vietnam in the MOST dodgy of taxi's! there was me, the driver, and this random guy who decided that he wanted to go to the same place as me so hopped in and got a free ride! then the cheeky b***** of a driver demanded a tip for his services even though i had paid a pretty decent fair as it was...No sir you shall not take my money - that is reserved for the mcdonalds breakfast i am already planning in my head at the airport! the flights were just disasterous. i mean not in the way that we crashed and died or anything, more in the way of a very annoying irish girl sitting next to me intent on sharing her life story when i clearly was more interested in the blank screen of my switched off iphone that i was pretending had some sort of film playing on it! seriously, luv, i dont know you, im not going to the same place as you even though you keep forgetting that i have told you that 4 times and i really dont give a s*** about what you are goign to buy for breakfast or anything about your life! it may sound harsh but you would all do the same at 6am! then, after finally landing in Kuala Lumpar for my connecting flight, a strange man who was sitting opposite me on the plane attempted to gain invite to stay with me in england! he gave me his business card and everything, im pretty sure he was trying to sell me....subtly switiching the ring onto the wedding finger....so off to another good start i feel! eventually i got to singapore, and was absolutly shocked at how organised everything was! there was a shuttle ready to take me to wherever i needed to go, people who actually knew what they were talking about an information desks, and even ATM machines that worked! although i did get stopped at customs AGAIN because some beads on a necklace in my bag apparently resembled bullets and they obviously assumed i had bought many a firearm in vietnam and tried to sneak it through customs just for s***s and giggles! still, i straight away fell in love with singapore, and here is my top five reasons why, (all of which were discovered on the ride to my hotel by the way):
1. the word toilet is not synonomous with the words hole in the floor
2. all the trees along the side of the road have fairy lights in them, just because they look pretty.
3. the face shop, the bread society and condom-mania are actually real places.
4. wifi is freely available even in public toilets.
5. everyone assumes that as im english i regulaly dine with the queen! seriously.
so wednesday evening was the usual for me in a new city, tourist leaflets, a pad of paper, movie channel and room service. dont you dare judge me. :P
Thursday rolled around as expected and after not getting out of bed until around midday, i thought it best to start exploring the city that will be my home for the next few days. this of course meant grabbing the free and actually on time shuttle bus to orchard road (the main shopping strip) and spending the day shopping! i actually cant begin to describe this city, i mean everything is so damn clean and everything works! there are starbucks and cafes everywhere that spill out into the pavement in an incredibly organised manner, all of which have free wifi! the city itself is absolutly beautiful as well, the architecture is amazing, i mean actually amazing, and some of these buildings are so old and yet preserved perfectly for day to day life! there is no litter, no angry teenagers roaming the streets, no carboard block buildings that wont survive the next decade, its all quality. thats the only way to put it i think. as you can see i kind of like this place! and the most surreal thing of all, in the middle of malaysia, half way accross the world, i found myself buying a pack of percy pigs from the local marks and spencers!! weird eh?!
Anyway, Friday soon arrived after a peaceful evening exploring the wonderful food court at one of the shopping malls, and by the way it is officially day 88 of my trip today - which makes it 3 months officially since i left home! see mum, and im still alive and everything! i havnt even lost a limb yet! :P so i spent the day shopping again, but this time it was actually shopping i needed to do and not just oogling at all the designer shops! i also found a very nice little internet cafe to finally check my emails and facebook after what seemed like an eternity!
so after i spent far too much money i decided to do some cultural s*** and go to the botanical gardens which coincidentally was also the home of the famous singapore orchid garden. aside from being absolutly beautiful which was to be expected, it was just so peaceful. there is something about walking round on my own through georgous surroundings listening to the perfect song on my ipod that just makes me feel so damn content - its the best thing about travelling on my own really, i just get those moments where i may not even be anywhere special but somehow, for some reason, i wouldnt want to be anywhere else. the only downside to the afternoon was that there were these statues all over the place of different people and general pretty things and there was this bench with what looked like a statue of a man reading on it, so obviously i wanted to take a picture of myself with the statue in a really cool looking pose (dont laugh, you all would do the same!) so there i was about 4 inches away from this statue with my camera right in its face ready to take the perfect shot...and as it turns out the so called statue was actually a very old man attempting to read quietly on a nice day in the park when some random tourist came and shoved a camera in his face...i ran away very quickly and promptly left the gardens. he was not amused. bad times.
by the time i got back to the hotel i literally had about 5 minutes to get ready for the magical night safari that i was booked onto, except that when i got down to the lobby and saw the man with the clipboard rounding people up, there was this indian family who were intent on the fact that i could not possibly be the final person in the group even though it was my name on the list because there was another indian family who they had befriended who for some reason deserved preferential treatment over little old me! the dad even tried to convince the other family and the tour guide that their surnames WERE infact trimlett and they were just confused. needless to say i simply sat in the minibus and waited for them to figure it out...oh at which point whilst i was waiting i made up a little song about singapore! would you like to hear it? well, it goes to the tuen of pretty from westside story and is a little something like this:
singapores pretty, oh so pretty
for a city its so nice and clean
ill admit it, may be the nicest place ive been...
its so charming, its alarming
how expensive expresso is here
at 4 dollars, i may as well have bought a beer!
see previous teachers and employers...i am talented :P
anyway, we got to the night safari and somehow during the journey on the bus everyone has seen me making notes for this blog in fact and assumed that i was a travel writer...well im not one to burst someones bubble so of course i went along with it! and apparently i am a very convincing travel writer because the tour guide put me on the safari first and even got me a drink with the buffet dinner to try and get a good review :P who was i to argue, im on a budget! the safari itself was actually really cool, we saw basically the same animals as i did in africa but much closer and obviously in the dark (it being a night safari and all!) so all in all was a very entertaining visit!
saturday was another cultural carnvial of activity! i decided that i was going to walk the length of orchard road and maybe grab a taxi to the singapore flyer in the evening to catch the city at sunset (the flyer is basically the same as the london eye but a bit taller...apparently) however i didnt really judge the length of orchard road that well, i mean those tourist maps are shot really arnt they! so i basically ended up walking the entire length of singapore city in one afternoon!! oh and it rained as well which didnt help matters, but after you get so far its kind of a matter of pride and i refused to give in and get a taxi - damn it these boots were made for walking and singapore - im gonna walk all over your ass! so i eventually got to the flyer, just in time for sunset which was cool, and on the way i passed the infamous raffles hotel (which i couldnt go in because i was wearing flip flops!), and the fountain of wealth (i felt very stupid walking around it 3 times just getting my feet wet, however i did find 50 singapore dollars in my pocket about half an hour later that i had forgotton about :P) so all in all it was well worth the blisters lol! and needless to say i got a taxi back to the hotel afterwards! my tootsies still havnt recovered!
and that leads me to today - sunday. i am currently in singapore airport enjoying a wonderful 5 hour wait for my flight to bali in an airport where everything is so god damn expensive i really am making full use of the free internet facilities (believe me its either free internet or i dont eat!) so here i will bid you farewell dear readers until next time!
xxx
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