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Our flight to Singapore was amazing. Singapore Airlines is clearly the don of aeroplanes. The flight was very late, guess why it was so cheap, it had awesome movies and v shows and music and a lush meal of prawn noodles. It meant we were eating at 2am which was weird but free and lovely.
After only a couple of hours sleep we landed exhausted an after some pretty bad turbulence (no I didn't freak out at all, honest) we were safe on land again. Onto the MRT and a quick walk to our hostel which I navigated to perfection. Unfortunately check in wasn't until 2pm and so we had a lengthy 4 hour wait to sit through. With no energy at all we stayed in the guesthouse on a couple of chairs and watched the residents get up and check out. This was to be our first dorm experience so we thought we needed to make an extra effort with everyone we saw because they could potentially be sharing our room.
We soon clicked that all the interesting people must be out for the day as there were some strange characters lingering round the hostel. We may have been sat in one guy's chair as he kept walking past looking at us with clear distaste; either that or we'd killed his mother in another life. We named him Bill Oddie as he was really odd, Bill for short. We got chatting to French girl who talked us through her life in India, Australia, England and Singapore, and it was nice to hear about someone else's experiences as we find ourselves talking about us far too much. Then we found out she was leaving that day so no friends for us. We went for a walk and some lunch to the local eatery which was almost McDonalds but we dodged that, into the locals hawkers centre. Laura wasn't hungry so I just asked the girl what was good, she recommended something and I just naively agreed. Only after sitting down did we notice the menu board and I began to worry. Crocodile Palm soup, Viscera soup and Big Intestine being the clear specialties. But whatever it was, it was very nice.
We then popped to the shop then back to the hostel where we had a room ready. She offered us a private room and having seen some of the residents we were more than fine with that. Being shattered we made do with the broom cupboard we were directed to and got a couple of hours much needed sleep.
When we woke up it was time for dinner so we went for a walk around Kampong Glam and Little India. Having eaten enough Indian food for now we settled for Malaysian (we think) big bowls of noodles and soup. Delish.
Our first full day began with The Raffles Hotel, of course we had to start here. Saw the hotel lobby and clearly out of place in all the extravagance moved onto Orchard Road for some up market shopping!! We were supposed to be heading for the Botanical Gardens at the end of the road but found it difficult to get there as we didn't seem to be able to walk past more than a couple of malls before going in for a quick look. The sheer amount of shops and malls is unbelievable and the size of them all in such close capacity is surely more than one road needs. We passed a dozen Louis Vuitton and Prada and Gucci all in one road. And everything is so clean and shiny. So easy to navigate and even if you get lost there are half a dozen people ready and wanting to help. Everyone is smiling and happy to serve in the cafes and restaurants. I think the girl in Starbucks is my new best friend she was so happy to see us. We had stopped for a refuel so has the Christmas specials. Singapore has decked out its halls in style and the songs are in the shops already. There are more lights on trees down Orchard Road than in Lapland I think. After at least 4 or 5 hours we finally made it to the Botanical Gardens and quickly sat down for a rest next to the Koi Pond.
The sun set and we wandered around the Gardens which are big enough to need their own map to navigate. It's huge and beautiful. Following our rule of eating a different nationality every day while in Singapore; Malaysian last night; American for lunch at BK; and the Mexican for dinner with nachos and fajitas and some overly rich and sweet puddings, we waddled home down Orchard Road feeling overindulged and a lot rounder. And much poorer.
Our next day was spent at Singapore Zoo. We got up early to make the most of the day and a journey on the MRT and a locus bus later, a world away from the buses in India and Sri Lanka, and we were in the zoo.
We liked the zoo very much because it was open plan and no cages. (Not too open plan, the animals were contained by ditches, otherwise it would have been unsuccessful I think.) The white tigers were amazing, especially at feeding. As were the baboons and they were really smart, they knew by being entertaining they would be fed quicker so we had an acrobatics show of jumping, somersaults and handstands. We followed the feeding schedule around the zoo, so saw the lions, white rhino, cheetah, hippos being fed. We saw the elephant show and the sea lion show and unlike Trivandrum zoo, we weren't treated as an exhibit as well. They had all sorts of creatures roaming around, otters and lizards and an otter had even got into the lion enclosure. Rather him than me. It was amazing in general and all the animas looked really happy. They are rotated onto different enclosures to give them variety and more space and they have a very active breeding program to try and help the endangered species.
We got the MRT back to the Arab quarter and n Egyptian restaurant for another stop in our around-the-world cuisine trip. Saving money by going for the set meal we then splurged on pitta and dips. Again feeling full and greedy we walked home past Orchard Street and crawled into our stuffy humid room to bed.
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