We arrived in Singapore late Saturday night and were looking forward to the comfort of a hotel for 3 nights (decided to splash out an extra pound for a hotel for my birthday). So as you can imagine we were rather shocked when we arrived and were greeted by a flock of hookers! Yep, our hotel was smack bang in the middle of the red light district (Nic it brought back fond memories of Barcelona hehe). Luckily the hotel was nice enough and we put on our brave faces and clutched tightly to one another as we stepped outside into the 'neighbourhood' (a far cry from the comforts of Bascote and Burton Green!)

The area, aside from the 'ladies', was culturally eye-opening and quite overwhelming. The streets were packed with predominantly men of various Asian races all sat at the hundreds of food stalls/cafes. The place STUNK! Really weird smells of indian and chinese foods, sweat, fruits and veg, body odour, dirt and frog porridge! Very strange but really quite amazing. Nothing, however, tempted us the smell and humidity was too much after a long day of travels.

The next day we got up and sheepishly peeked out the window to see that the 'ladies' were not around and so made a run for it hehe. The city is so fascinating. We weren't sure what to expect as so many people had told us it wasn't that great as a city and that it is also known as 'Singabore'. But we really didn't agree! It is full of culture that neither one of us has ever witnessed. We had a random selection of chinese foods for breakfast in China Town, yummy. China Town was great and so cheap. We then visited a beautiful temple. In the afternoon we took a train to 'Little India' which was not really our cup of tea! But it was amazing to see, just not smell eek! The heat and the smell was not pleasent.

We then had 'high tea' at Raffles Hotel, in one of its many restaurants, it was beautiful. Feeling refreshed we then strolled to the City Hall where a pre-Grand Prix event was taking place with Mika Hakkinen as a star guest. He whizzed up and down the streets- very impressive but far too loud for my small ears hehe. We then had a look round the Opera House, architectually impressive but not a patch on Sydney. We then braved it and had dinner back in our neighbourhood which was yummy!

Following day -MY BIRTHDAY! Had such a fantastic day! We spent the day on Sentosa Island, originally used during the war but has since be converted into a massive tourist attraction with loads of stuff to do. However, we hit the beach (so quiet) in search of brunch and came across the best bar EVER! It was fenced off on the beach looking out at the sea and had BEDS to lounge on! Not sunloungers, actual beds with pillows it was divine! So we set up camp there for the day where we supped cocktails in bed and at the pool bar... perfect birthday! After finally dragging our bums back to the hotel we got ready for dinner in china town where we had a lovely meal, including a spicy crab (local dish)- yummy! We then took a stroll to Clarke Quay for a few drinks and matt arranged a cake with a candal for me and he actually sang (not too loud) Happy Birthday! Brilliant! We also saw a bar called 'clinic' which had seats for wheel chairs with 'cocktail drips' and operating tables etc- hilarious but out of our price range!

Following day we got the train to Kual Lumpar - seven hours!