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Singapore (Mon 23rd - Thurs 26th Feb)
Arrived at Changi Airport after a short 2 hour fight from Bali on Singapore Airlines. First impressions as you travel into the centre is how clean and tidy, well organised and advanced the place seems to be. When you reach the centre and start travelling around you realise that Singapore is one enormous shopping mall or rather over 200 integrated shopping malls. Some of them are enormous with 4 or 5 floors and some are open 24 /7. It doesn't matter where you want to go or what you want to do your journey will involve walking though a mall. If you want to take the Metro, go to the cinema or theatre, go out for a meal then you will finish up in a mall because that is where they are located. The shortest route back to your hotel will involve walking through several malls. It is also very handy when it rains which it does a lot in Singapore.
Singapore is a strange place in that it is a separate country but it is more like one very large city with a population of about 4.5 million. It is also an island. It has a superb public transport system and is very easy to travel around. We stayed at the Elizabeth Hotel in the Orchard Road area which is renowned as the top shopping area (in malls obviously) in the city/country ?. The place is also full of cheap food courts (in malls of course) offering the cuisine of the 3 main ethnic groups which make up the country Malay , Chinese and Indian so that is where we ate on two evenings.
We went on our usual hop-on, hop off (Hippo) sightseeing buses to get our bearings and finished up at the Singapore Flyer which is similar to the London Eye but bigger. You get tremendous 360 degree views and an excellent commentary of the city on the 35 minute ride. Surprise, surprise the Flyer is based on the top of a shopping mall. Later that day we visited Raffles Hotel and had what else but a couple of Singapore Slings - very nice too but rather expensive at $S23 (£10) a glass. Raffles Hotel does not have any rooms only suites which cost between £500 and £1,000 per night (slightly cheaper if you book through Expedia).It was so pleasant there that we went back again on our last third/last day for some more Slings - this time to the famous Long Room where it is tradition to throw your monkey nut shells on the floor rather than in the bin. Again another expensive visit.
The only other tour of note was to the Botanical Gardens on the west side (again via our Hippo bus). We seem to be making a habit of visiting this kind of place as it is an escape from the noise and bustle of the city centre. They are definitely worth a visit and have a beautiful orchid garden. For a measly $S10,000 you can have your own hybrid orchid grown in the garden along with Madonna, Lady Diana and Ricky Martin.
While we were in Singapore Gwen discovered that Rod Stewart was in concert on the Saturday night. We did consider changing our departure plans to see him performing but eventually decided against it. But as luck would have it he is also performing in Hong Kong on our last night there so we now have tickets to see Rod the Mod next week.
We both liked Singapore. It was not as hot or humid as I expected and with the right job and salary it would be not be a bad place to live and work at least for a short while.
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