Hello from Asia! After a mamouth journey I arrived safe and sound in Singapore. I left Auckland at 4am and by the time I had found the hosel it was 8pm but nearer midnight according to my bodyclock! Suitably tired we found a little Indian restaurant and wildly picked something - needless to say we are certainly going to have to get used to the spice over here! After that my brain was starting to shut down and so we went back to the hostel. It is called Sleepy Sams and set in the heart of the city between Little India and China Town on a little pedestrian st. At night it comes alive with restaurants and sheesha bars and is really vibrant but by day sleepy is certainly the best word to describe it!

The next day our first stop was the F1 racing track - you can actually walk right on it for free which was quite unexpected! A lot of the track is used as road when there is no racing so you don't exactly get to see much but enough! In the afternoon we wandered around and absorbed the city - even though this was my first visit to Asia I didn't feel the 'culture shock' at all. Singapore is a relatively calm and peacefull city and the bewilderment I was expecting didn't hit me at all. Always a good thing though I suppose! We found a little food court on our wanderings and it was clearly off the beaten track a little in that we were the only white people in the entire place and general surrounding area!! Everything was so cheap so we stocked up on dim sum and noodle soup! It's a good job I think that I have been avoiding rice and noodles for the past couple of months! You can't really get away from it over here!

That evening we dressed up and went out to the famous Raffles Hotel. We assumed that you just walked in the front doors and so while trying to appear as confident and sophisticated as we could we walked in only to be abruptly pulled to the side by a security guard who directed us around the back way to the tourists Long Bar! We followed his directions and searched for ages without much luck but we did get to see a lot of the real raffles on our way! Eventually we made it up the cleaners stairs and found the entrance to the Long Bar. We really needn't have bothered dressing up - at all!! A lot of the people looked so much scruffier than we did if we had no intention of leaving the house all day! There were monkey nut shells all over the floor - seemingly it's a colonial tradition - they ate so many people couldn't keep up with the cleaning I guess!? But all in all it was a bit of an anticlimax! We ordered the obligatory Singapore Sling however even though with the service charge it was probably the single most expensive drink of the trip! We only stayed for one and then made our way to Clarke Quay which is a fairly groovy bar area and sat chatting with cocktails until it was time for bed!

On our final day in Singapore we walked towards the metro station to go to Orchard Rd. On the way we passed a clearly top class restaurant advertising delicacies such as Pig Organ Soup and Fish Head Porridge! Yum!!! We decided not to stop though tempted and jumped on the metro. Orchard Rd was full of designer shops as expected and had an air of the Champs Elysees although not nearly as grand! We waled through the air-con shopping centres and made our way to the Orchid House in the Botanic Gardens. There were more colours and varieties of orchid than I had ever imagined and they were all so beautiful. It is such a shame that they are so expensive at home!

Leo who I had met in NZ had put me in touch with his friend Marcus who lives in Singapore and he arranged to come and meet us and give us the guided tour! He picked us up and took us to his favourite Indian restaurant - rightly so as it was one of the most beautiful curries I have ever tasted! Afterwards he drove us to the Night Safari at Singapore Zoo. It was really cool at first being that close to the animals but after he had told us a story about rougue tigers we were a little more on edge! We had a really great time and were so greatful as we would never have been able to see so much without a car! That was the end of our Singapore mini adventure - off to Melaka, Malaysia first thing the next morning!