Singapore 2

 On the second full day we went up Bukit Timah Summit, the highest point in Singapore. My dad was very happy to announce that there is in fact a country where the highest point is lower than Holland's highest point. Although it was incredibly steep! Instead of taking the easy route, we took a path which was a bit more adventurous and went right though the rainforest. We saw some HUGE ants, about 3cm big. Creepy. We also saw some super cute monkeys! They were right at the start, literally hanging around. They got really close the to path and were obviously expecting some food. The rainforest was beautiful. It was an incredibly humid day, and the path had really steep, uneven stairs. I don't think I'd ever been that sweaty!! Once you get to the top, you're not rewarded with a beautiful viewing point, you're surrounded by trees! But it was definitely a great, exhausting, sweaty walk!

 After a lot of relaxation and swimming and cooling down, we went to Little India, which is hectic! There were men EVERYWHERE, just aimlessly wandering the streets. It was just packed with people so it was very hard to take photos. There were little stalls everywhere selling things, like these beautiful flower necklaces. It was great to walk around, but because it was in the evening, it was too busy. We ended up going back the following day and it was a bit quieter.

 We also went out for dinner in Little India. This was actually a proper restaurant - something we hadn't been to before in Singapore. The food wasn't served on a plate but on a banana leaf. There was so much food! The first thing I ate was super spicy, and for the rest of the meal that hot tingling burning feeling was with me. Nothing could cool it down! The food was absolutely amazing though, I think the photo only shows the starters. By the time all the food arrived, you couldn't see the table anymore.

 The next day Kevin and I just went out by ourselves. We decided to go back to China Town since we didn't see all of it the first time. It was a weekday now so a little bit emptier. I ended up buying some beautiful scarves and some nail polish for very very cheap. The singapore dollar is about twice as much as the pound, so $10 was only £5.

 China town is one of my favourite places in Singapore. It was really bright and colourful with lovely little shops everywhere selling everything! The food was also delicious.

We also went back to Little India, but unfortunately I didn't take any more photos there.

 After Little India we decided to go back to Marina Bay Sands, where the weird boat building is and the Merlion. It was a very different site during the day, but equally unbelievable. Towards the left of the photo you can see the clouds getting a bit grey, there were DARK grey clouds coming our way, so we went into a shopping centre to stay dry, but it ended up never raining! (It did rain massively before, but we were in the metro when that happened).


That evening we went to a seafood place. Duck is also considered seafood....! It was delicious, like all the other food we had! And as you can tell from the photo, we thoroughly enjoyed it.










On the last evening we went to the beach front. I didn't have my tripod with me to taking photos was very hard. This photo had an exposure of 1 second and I was able to hold it completely still. I'm very impressed with that! Anyway when you look out, you can just see a line of lights. You'd think it would be land, but it's just boats! It was the strangest thing.

Finally, here is a photo of Marine Bay during the day and night. It's a huge difference!! Much more glamorous at night. I really enjoyed singapore. I thought it was a million times better than Dubai and I'd LOVE to go back!! Even if it was just to taste the food. I was quite surprised because I didn't find it very expensive. Once you've got the (really easy) conversion rate it your head, you'll start to realise everything is very cheap. Especially in china town!!

Singapore

Singapore is beautiful.

We arrived in Singapore on the 30th of August in the evening and stayed with some family friends. This is another place where you just have to get used to the fact you'll be sweaty... all the time. It's around 33 degrees, but the humidity is 74%! It feels extremely hot, and when the air conditioning is on 26 degrees celcius, it feels cool. Similar to Dubai, there is a huge difference between the inside air and outside air as most places have air conditioning on full blast. It starts off being really nice and cool, but quickly becomes too cold! Other than that, it's NOTHING like Dubai. Singapore is a lot more real. Dubai was very American and fake with lots of walk ways and construction sites.

On the first night we went to get some food in the Singapore equivalent of a pub. It looked a bit dodgy, and in England you'd never go to a place like that! So it was incredibly surprising that it was the most delicious food ever, I think it was called Prata's! That was the start of our food adventures.....

On the first full day we went to a food market. It was incredibly busy and extremely hot, so definitely something we had to get used to. The market sold all sorts of things: durians (extremely smelly fruit), fish balls, fish heads... just normal things.... We brought home some strange looking fruits, including dragon fruit, ramboutan, custard apple and mangosteen to try. It all looked a bit strange, but it tasted nice!











After a quick swim to cool down, we started our journey into the city centre. We first had some coconut soup with all sorts of stuff in it called Laksa. It was pretty spicy and had some random things in it, but it was very tasty. We also had some lime juice. Lime juice is a really popular drink in Singapore, and they seem to sell it everywhere, we've literally had it everywhere. Some places sell fresh lime juice, which is quite sour, whereas other places just sell lime cordial which is very sweet.

This was followed by a quick visit to an indian temple. You had to take off your shoes outside before you could enter, but the ground was BOILING hot, so the 5 steps from where you left your shoes and to temple entrance was painful.. The temple was beautiful, it was very colourful and had some very interesting things in it. We then went on to view St Andrews Chapel.

Next we walked past Boat Quay on our way to China Town. It was strange to see the contrast between the small little colourful houses and restaurants compared to the sky scrapers.


China town was one of my favourites places, and I actually ended up going there twice! It looks quite modern in the photo due to the roof, but if you look at the buildings on the edges of the photo, you can see the chinese architecture. It had lots of little shops selling all sorts of pretty things and also had some great food places. On my second trip to China Town I bought 2 beautiful scarves for $10 (£5ish) and some nail polishes. The food we had there was (again) AMAZING. We had a plate of honeyed pork and spring rolls. Yum.








After China Town we went back home to relax and cool down, before going back into the city to get some food and see some more things. We went to a place called Lau Pa Sat, which is kind of like a food market. The street had been blocked off for a seating area and this is where they have the best satay! It was amazing.. again. The food was delicious but the atmosphere made it even better. Since the sun was down, the temperate was also a lot more comfortable.



After that we went to Marine Bay. This is where the strange boat building is and the Singapore flyer (looks like the London Eye). We made it just in time for the light show! It was such an unrealistic site. I've seen so many photos of this building online, but never actually thought I'd see it myself! It's the strangest building I've ever seen. The light show was beautiful, I did take a video of it which I'll post over the next couple of days.

That's it for the first full day! We ate so much food and had so much lime juice! Tried so many different things! It was incredible.

Booked Flights

After both of our Visa's were granted, we really started to think about flights. Our first price quote was £712, but that was over a month ago. We searched a bit online and went back to STA to see what they had to offer. From last time we checked, the price had jumped up by £60, so we were advised to book the flights as soon as possible, before the flights get even more expensive.

We decided to book an appointment for the next day (today) and booked the flights! In the end it was £779 each, which isn't so bad for three flights. We'll leave from Heathrow at 20.40 on the 27th of August, and we will arrive on the 28th in Dubai at 6.30. We will spend 2 nights in Dubai and on the 30th we'll leave at 9.35 and arrive in Singapore at 20.55. We'll be there until the evening of the 3rd of September and we'll arrive in Melbourne at 7.40 on the 4th of September. 

It's a lot of flying, but it'll be worth it. We'll be able to see all of these cool places and it means we don't have to be on a plane non-stop for 22 hours!