Singapore!

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On May 5th we landed at Changi International airport in Singapore. Well dressed people of all nationalities were hustling and bustling in the huge, modern, and clean airport, and we quickly blended ourselves into the craziness. We made our way down to the metro system and followed our intricate step by step directions through the clean and well organized metro system to our hostel called ‘Footprints’ on Pekar Rd. in Little India.

 

After a long day of flying from Melbourne with a stop over in Darwin, Australia we were famished and regardless of the fact that it was almost 1:00 am we ventured out to find some food. The streets were packed with people and authentic Indian and Asian restaurants. It didn’t take us long before we found some amazing cheap food and a fellow backpacker to eat with, who we later went out for $13 pints with, as well.

 

Our first full day in Singapore was hot, humid, and difficult to breath, but we headed down Arab St. in search of an adventure. We stopped to eat outside at the ‘Yummy Punjabi’ and indulged in the most delicious Indian food we’d ever had. We ended up walking for 4 hours in the intense heat, checking out prices on day trips to Kuala Lampur (the capital of Malaysia, just next door), walked to the Sky flyer (the largest observation wheel in the world), and through the Millenium Mall (one of the many many malls in Singapore, and we were later told that shopping was the “national sport” of Singapore) before we made our way back for some relaxation time.

 

When it got dark we headed back out, taking the metro this time and took a quick ride down to China Town with another fellow traveller we had met, from England. We walked through the market and then headed down to Marina Square close to the downtown area. The square was a closed off area near the bay surrounded by restaurants and bars where you could sit and watch the tourist boats go by. Another 10 minutes of walking took us to Marina Bay where we got a great view of the Marina Bay Sands’ Hotel and Mall, the business district with various tall skyscrapers, and the super modern art/science museum.

 

We got there just in time for the nightly light show, where they blasted music to flashing laser lights coming off the very top of the hotel. The hotel was comprised of 3 skyscraper buildings with what looked like a cruise boat laying over top of them. The show was amazing and we managed to take enough pictures to last a life time. By the time we made it back to our hotel we tallied up another 4 hours onto our walk, making it a grand 8 hours total for the day. We were exhausted and it didn’t take much for us to get right to sleep.

 

The next day we hopped on the world’s best metro again, and took it to Orchard Rd, the mall district. The street was filled with mall after mall where you could walk either above or below ground to get around. One of the most recent malls in the area cost 2 billion dollars to build and was massive! It didn’t take us long before we started wishing we had thousands of dollars to spend in all the amazing high end stores, so we made a quick exit and headed back to our place for a lazy and rainy afternoon.

 

We found ourselves back on Arab St. and back to our favorite little Indian restaurant the next day. We spent some good time walking around the Arab village that day, looking into every nook and cranny of the area. 

 

That night, we went back to Marina Bay to try to catch the light show again and to look for the Bay Gardens. The gardens were just that, a beautifully landscaped garden on the other side of the famous hotel. At night, the garden was lit up by sky scraping pods that changed color every few minutes. Unfortunately we didn’t make it for the light show, but we did manage to find the garden and the pods and snap another few good pictures.

 

 

On our last day in Singapore, we walked to the Bugis Market about 10 minutes away from where we were staying. We spent a good part of the day walking up and down aisle after aisle of clothing, watches, accessories, shoes, food and bubble teas! Before we knew it, the day was coming to an end and we had to say goodbye to our favourite city thus far.  We made our way to the airport for our 7:30pm flight to Bangkok, Thailand!

 

 

Thanks for keeping up with us,

With love from the end of western civilization for a while,

 

D’Alice