Singapore

We arrived in Singapore Changi airport on Friday 7th May at 1:30am, just in time for the MRT to stop running. We knew this when we booked the flight and thought that we would be able to sleep it out in the airport until the morning. After all, we have all seen the pictures of people doing that, so we thought "why not us"??? Except that Changi budget terminal is very small and not big on comforts. So we caught the free connection coach to terminal 2...Only to find that it was freezing cold (the air con was super efficient), the chairs were designed so that sleeping on them was not possible (the bit were you sit curled up at the sides, and only the super brave and super padded out took on this impossible task), all the premium spots were taken so we headed to Burger king. After eating some food we tried to lay out on the bench seats but did not feel comfortable sleeping there. Eri did not think it was cool that I was lying next to a stack of trays containing burger buns!!!!!! So we walked around in pursuit of somewhere to lay our tired bodies and in the end settled for a cold, hard tiled floor near an entrance sandwiched in between a row of chairs and an ornamental garden. I think we maybe slept for about 40 mins before we woke, feeling worse than we did before....

At 05:40am we caught the MRT to Aljunied station which lies just to the east of the main city. We lay about some more (this time in a little park outside the station) and waited a few hours before we went to our accommodation to drop of our bags.. As Singapore is an expensive place, we elected to stop in the most reasonable place that we could find.....Dorm beds (10 pound each a night). Once our bags were left we headed for Singapore zoo for the day.

Singapore zoo is the best zoo I have ever been too (and I thought Colchester zoo was good). The habitat and conditions for the animals is really good (Well as good as it can be for a captive animal). Nowhere in the zoo did I see a bored animal pacing up and down, and some of the displays/shows that were put on were really good. We both especially enjoyed the feeding time for the Inuka the polar bear. We also went to the night safari which gave us a chance to see nocturnal animals that are usually asleep during the day or not very active.






During our stay we also explored the Raffles area of town along the riverfront, visited the famous Merlion statue, went to China town and went shopping in the malls of Orchard road (twice...we both really needed some new clothes lol).

Singapore is a very clean, organised city that is easy (and cheap) to get around. Not once did we see gangs of kids hanging around, graffiti or anything that looked like crime. I'm sure there probably is that stuff going on but it gave the impression of a very nice place. There were lots of bans on things like no eating or drinking on the trains or stations and various others signs warning not to do this or that, backed up by various fines. But it must work because no-one did anything prohibited and not once in our 4 days stay did we see any police, or ambulances.




On Monday 10th May we flew bode farewell to Singapore and flew with Air Asia to Kota Kinabalu (KK to everyone..Its easier!) in Malaysian Borneo.