Morning All,
We are coming to the end of our fleeting visit to Singapore today so I thought I would update you all on what we have been up to.
Singapore - and I think we all agree - is probably the best city that we have visited so far on this trip. At first I thought that it would be just another dirty city with lots of skyscrapers and not much else. But Singapore has really suprised me. It has a very multiculural society and more importantly, all the cultures live in harmony beside one another. The atmosphere here is friendly and relaxed, the big skyscrapers are not so much an eyesore as a well thought out archetectural landscape, and with lots of parks, trees, and plants lining the roads, you can almost forget the hustle and bustle of normal city life. But most of all, my favourite thing about this city is that it is CLEAN - a somewhat alien concept to us recently!
The hostel we are staying in is very helpful and friendly and has a real travellers vibe about it (Sleepy Sam's, if anyone is planning on visiting soon), and it is nestled on a pedestrianised street in the heart of Little India - Woodie is finally getting his long sought after curries!
Yesterday (Tuesday) we all decided to go to the shopping malls dedicated to electrical goods. After browsing all the floors and trying out (although very unsucessfully!) our haggling skills, the one person that actually came out of there with a purchase was me! Bet you all didn't see that one coming! So I am now the proud owner of a Nintendo Gameboy Micro, only available in South East Asia on limited edition - it is very cute.
Once in the city centre we visited a kind of exhibition where the government has planned out the development in Singapore for the next 30 years! It is actually quite interesting to see, and they have even made a wooden small scale model of Singapore with all the changes in place.
Still feeling the cultural vibe, we decided to take a look in the Asian Civilisations Museum. We were ushered on a guided tour with a very hyperactive and enthusiastic tour guide, called Susan from New York - you can imagine the type!! - which provided us with much amusement when she called an Argentinian couple Spanish, and thought that a guy from Holland and a lady from Norway were from the same country! Despite this fact, the tour was actually very interesting, taking us through the different parts of Asia and explaining the origins of their societies, and of ancient civilisations. It was definitely worth the $4 student ticket (god bless IYTC cards!) that we paid.
Although our time here in Singapore has been short we have all enjoyed ourselves and I wish in a way that we could've had a few more days to look around. But alas, our flight to Cairns leaves at 10pm tonight to start the next leg of our journey. So I am allowed to be unleashed in the shopping heaven that is Orchard Street for the rest of the day, before we make our way to Changi airport (a shopping experience in itself, I am told) to abuse the duty free.
Hope you are all well at home, and are looking forward to the next installment from Woodie, of our time in Cairns.
Lots of Love
Laura x x
31 °C
