Day 4: Singapore

-Woke up in a pitch black room (no windows) and had some breakfast at the hostel. It consisted of jam on toast and coffee. 


- Walked along Orchard Street checking out all the stores. It is very necessary to have five different malls with all the same stores right next to each other in Singapore. Some malls even required two different stores of the same high-end designer. I just checked and there are 18 Armani stores in Singapore.

The ION Mall (complete with interactive touch screen directories):

-For lunch we went up to Newton Circle. It's more known for late-night munchies than lunch but the food was still good! I stuck with noodles and meatballs. Marco ventured to eat gong gong (basically snails) and a rice dish.

Marco and his gong gong:

Another juice venture of Marco's:

- We then took the MRT to the Harbor Front stop across from Sentosa island. We ended up not heading to the island since it was full of tourist attractions like Universal Studios.

-We went back to the hotel to take a much needed break from the heat. Skyped with Mum.

-Following my Faj's recommendation we went to the Raffles Hotel to have a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar. The drink was invented in the bar. It was delicious (and very pricey). The hotel was gorgeous. Full of vegetation and old, dark wood. Apparently the last tiger of Singapore was shot in the courtyard of the hotel.

Marco in front of the hotel:

Marco and I with our Singapore Slings:

- We were in the mood for something a little more Western after all of our food adventures, well Marco's. We headed to Boat Quay and ate at Dallas, the name basically explains the food. We shared some fajitas.

Marco watching the Ireland-New Zealand rugby match at Dallas:

-After dinner we headed up to the stop near the night safari but Marco fell asleep on the ride and I was close to. We still had to take a bus up to the zoo so decided to skip it and leave that for the future. We headed back to the hostel and fell right to sleep.

Day 3: Hong Kong to Singapore

-Woke up early to catch our 11am flight to Singapore. Had some confusion over the terminal we were actually in but finally made it! We sat next to an American Mormon who lived in Singapore. His name was Dion and he had some very helpful tips about visiting the city. He even gave us his business card just in case we ran into any trouble!

-Once we landed and went through immigration, got our one checked bag (for the price of $320 HKD) and ate a sandwich, we headed to the MRT.

-We were supposed to be staying at this one hostel, but of course I messed the dates up by 10 days and they were full for the night. Luckily they gave us the names of some other hostels in Chinatown, one of which was available for $33/person/night. Singapore is not cheap.

-Once we got settled and refreshed we walked through Chinatown and up to the Singapore River and walked along it. Neither Marco nor I have been here before so it was exciting exploring the city for the first time.

Chinatown:

-We wandered up to the central part of the city, with the big buildings and fancy hotels. We were both a little curious as to why Bank of America has buildings in both Hong Kong and Singapore yet no partnering bank that lets you withdraw money without the foreign transaction fee?

-We walked to the Marina Bay Reservoir and went to look at the shops at the Sands resort. This was probably the most ridiculous mall, complete with a fake mini-gondola ride at the bottom of it. It also had every designer store imaginable.

Marco in front of the Sands:

The ridiculous mall complete with gondola and quartet:

-We then went up to the top of the Sands (after waiting in line for an hour and paying an exorbitant entrance fee). It was really cool though. There were great views of the city. We grabbed a beer just in time for... another laser show! Must be the theme of the trip. At least this one actually had classical music. It also projected images onto little water fountains.

The laser show:

-After that adventure we walked to Lau Pa Sat Festival Market. It was a big food market full of hawkers selling foods from all over Asia. I had some delicious beef and chicken skewers. Marco had stingray and a noodle dish. I tried the stingray and was not the biggest fan. Marco also has this obsession with trying weird drinks so bought a starfruit drink that he did not like.

The beautiful Lau Pa Sat market:

Marco's stingray (ewww):

-Walked back to the hotel to change before having a beer on Smith Street, parallel to our hostel. We then walked to Boat Quay and Clarke Quay. The bridge and waterfront was full of young people drinking and pre-gaming the clubs. It was a lot of sun and such a lively atmosphere. We didn't end up going to a club because Marco was wearing shorts, but it was still fun to join in on the fun!

Everyone out at Clarke Quay: