Singapore

Day 53

Never again on this trip will we stay in a huge dorm, not unless I am interested in conducting a sleep deprivation study on myself!! But given how expensive Singapore is we thought we could manage with 2 nights (mistake!)

Anyway, we had a ton of stuff to do today first up was Marina Bay.  This is a new development built on reclaimed land from the sea,  it eventually will be the heart of the city.  The financial district is to the left in the photo and the Sands Shoppes and SkyPark is to the right (a hotel with a boat on top!), behind which is Park on the Bay and includes the famous Super Tree Forest and bio domes - similar to Eden Project

You can see how big the boat is from this shot.

Possibly my favourite hotel design of anywhere I have seen.  The Marina Bay, has a boat built on top of it, with swimming pool at the end!  I thought it was pretty cool. Cost some serious cash to stay here - cheap rooms apparently start at around £200.

Not far from there, we have Garden by the Bay.  This a series of fancy buildings (bio domes) that have plant life from around the world. Plus some very nice outside botanical gardens that are free to look round, it is a very beautiful and tranquil part of what is a busy city.

One thing Claire had wanted to do (and must be a part of any travellers trip!) is a visit to Raffles and have a Singapore Sling in the Long bar, the place where the drink was invented by an Hainese bar tender.

On route to the bar we walked through Marina Park - full of cheap shops and eats (compared with the surrounding area and the Sands Shoppes which is full of design houses).  One display, by a tech company included an interactive digital piano keyboard.  You had to play alongside the character on the screen. It was more difficult than imagined it to be. 

After some quick directions from a helpful 7/11 shop, we realised we could walk through Marina Park, staying out of the scorching sun and come out right on the corner from Raffles.

Yeah my picture is rubbish, I did not line it up properly.  You can kind of make out  what it looks like.  Complete with smartly dressed attendants, we had a quick check to see of our dress was ok - as we had heard they were pretty strict!  The attendants answer - which was funny - 'if you have money you can go anywhere!'  

Although there are several bars in raffles, the one where the drink was created was the Long Bar so that's where we headed.  They have tried to keep the old fashioned theme with old style ceiling fans, however these are no longer pulled back and forth by staff but on electric motors and heavily supplemented by hidden aircon!!  - Thank fully!

Singapore Slings costing $28 each!!  Worth it?  Well they were really sweet and really alcoholic ( a mistake at midday!!) - we wouldn't do it again but it's just one of those things that you just can't miss in Singapore.  Plus you can make the most of the peanuts and chucking the waste on the floor - seriously this drove Claire nearly to distraction as she was collecting the empty shells in a cup and the guy said 'Here's the only place you can do this...' and promptly chucked the entire cup of shells on the floor!!  Seriously littering is a serious offence in Singapore so they make the most of it in the Long Bar and it's a tradition that you chuck the shells on the floor!!  Okay at Midday when the place is quiet but apparently they don't sweep them up until evening by which time it must be about 2 inches thick!!

After Raffles we walked slowly back to China town - you have no choice but slow as the heat and humidity is overbearing although public transport is quick and reliant we wanted to see the area and it was only a 25 minute walk.  On the way we sidetracked into a couple of 'tech' amlls that almost put those in Bangkok to shame, one had about 7 floors, although the prices still couldn't compete with Thailand.

After a brief break back at the now empty hostel, we had a small visit to the 'real china town' - found purely as we decided to visit an electric kick scooter shop where you could try them!  Only 15 mins from the hostel across a busy free way and past the People's Park (a shopping complex) we realised this was the 'real china town' filled with traditional non sanitised food stalls, cheap fruit and veg stalls and all sorts of clothes shops proudly displaying - direct from China!

Street Luge Track 3!

We had planned - half jokingly - that we really should visit the Skyline Luge on Sentosa Island - realising it was only a couple of stops on the MRT - $7 return for two of us! and that they specialised in night luges  that' was it we were off! After getting slightly confused in Vivocity we quickly caught the epress to sentosa - although there is a free board walk this involved another 15minute walked and we done enough.  The express takes you right into the island.  The Luge track was good especially as it was a night ride.  One of the tracks was incomplete darkness, the other had fancy neon lights.  The track was pretty quick although not as fast as Rotorua.  We have now completed all of the Luge tracks in the southern hemisphere, just got the final two in Canada to go!