First of all apologizes for the delay in sending out this email, its been an extremely challenging week and unfortunately I have no answers.
Same first paragraph as previous emails - starting my trip off in the Cathay lounge in HK. I must say its been a few weeks since I've been here so its nice to be back :). Last trip (to NZ) I was in the not so as flash Qantas lounge.
Well what a week its been and I'm sure by the time my weekend ends in Singapore on Monday lots of things would have changed.
Finally arrived in Singapore after what seemed like hours, just 4. I swear we parked in HK....that's how far we had to walk to clear customs and collect the bags. The airport is certainly very green which is great! Something very different. Fingers crossed bag comes out.....and thankfully it did. Eventually found a money machine that worked and I was on my way to the hotel.
Dropped my bags then we (Sarah, who I met in NY a few years ago) headed up to the bar on the 70th floor of our hotel. Fantastic views of the city, I was very surprised how spread out and large Singapore was. It was a great bar, and lovely to sit there relaxing.
Saturday morning we had a bit of a lie in, then headed out to get brunch. After looking around for awhile we headed back to the hotel to see what they recommended, and were told Sunday is the brunch day. Great. So Starbucks it was for a snack and tea.
Walked to Chinatown, visited the Sri Mariamman Temple and were fortunate enough to see the 12noon prayers. From here we wandered through the Chinatown streets - markets stalls, shops, bars and restaurants.
By this stage we were ready for some air conditioning and lunch. Stopped at the first restaurant we came across and thankfully it was very good and allowed us a some reprieve of the heat and humidity.
Continued along our way stopping at the odd store before coming across the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum. Great, another stop for a/c. Its hard work being a tourist in the heat and humidity! This place was rather amazing, thousands upon thousands of small Buddha's on endless shelves. Given its the mid autumn festival there were mini tree branches with lateens and notes from people leaving good wishes. The only way we knew what they were was we spied one written in English. The temple was 6 floors with the top floor being a rock garden. Was nice and peaceful with yet more mini buddhas along with orchids.
Walking around Singapore its a very green city, with lots of small park type areas and trees. An interesting fact on Singapore, it has 4 national languages - English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.
We headed back in the direction of our hotel stopping for a tea and yummy gelato. Not quite as good as gelato in Italy but still very good. From here we headed towards the Merlion Statue, this is a lion/fish icon which some call the artificial mascot of Singapore. Along the way we came across a number of buildings there were extremely vibrant - one in particular had at least 7 different colours on the shutters. Walked into the swanky Fullerton hotel which is housed in the old general post office building. An extremely impressive building and hotel. Had a dose of a/c then were off to locate this Merlion. Once outside it certainly wasn't difficult to locate. Took a couple of photos before making our way back to the hotel. Came across a couple of F1 grandstands, certainly an exciting time for Singapore hosting the race.
Matt (a friend I met at uni) rang as we walked into the hotel lobby to say he'd be 10 minutes, so a super quick trip to the hotel room before he arrived in a taxi.
With Matt we headed to a friend of his house to see the All Black's play Australia in Brisbane. And what a great match it was! Go the AB's. Their apartment was similar to mine in the sense its brand new with white walls although the kitchen was probably 4 times larger!!
We left there after the fantastic win to the AB's, dropped Matt at his place then headed to the Night safari. Wow what a place! We were both completely blown away by it - the sheer size of the park and how wonderfully organized it was.
We started our visit with the hourly show where we saw an owl, otters, mountain loin and raccoons. We were amused that more often that not the animals did not do as they were suppose to. Shortly after the show started we were told that something was loose and to look down at our feet. Well I was nearly out of there at the thought of something being near me!! Thankfully the screams were coming from a different section, after what seemed like minutes four trainers pulled out this huge snake. Let me tell you if that thing was under me the whole world would have heard me scream and I probably would have passed out. I was able to breath once it was taken up "on stage".
Following the show we did the tram ride. Was fantastic to see the animals living with so much space. Our first tram guide was great - extremely knowledgeable of the animals. We jumped of at the first stop, and the first stop on the walk was seeing a flying squirrel. Rather an amazing thing given the gap between the trees was at least 3 metres. We then proceeded to walk through a bat enclosure, a tad scary as they flew so close to us. Saw lots of little fury things, sorry can't remember their names. Sarah wanted to take a few home......
Back onto the tram, saw an elephant just hanging out eating some hay. An interesting fact, elephants eat 250kg of food a food, what goes in must come out and thankfully only 90kg comes out.
After finishing the tram ride we had time for 1 walk and decided it had to be to visit the tiger. An amazing animal with paws so large. I could have spent hours just sitting watching him.
The hand basin's in the woman's bathroom were very interesting, one we went into was shaped as a flower. I hope the photo comes out.
I will definitely be returning here and of course telling all visitors to Singapore this is a must see.
Sunday after sorting out our room with the front desk (rather a long ordeal) we headed off to meet Matt for brunch. Super slow and at times non existent service, but the food was fantastic and worth the hassles.
After our huge meal we headed off to the Botanic gardens. What started off as a not so hot day turned dramatically, the sun was out in full force so we suffered a lot walking, where possible we did walk in the shade. The botanic gardens were quite large and very tranquil. Hard to imagine we were in the huge city of Singapore. We visited the National Orchid Garden which was very cool - so many different types of orchids and plants. After entering the garden we offered to take a photo of some Filipino ladies and before you knew it we were in their photo and they offered to take a photo of us, with them, on my camera. Rather funny. I will be going to the flower market when I return to HK to purchase a few orchids. From here wandered along to and down Orchard Road - the guide book is smack on, its all about the shopping!
Took the MRT (subway) back to the hotel where we relaxed in the a/c then by the pool.
We headed to Raffles Hotel for a Singapore Sling, very clearly a tourist thing to do and one I won't be repeating. It was good, but there is no need to return. From here we took a taxi to Little India. I have no idea what to say about this part of Singapore other than you need to come here yourself to experience it. It was very much spot the female and white person. Sarah said it gave us a different view of S'pore, I asked "are we in S'pore?". I honestly thought I was in India, it was great! Sarah has been to India before and said the only difference was the traffic, there is tons more in India. We ate at a restaurant the lonely planet recommended, thank you lonely planet, which was fantastic. So much food yet our waiter asked us what mains we wanted as we had only ordered starters. Thankfully we didn't order any mains as what we had was more than enough. We sat at a table right at the road edge, great for people watching and of course everyone seemed to watch/stare at us.
Monday Sarah went off to work and after watching enough of CNN and BBC about what's going on with my company (Lehman Brothers) I left the hotel. Just wandered around looking at the building, was a complete tourist and stood outside of Raffles to take some photos.......
Met Matt for lunch at his work which was a great distraction, was full of activity then took a taxi to the airport.
I've really enjoyed my time in Singapore and could quite easily see myself living here. Its a great city, super easy to get around with extremely friendly people wanting to help you.
Hope this finds everyone well and happy.
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