Well Happy chinese New year from Singapore first of all. I fogot about it being Chinese new year a few week ago but realised as we hit Singapore and the celebrations were still well going on.

Since my blog in New zealand which now seems ages ago i have been a busy bee. After spending 3 hours on our flight from New Zealand to Auz, being told we were at the wrong airport in Australia, taking a 3 hour bus journey to the right one, getting stuck in the rain trying to find it, spending another 8 hours on a flight to Kl and 5 hours waiting for Tina to arrive we finally touched down again in Asia - we could now start to worry less about money and relax a little more. With a new partner in crime and a rather dull bloke who became my tag along after my wait in the airport we all went for a well deserved beer and some shrimp noodles. It was so nice to be back at reggea house which is still one of the best hostels we have stayed and i am glad Christina got to see a good hostel after the 2nd one we had to stay in due to it being fully booked on the 2nd night.

For the next few days with Tina by my side and Rob heading tp Phuket before us i took her under my wing and decided to cut the crap bits and show her what Kl has to offer in a two day guided tour which involved tours around the city and another trip to Batu caves which i wouldnt complain about. I felt bad however that one of Tinas first experiances of hostel living was my worst yet - i kid you not we shared a hostel with rats the size of domestic cats! Anyway that over with and Singapore in our sight i booked us on an over night bus which meant we would save on the cost of a flight and a hostel for the night. 9 quid to get to another country cant be bad right? Wrong - Dont get me wrong the bus was great reclining chairs which meant you were pratically laid down and blankets provided, everything seemed too good to be true and it was. What a bloody nightmare we had on the way there. They at first stop off and wake you up by shouting at you like a drill sergeant at about 4 in the morning to go show your passports at a check point. Leaving your bags and not knowing whats going on you run through check in and run back to the bus so it doesnt go without you. 2nd check point this time we took our bags as thats what everyone else seemed to be doing (good job too) And little did i know untill i spent nearly an hour being questioned in an office with custom officers that your not allowed to bring cigs into the country as they pay tax and because of laws with the goverment, and as i had bought a load in NZ to save myself money i had 4 packets on me that they thought i was trying to smuggle in. It turns out your suppose to pay 500 dollars for each packet they catch you with. UT OOOOH indeed. I explained to the guy that how was i suppose to know this and nobody had explained and he kindly let me off with a warning in my passport and distroyed 3 full packs of 20 with a pen knife and let me keep my open packet to smoke in private (warning me if i got caught with them as they dont have a singapore marking on the filter i would again be fined) as i was planning to quit when i finished anyway that should be a little earlier now! Anyway so that was great to go through after two hours sleep and because of the ordeal meant we missed our bus. I manged to get us on another coach for free explaining that our bus had gone without us and we arrived to our hostel in Singapore tired, dazed confused.

The hostel isnt the best again, having an eastern style toilet (yes doing your business down a hole in the floor) but its clean and everyone here is so friendly (o its in the red light district too - but this has been ok we have found) accept the owners are never around??

Anyway after all that drama and a few hours sleep to catch up on what we missed from the coach we headed to explore the city. Our first stop was a food court where we enjoyed a beautiful meal - all the meals we have had while here have been awesome and we headed around City Hall, to see the Merlion, Orchard Road, 10,000 shopping centres and finally sat down in Chinatown to enjoy some tea, which was a cold noodle dish that they kinda didnt put any spices in as they thought we couldnt handle it but was still nice and some dim sum. Cream crackered from a full day on our feet me and Tina got some chocolate, beers and crashed in front of the telly with a DVD.

Today we have enjoyed again a nice breakfast - Tina trying Sushi for the fisrt time and me getting a salmon noodle dish which comes in a heated pot that they light some jelly thing underneath to keep warm and headed to the zoo. The zoo was very impressive but we were both abit disturbed by the polar bears who looked like if you passed them a rope they would hang themselves and the elephants who seemed to do some kind of staged comedy show (too weird) We then headed to Little india and enyoed a proper curry on a banana leaf plate.

Singapore has been great, the good things about it that make it so enjoyable are the transport and how realiable it is, the food is amazing and fairly cheap you can get anything you fancy but the best places are the shopping food courts, the people are extremely friendly willing to help and assist you whenever and wherever, its just extremely clean and tidy - everyone respects there part of the city and wherever you go it looks completely different. Even though its just another city and at times you do get city fatigue Singapore is well worth a visit. So from here we fly to Phuket tomorrow to meet up with Rob again (i bet he pretends he has had soooo much fun without me but i know he will have missed me like mad lol) and drink some Chang and eat some Pad thai. I cant bllody wait. Lets hope as we fly this time that there is no more drama and may Christinas experiance with hostels be better than it has been so far.

Massage?Ping Pong?hahahaha........