Josh's first blog post, I've managed to wrest the ipad away from Anna who is being an ipad hog!

Today we both slept for a sensible amount of time and didn't have an afternoon nap, such progress! This meant that we had a better day. We got the MRT to Marina Bay which was stunning, the buildings were huge and the mix between the old, colonial Singapore and the new bit is very pronounced. The Merlion (in the photo, the white lion fish cross spraying water) is a nice sculpture and the spray from it was pleasantly cooling. We took a trip up the river on a boat which showed us lots of bridges and a lovely government building with very colourful window frames. Some of the 'earlier' developments along the river front look very tacky now, but I'm sure they will think the same of the contemporary architecture in 20 years' time. We had lunch at a bay side Starbucks, which was really busy, presumably because it is the cheapest eatery in the area, we declined the opportunity of bayside oysters purely for reasons of taste, honestly!
In the esplanade, a small park by the river, we came across a huge grasshopper / locust thing. It was bright green and about 3 inches long! It sat still for a few minutes while we got some close up photos of it, which was very cooperative of it, unlike most of the other animals that I've tried to photo that have disappeared before I'm ready.

We booked a hotel in Kuala Lumpur for 5 nights from Monday. For the same cost as staying in a Singapore hostel dorm room we can stay in a 3 star hotel with comfy beds (hopefully) and privacy. Hostels have been a bit of a shock to start with so a break from them will be nice. We will return better prepared for them in the future!

This evening a bus passed us with an advert on the side for 'vaginal douche', which amused us both. We also keep seeing one for Korean strawberries, which I appreciate is less amusing but may be of interest to you, dear reader.

A final observation is that durians (a large, slightly spikily bodied fruit) smell like a poorly maintained and ill-cleaned sit down toilet, the like of which is often found in the mens' at a pub.

Josh x