We landed late in evening in Singapore n headed straight to our boutique hotel, Scarlet. Based in the Chinese quarter it is a very trendy boutique hotel n the whole area is a mixture of French colonial n Chinese.
Island is small,5mill people n 40 mile square. Amazingly since British left in 1961, island landmass has grown by 10%,pushing back the sea. It is like a cleaned up Bangkok,little crime,n has the death sentence for certain crimes incl drugs. It's also quite expensive @ £9 pint.
We spent the next day checking out the great hotels n sights,starting with Raffles.
It was renovated back to it's 1915 style only recently n although many designer shops now sit within the building the lobby n famous Long Bar take you back in time...It was special to join the names of Chaplain,Ava Gardner n Noel Coward to sit n take Singapore Slings there. Birds fly in,peanut shells on floor n feather fans keeping you cool. The museum is also worth seeing.
Onto the 71st floor of Stamford Swissotel for more drinks n amazing views...Seb Fontaine playing there next week.
Again I managed to navigate us around the city,past the 19thc cricket ground (women n non whites now allowed!), the Parliament buildings, National art gallery n over the 19th c bridges to the river where the main restaurants n bars sit. The old buildings are very charming n sit well, in their own space among the new high rise.
At the restaurants, we saw row after row of hundreds of live crabs n lobsters..many varieties n sone were enormous! Picked my victim n we both had a v tasty chilli crab n crispy duck at a well negotiated price.
Feeling pretty satisfied we walked back to the hotel with every intention of changing n going back out for evening to check out the French bars by our hotel BUT ended up watching Fashion Police review at Golden Globes on TV n falling asleep! Very sad but we did a lot today. Need 3 days for sure n if you come, go see new ship shaped casino which sits across 3 skyscrapers! Incredible! Steve Brogan would love it!