We've been having a great time in Singapore. We love the mix of colonial buildings next to modern skyscrapers, it's clean and reminds us a lot of Sydney (like Sydney, we could quite happily live here). The population here is a real diverse mix - for example our hostel is owned by a Jordanian, run by a Nepali and worked by a Mongolian!

We've been to Chinatown and Little India, walked along the river and along Orchard Road (shopping!), seen the rather bizarre 'symbol' of singapore the Merlion (quite the stupidest thing!), been on a river cruise, seen Tiger Beer brewed, got rained on in the Botanical Gardens (rather nicely, instead of hot houses they have a coolhouse - we spent a while in there!), and been for a much longed for Gin & Tonic in Raffles Hotel. Sadly, what with Graham liberally joining in the peanut shell chucking (we've seen fewer on the floor of monkey world!) and "YMCA" playing on the stereo, this was not quite the elegant, colonial experience Gemma was hoping for! The G&T's were great though!

Everything here is so civilised - we are staying in a great location near Boat Quay with lots of great bars and restaurants over looking the river. We've also been really enjoying taking advantage of the big leather sofa's in our guesthouse, drinking fresh coffee and reading The Times! On the minus side, our room's so small the waste bin has to stay in the corridor!

Over the past few months Graham appears to have acquired a weird "budget methodology" - in the cheaper countries, he's a miser! Bargaining for the cheapest food, drink and accommodation! In Singapore, where everything's expensive anyway it's "budget, smudget", you might as well blow it completely!

We have really noticed a difference coming from Thailand where what got us a large bungalow with sea view now doesn't even by us a beer in happy hour! On the plus side, beer's so expensive it's just as cheap to drink faux bubbles! So Gemma has been taking advantage of Graham's new budgetry attitude by drinking bubbles and eating enormous lobster-sized prawns and crabs (nearly blowing Amber's recommendation to never eat anything bigger than your head!).

We were originally flying out of Singapore yesterday, but after a minor visa misunderstanding and a rather larger set-to with the git of a man in the Indian embassy (culminating in Graham asking why he was so miserable - had he had a bad weekend?- was his wife really so miserable and ugly?! - well, done there, that'll help the visa application!), that proved unachievable. So we've had a great, relaxing, expensive 6 days here and tomorrow we go to pick up our visa's (hopefully) and then head straight for the airport and our next destination!