Hi Everyone,

Desperately trying to get up to date with the blog, here goes…

We got the train into Singapore, it was quite strange to do a border crossing by train - the train station we arrived at was like an airport in that we had to go through customs etc. We instantly noticed that Singapore was different to all the other places we had been - for a start it was clean, not even a piece of graffiti in sight. Although the downside was how expensive it was, it was probably the same as the prices in England, but when compared to how cheap everything was in the rest of S.E Asia it was really pricey! So to make it affordable we decided to go into a hostel. As you may remember, the only other time we've stayed in a dorm whilst travelling was in Hanoi in Vietnam and we hated everything about it. We learnt our lesson this time and although there were 16 people in the dorm we had way more privacy as we each had our own "pod". Each pod had its own light, so there were no problems with controlling the lights, it also reduced the noise to a certain extent and the toilets and showers were completely separate so we didn't have to listen to people go to the toilet - excellent! As usual we were located in China Town, 100 metres down the road was a Chinese food centre which served a variety of foods which were all delicious and cheap. Needless to say we ate most of our meals there.

After our first night in the hostel we were pleased that we actually slept quite well. We spent the day exploring Singapore, we walked around Little India, Orchard Road (where all the expensive shops are) and on the evening we went to Marina Bay. Each evening they put on a light and water show, with lasers lighting up the skyline, it was really spectacular. We then had a walk down the river and began to get insanely jealous of all the people drinking in the fancy bars and restaurants that we couldn't afford to go in! We made our way back to the hostel only to find that an oaf was now in the pod above Christina's. Oaf is the only word we can think of to describe him - it was really funny at first…all we could hear was really loud snoring, and when we looked there was a big chubby Chinese guy lying on his stomach in just his Y fronts and had kicked his quilt and pillows onto the floor… It stopped being funny when we could still hear him snoring whilst wearing ear plugs!

The following day we went on an open top bus for a tour of Singapore. We then went on the Singapore Flyer, which is supposedly the world's largest observation wheel, but in our memories the London Eye seemed bigger. Anyway the views where fantastic, we could see all of the grand prix race track and the skyline was great. We spent the afternoon walking around the "Gardens by the Bay", which had massive sculptures in and was very beautiful. That evening we made our way to Little India for a curry. It was the nicest curry we have ever tried, although we both felt very podgy after.

The next day, after a slight altercation with the man on reception (don't ask!), we flew to Bali. A child that screamed the whole entire way was sitting right behind us…when he wasn't screaming he was kicking our chairs grrrr!

We really loved Singapore, it was such a fresh, modern place and completely different to everywhere else we have been so far. Although if we ever go back we will make sure we take enough money to go in the fancy bars and restaurants!

Thanks for reading.

Lots of love xxxxxx