26 February 2009

This morning we left early to get to the aiport for our flight to Singapore. Puy had kindly got up early too and made us a cup of tea before we left. Thanks so much Nick and Puy for letting us stay with you and for all you did for us while we were in Phuket, we had such a great time and were sad to leave this morning. Hope to see you in the UK in the summer and maybe back in Thailand next year!

We arrived in Singapore in around 2pm and got an airport shuttle to our hostel. While on the journey it started to rain heavily. This was the first time its rained since we've been away and was quite a novelty while we were on the bus. It wasn't when we had to carry our backpacks into the hostel though getting soaked!

This hostel was our first dorm of the trip so we were quite nervous as to who we would get in our room. However we were really lucky as there were 4 really nice girls in there when we arrived, all from england. We left our bags in the room and then went out for the afternoon to explore. We walked down Orchard Road and saw all the posh shops, and also Topshop! Unfortunately the clothes in there were more expensive than home so we didn't buy anything. We did however treat ourselves to some cheaper clothes from a market style shop.

It started to rain again in the early evening so we headed back to the hostel and went on the internet in the 'veg out room' before going to bed. It was quite strange sleeping in a room with 6 other people but we managed to sleep ok.

27 February 2009

We got up this morning and went down to enjoy our free breakfast. Jess had forgotten to change the time on her phone so she thought it was an hour earlier, but we got there just in time. We had lots of toast and tea before setting off for the day.

We decided to get the metro down to the Harbour front and go to Sentosa Island for the day. The metro was really efficent and very clean. When we got to Sentosa Island we visited the Merlion tower (half lion, half fish). The merlion is the official animal of Singapore. We went up into its head for views across the harbour. Unfortunately these views were blocked by a large building site on one side of Sentosa! Our next attraction was Fort Siliso - a fort used during the second world war. This was really interesting as we learnt about Singapores role in the war. Our final attraction was the Tiger tower with 360 degree views across singapore. However, again this was ruined by the extensive building work going on around the harbour. We got the cable car back to the harbour front and headed back to the hostel.

This evening we had decided to go on a trip to the Night Safari with 2 of the girls from our dorm. We had a tram ride around the jungle/rainforest and we got to see the nocturnal animals. We saw lions, tigers, hippos, giraffes and some animals we'd never seen before from Asia. My favourite was the largest animal in the rodent family - it was the size of a dog but had the face of a guinea pig! We then walked around by ourselves to see some more of the animals. Unfortunately we were couldn't take photos as the flash would disturb the animals.

After we'd finished our walk we sat down to watch a tribal fire show. It was here that we decided to try a Singapore Sling (we couldnt afford the prices in Raffles!) - it was much nicer than we had expected, and we were pleased to have tried one whilst we were here.

When we got back to the hostel there were 2 new girls in there from Essex. It turns out they are going to the exact same places as us but in reverse. So we spent quite a few hours quizzing them on Australia and the Oz Experience. They were really helpful and gave us lots of advice of where to go and which hostels to stay at/avoid. A shame we were only with them for 1 night really. Tomorrow we are getting our flight to Cairns!

28 February 2009

We walked down to Raffles hotel this morning. The hotel was really lovely, definately beating our hostel! Today it was so hot, really humid and not sunny, so we were melting. We had a look round the lobby and had some photos there before heading back down Orchard Road. As it was so humid we decided to go to the cinema and see 'Hes just not that into you'. It was very busy so I think other people had the same idea of getting somewhere with air con.

We then went back to our hostel and got ready for our transfer to the airport for our evening flight to Cairns.