Well I'm playing catch up here, as I'm not really in Singapore now, but I didn't have time to update whilst I was there as it was a fleeting visit!

A fairly useless, but interesting bit of info for you: The little island was named Singapore in the 14th Century when a visiting royal prince (no doubt from England) mistook what was probably a tiger for a lion (there were no lions indigenous to this part of the world!). The island was named "Singa-Pura" meaning "Lion City" and so the name Singapore stuck. Ok, history lesson over.

I arrived on Wednesday night after flying in from Krabi in Thailand...bit of a long journey as I left Phi Phi at 9am and finally dumped the bags in my hotel at 8.30pm. Nevertheless, not wanting to waste valuable exploring time, I ventured out into the bustling streets of Chinatown, as my pad was located there. The tightly knit streets were a hive of activity, with a street market and shops selling everything from chopsticks to LCD TV's, all broken up by hundreds of Chinese restaurants. After devouring a noodle dish I headed out of Chinatown and found some bars to end the day with a couple of beers.

On Thursday, I visited Sentosa Island - a kind of part Disneyland, part tropical jungle, part beach resort which is situated 15 minutes from the city at the bottom of Singapore Island. I bought a multi-ride ticket and went down the mountain on a luge, then made my way back up after an hour on the beach via the cable car Skyride, with views across the Singapore skyscrapers.

Later on, I got harnessed up and jumped off a 50ft high platform to the ground before taking a zipline from the top of the hill, down to the beach. I stopped off at Cafe Del Mar (related to the famous Ibizan bar of the same name) for a bite to eat before heading back to my hotel.

On Thursday night, I met up with some friends of Paul and Liz (aunt and uncle) for a lovely meal. Bob and Betty, residents in Singapore for 20 years, were wonderful hosts and we had a great evening at their house, chatting about everything and anything over some fine food and wine. Beautiful. Thanks for putting me in touch Paul and Liz - I'm invited back to go out with Bob and Betty on their boat next time I'm in Singapore!

I headed to Orchard Road on Friday morning - the famous shopping street that is home to an incredible number of designer stores and shopping malls. I could have easily melted the credit card, but seeing as I didn't have the room to carry it, I just prioritised and bought a new pair of running shoes. The training starts in Sydney!

Singapore is a great city - clean, crime-free, a cheap and efficient transport system, and really polite people who are clearly proud of their city - it's the first time I've experienced anything like this in SE Asia.

So it's onwards to Sydney - I worked out I've covered 10,000 miles so far. If you take off the 6,000 miles from England to Thailand, that means I've done 4,000 miles since I arrived in Bangkok a month ago. Time to spend a bit of time in one place I think - with Greg in Manly.