Singapore... the Lion City. What a place this is! We've only spent 4 days here, but it gets my vote as best city in the world. I think that's partly because its great and partly because its the complete opposite of where we have been for the last month.

We arrived at Changi airport feeling a little confused and tired from the night flight and several Tiger beers we'd sunk to help the flight pass. The feeling of disorientation wasn't helped by the fact that we thought we had landed in a 5 star hotel rather than the airport! However a quick visit to the toilet was the most disturbing thing... they were spotless! Not just clean, but eat your dinner of the bog seat clean. We didn't have any butties in the toilet, but we certainly could have done. And you didn't need to tip anyone either - although we felt we should as they would have deserved it!

Strolling through the airport we also found the immigration staff to be friendly and chatty - a first in any country - and the airport was well planned. A customer service desk where you would need one, a bank and atm together, signs to the public transport and shops selling things you may want to buy. These things all sound very simple, but the lack of them in India was frustrating which made the arrival in Singapore all the more refreshing. It's a bit like Disney World!

I could go on for hours about how clean and helpful the place is, but sometimes it has to been seen to be believed. On construction sites, there are showers for the workers so they can get clean before they head home and if there are any rats they would even put their left over food in the bin. Ok, only half of that is true, but its still fantastic!

Got the spotless train to downtown and then a taxi to the hostel - which actually had a metre, that worked, where the driver actually knew where he was taking us - took us there without going via his best friends shop or trying to convince us to stay at a different hotel, and then charged us the flat rate on the metre - no arguments, no negotiating, no fighting - it just didn't seem right! The hostel we're stopping in, Hangout, is actually next to Little India (which we briefly walked through and decided not to continue as we've had enough of India for a while!) and is probably too cool for us! It is more budget hotel than flea infested hostel and we spent the first morning here doing our washing. Washing machines were a sight for sore eyes! Sadly some of our stuff stunk so much we needed to wash it twice (you have no idea how dirty we've been for a month!) and there is still a hint of eau de sweat lingering around the odd item, but by lunchtime we were ready for action. The wasing facilities are in the 'wash out' area next to the 'veg out' area where there's a big tv, pool table, free coffee and internet ('log out' area) and a little patio with a fountain ('time out' area). Then there's the 'look out' area which is a roof top terrace. Bedrooms are 'zonk out' areas, reception is 'check out' area and restaurant the 'pig out' area. It's just so cool.

Could quite easily spend the whole time kicking around the hostel and watching the free movies, but with only a few days to spend here, we had an action packed schedule.

As you can see from the picture, Singapore is a skyscraper city, but there is loads of colonial buildings still standing. We had a walk around the downtown area and around the Padang. Downtown is home to the Raffles hotel, very swanky and inventors of the famous Singapore Sling drink. As we didn't have 15 spare pounds each we didn't buy one here, but we will be trying one later today before we go. There is also a cricket ground in downtown and Nichola is loving visiting different cricket venues around the world. There is a chance she may even start liking the game soon.......(sorry for butting in but Andi there's no chance of that!!) A refreshment stop was called for after all the walking, so we went up the tallest hotel in the Asia to the 72nd floor for a booze. Great chilli cashew nuts too.

There is a famous DUCK tour which we jumped on, its an amphibious craft that drives the streets of downtown, before heading straight into the river and continuing the sightseeing from the water. Is it a bus, is it a boat!?!? Great, great fun. We were the only ones on there without kids and Nic wasn't overly surprised that I made more noise than all the brats put together. Nic even answered a quiz question correctly and won a duck whistle (or quackers as they're known) which was meant for the kids, but I'm now the proud owner!

The night safari was another fantastic trip from the wedding list. Wandering around a zoo at night was a little creepy but that only added to the fun. Most of the animals on show are nocturnal, but the lions aren't. They just sleep most of the time and snore worse than my brother. Little scary walking through the bat encloser as flying foxes dive bomb for you in the dark, and these things are the size of small cats, with a wingspan of 1.7 metres!

The hardest thing to grasp while we've been here is that its Christmas. We did a tour of the city and there are thousands of Christmas lights on every street, shops are pumping out Do They Know Its Christmas Time and White Christmas on every corner, but its 30 degrees (even when it rains) and just doesn't feel festive. In England, Christmas shopping involves going into the shops to warm up. Here you head into the shops to cool down - the aircon is something from another planet. Even though its 30 degrees, Nic has started taking a jacket with her for when we get on the MRT (tube) and go into shops as its so damn cold!

We also need to give a mention to two nameless women. Hero 1: We didn't realise that buses don't give change and only accept coins. No one could change our note, so hero 1 just paid the fare for us! Not only that, she gave us directions to where we needed to go and made sure we got off at the right stop. Only small things, but lovely.

Hero 2: We walked a nature trail and over the HSBC Tree Top Walk. Great fun, but assumed that the 5km walk was a loop. Actually, it was 5km there and 5km back. Not the best planning as we didn't have any food or drink with us and we went without having breakfast and in completely the wrong clothes for a jungle walk! The 5km back started to feel like a death march, until a woman pulled over at the side of the road - when we finally finished the jungle dirt tracks and found the road. We thought she was lost, but she was offering us a lift! She explained she knew how far it was and thought we might need a ride, even though she had 4 kids in the back already. She dropped us at a food shop and the MRT station and saved us abut 2 hours of walking and me complaing about being hungry. My hero!

We are still in complete shock and awe as to how people here are incredibly nice and such an opposite to those in India. To be honest it took a while to stop suspecting everyone who comes near you and to get the courage to make eye contact with someone or actually look at something they're selling! Feels so weird not getting hassled or conned all the time! And the looks we got for the first couple of days was actually funny. We'd ask a question, getting geared up for a nightmare of a conversation, to be answered with 'of course there is a shop nearby which can help you with that' or 'of course you can download photos easily, anywhere will help you with it' or 'of course there's a restaurant close by' and then gave you helpful directions. We must have sounded so simple to these people. Everything was just to easy and....logical....but it was amazing how much we weren't used to that and actually stopped thinking that way and were so used to gearing up for things not to make sense and for everything to be so difficult. It just highlights even more how hard India was!

We've also had a look around Chinatown which is pretty cool and went into a museum there which tells the history of the chinese in singapore - really interesting but very sad. We've had chinese food everyday - it's awesome. Also met up with a guy last night that Andi knows and had an eat all you can Thai Buffet. The food just gets better and better. And the best thing happened - we found an Irish Bar. And they actually sold guinness on draft. Although it was incredibly expensive, it had to be done!

We have a few more places to visit today (doing the complete tourist thing - with camera around neck and everything) before we fly out to Australia tonight so to continue the theme form the last blog.

Things we will miss from SingaporeEverything being clean
Everyone being helpful
Good morals and respect for others (they even have signs at bus stops to tell you how to be gracious to others!)
Fantastic food
MRT
Things being planned logically!
How everthing is so efficient and simple

What we won't miss
Bloody air conditioning - everywhere!