Hey Everyone!

So we're leaving Asia behind us and heading to Australia today. We're sad to be leaving South East Asia, where the last three months have shown us some amazing sights and we've had such a great time but we're really excited to be moving onto Australia.

Singapore has gently eased us into moving to Australia as it is a mixture of Asian and Western culture. It is highly influenced by the West but also has a lot of Chinese, Singaporean and Indian influences. There are a number of different quarters here, we stayed in Little India and, as the name suggests, it is literally a mini India in Singapore. The streets are lined with Indian restaurants and the people are mainly Indian. Not far from us was China Town and again, as the name suggests, this is where the Chinese influence is most apparent.

When we arrived at Changi Airport we were surprised, firstly, with how nice it was and, secondly, by how friendly, polite and well spoken the airport staff were; their English was perfect! (In fact, they can probably speak better English than us!) We paid for a transfer from the airport to our pre-booked hostel 'The Inn Crowd' and after a short minibus journey we were there. It was to be the best place we've stayed on our travels so far with a VERY relaxing communal area where there are bean bags, leather sofas, computers, a wii and a TV, along with a kitchen where you can help yourself to coffee, tea, toast and boiled eggs! Our first dorm experience went extremely well, we were in a room of 12 people and thankfully everyone slept silently! We were signed up to do the infamous 'Scooter Tour of Singapore' which we'd been told to do by the St Ives lads we met in Koh Phangan but sadly it was rained off. We were gutted and thought we'd missed our chance but luckily Michael Chua (the leader of the tour) rescheduled for Sunday morning. We spent our first evening chilling in the communal area and went to Subway for dinner before hitting our beds.

Sunday arrived and we were up and ready for our Scooter Tour which started at 10.30am. There were eleven of us on the tour in total, including the tour leader and we had a great time! The tour lasted six hours and we covered a huge area without realising exactly how far we'd travelled. Michael, born and raised in Singapore, was a great tour leader and told us lots of interesting information and facts about Singapore as well as the history and religions surrounding the country. We made a number of stops along the way including; Chinese shops and markets in China Town; Clarke Quay along the Singapore River; The Singapore National Library and;

Raffles Hotel & Shopping Mall - a colonial style hotel dating from 1887 and 'Long Bar' - part of the Raffles Hotel complex - was the birthplace of the Singapore Sling cocktail and it was only right to try it out. Six of us went into the bar and ordered one cocktail between us; it was lovely but cost $30 which is £15!

Marina Bay Sands - an enormous resort with three 55-storey hotels connected by a rooftop swimming pool which is 150m in length and holds 376,500 gallons of water! The resort also includes a number of restaurants, a casino block and the Art & Science Museum. (Google 'Marina Bay Sands', it's pretty spectacular!)

We saw many other places along the way but these are the ones which really stood out! Singapore is full of impressive buildings, many of which look like pieces of art as well as being absolutely huge structures! The Scooter Tour was completely free and is probably one of the best tours we've done on our travels! We were very impressed.

On our final day we planned to visit the little island of Sentosa where we wanted to go to 'Underwater World' but unfortunately it would have meant packing a lot into the day in only a few hours so we opted to stay in the hostel, only venturing out for lunch before returning to wait for our airport transfer at 5.30pm.

We really enjoyed Singapore, a lot more than we had expected and both of us have said it's the first place we could actually see ourselves living for a while. Singapore is truly one of the cleanest places we have ever seen, there is a ban on chewing gum - meaning the streets are spotless. Stunning.

We will update you on all things Aussie when we can! G'day mate!

Lots of love Sophie and Kie xx