Apologies for the lack of blog updates- it's been a hectic couple of weeks!

Sunday 21st December-

On Friday we got a bus up to Bangkok. It was a double decker, so a bit comfier than what we had become used to. We left just before 6pm and it took us about 12 hours to get there! Neither of us managed to get much sleep. When we got off the bus in Bangkok, the door was surrounded by about 20 taxi drivers, all asking us where we wanted to go. We got a taxi to our hostel (Roof View Place) and luckily it was open, but we had to wait in the reception area for another 6-7 hours 'til our room was ready, but we got the free breakfast so that was good. Later in the day we went exploring to Khao San Road, which was packed with clothes stalls. The next day, we went to the weekend market at Chatuchak, which was massive. It sold everything you could think of including live animals, but mainly cheap clothes. There were police men going around on segways as well. Chirs bought shorts and bracelets and Helen bought a dress and some earrings, cheap as chips. After we ran out of energy, we went back to Khao San Road for some food, and Chris bought 2 more t shirts.

Wednesday 24th December

On Monday we went to the Grand Palace. It was a bit of a trek, but we managed to find our way in the end. The Grand Palace was made up of lots of little temples and extravagent buildings. They were very pretty and full of thrones and buddah images. After that we went to the Wat Pho, another set of temples. This place had a massive reclining buddah statue which was 42m long and 15m high, very impressive. It also had a massage training school, so we both had a half hour thai massage, which was very relaxing. It involved pressing lots of pressure points all over the body and pulling and twisting us about in order to make our bones crack and relieve tension. One woman was so relaxed she walked into the big glass door!

Yesterday we went to the MBK - a big shopping centre. It was made up of small shops and stalls rather than actual shops. Chris bought 2 more t-shirts and we both bought some games for the DS to keep us amused. After shopping we walked quite far to Lumphini Park. It wsa quite pretty with some nice lakes. We saw some crazy critters in the water - some big fish that were jumping, 2 big lizard/dragon things and a turtle.

Today we got a plane back to Singapore. We stayed at Footprints Hostel, in little India, which is very nice and modern. We ventured to Orchard Road to see the Christmas lights, but it was very busy and raining a lot, so we gave up.

Saturday 27th December

On Thursday (Christmas Day), we went to Marina Bay. We saw Raffles Hotel, which Chris wanted to see as he studied it at Uni. We saw the Singapore Flyer (like the London eye), but it was closed for maintenance which was disappointing. We walked by the river and there were thousand of big white balls in there with people's New Year wishes written on them. We walked back to Orchard Road to look at the Float parade and Christmas scenes, but they weren't very good. We couldn't find anywhere that did a Christmas dinner, so we just went to a place called Breeks for a nice meal.

Yesterday we went to Sentosa, a little island with a man made beach. It wasn't as good as we expected but was still ok. We went to an aquarium that was a bit rubbish, but saw a good dolphin show with some pink dolphins.

Today we went to Singapore Science Centre. It was very busy when we got there and we had to queue for ages. It was a massive place full of sciencey puzzles and things to do. Chris had a go on a segway which he loved.