So we left Sydney the evening of Friday 4th December, after a teary goodbye with Lee's family, ready to embark on the next part of our adventure. We saw Lyn, Zoe and Ben off on their flight as it left an hour before ours, then headed to our gate to wait. When everyone got called to board, we hung back until the queue had died down before going up ourselves. The lady checking our tickets told us our seats had already been filled and so upgraded us to business class... it was amazing! Seven hours of total luxury, fully reclining seats, masses of delicious food and champagne! We actually ate so much that Lee ended up being sick in the toilet as we landed! Ooops! Totally worth it though!!!!! ;o)

Once we arrived in Singapore, we caught a taxi to our hostel and went straight to bed as it was pretty late. Our room was a four bed dorm, with no window and the tiniest amount of space between the bunkbeds! Still the hostel staff were really nice and we were only there for a few days so we made do! Saturday, we walked around the city, had lunch in a hawker centre (food court) in Chinatown and walked through the massive market there, visited several temples, walked alongside the river and riverfront restaurants, and ended up at Theatre Esplanade before catching a tube back to our hostel and going for dinner at another hawker centre near our hostel.

Sunday we visited Little India which was great, it felt like a mini India right in the middle of the city, full of vibrant colours, smells and bustling crowds. We then had lunch in Kampong Glam neighbourhood (known as the Muslim quarter), which was also really nice with lots of nice restaurants, cobbled streets and a mix of modern and traditional shophouses. We visited a couple of mosques which were amazing, crafted to perfection. It really gave us a feel for what it would be like to be part of the Muslim society - we had to walk around one of them wearing a long green shirt which covered our shoulders down to our ankles, we both looked very funny! In the evening we walked along the extremely long Orchard Road which was decorated with the most amazing display of Christmas lights we had ever seen.

On Monday we caught a bus to Singapore Zoo and spent the whole day there. Probably one of the best zoos we had been to, the animals seemed happy and had clean and spacious living conditions. We got to see loads of feeding sessions and a couple of animal conservation shows, and ended up taking silly amounts of pictures, as per normal!! Tuesday we were up early ready to leave Singapore and catch a bus in to Malaysia to our next destination, Kuala Lumpur.