The Sentosa Resort and Spa Singapore

... a backdrop of water spray, etc.

We also spent a day at the Singapore Zoo. This is a really nice zoo where the animals don’t appear to be behind fences but rather they are separated from you by deep waterways trenches. I believe the zoo has some of the original rainforest that was there prior to the zoo being built which gives it a nice ‘natural’ feel to it. And it also seems to hold some of the nastiest free-ranging mosquitoes around ...

... wake boarding. There just happens to be a restaurant at the launch of it all where people watch you eat it as it looks like an impossible start to get yanked into the water.

Then we met up with some new friends, had a few drinks, walked forever along the coast to get to Liliputt. Liliputt is an indoor miniature golf game with each hole representing a famous Singapore landmark. They've actually made it ...

... Thailand and US$0.50 Angkor beers in Cambodia!

Other than the beach there is nothing else in Batu Ferringhi well unless you’re a girl then there are the night markets which I’m sure the ladies could spend hours shopping through. We found a great hawker food store where we enjoyed probably the best Kebab I have ever had and a nice Indian for no more than £5 each. Oh and how could I forget being woken up every morning at 5am by the loudspeakers from the mosque blaring ...

... snorer and a couple of drunkards wandering in late at night, turning the light on and waking everybody up. Needless to say we had all this at Footprints. This is the dorm life I had avoided up until now but I'm going to have to get used to for the next few months because you have no choice in Australia and New Zealand because of the cost of individual rooms. It's all pros and cons though. For every loud person waking up at five in the morning and making lots of noise getting ...

... library studying and thinking "I have a craving for Timbits...I want a latte...I want to check my facebook...no no stop it and focus"...but then you do it again and again...because it's pretty hard to change your habbits just because you intellectually thought "hey, I should change this". So, it takes a change a deeper level.

So, according to Vipassana (okay, here's where I go into the meditation weird stuff), every time you generate aversion or craving you create ...

... you are on a rollercoaster. That lasted about 10 minutes. We then headed to our next attraction which was the Luge Ride. We had to wear a helmet and it was basically racing down the hill in a kind of go-kart / taboggan car. This was good fun but we spent too much time taking photographs that the ride was over before we knew it. But, we both still enjoyed it and I beat Simmo… That was the end of our paid attraction and in all honesty, although we had a good time ...

Our trip into Singapore was pretty hassle-free...the trip was only about 6 hours by bus for pretty cheap. Clearing customs was even easy, Singapore has the thermal cameras set up so they don't need to take an invasive temperature for the swine flu precautions. Our hostel was pretty slick - super clean and professionally run. Totally recommended (The Hive) and it was in ...

... of wakefulness that marked our previous trip to Australia together two years ago, we elected for a two night stopover enroute.

Our first ever flight with Singapore Airlines, with their top notch in-flight service and entertainment system, had instantly put them at the top of our list of favourite long haul carriers. Nevertheless, after a full day of work on Friday, flying from Zurich through Friday night and arriving in Singapore in the evening hours of Saturday, a ...