Singapore....don't listen to the naysayers
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2008
1
2
72
Trip End
Ongoing
Singapore,
Singapore
Sunday, June 22, 2008
The flight over was great. The A308 is very new, so everything was nice and shiny and updated. Seats were slightly wider than on other planes, which is nice. Tons of films, tv programmes and multiplayer computer games on there. At one point I was top of the tetris gamescore list for the whole plane. ha. TV programmes included Green Wing (how was that not censored?!) and Scrubs, so I was well happy.
Immigration was a breeze
Southern tip of Asia....apparently
. No queues, no attitude, and a free sweet as you pass through. Like it. We landed though at half 7 in the morning, and couldnt get into the hotel til 2pm, so we sat in the airport all morning. It was raining real hard so our plan to sit in a park all day didnt really work out. Nice airport though.Come 2 we checked in, Perak Hotel in the heart of Little India. Its nice and small, but has everything you need. We use it simply as a place to sleep and clean, thats it. Free wifi is nice, shame its not secured. My VPN dont give me much bandwidth each month...
So we popped around Little India and some of the more specialist malls, i.e. the electronics one at Sim Lim, where I got a few goodies for my camera, at a third of the price of the UK. I was well happy. Other prices here are slightly cheaper than London for beer, and a lot cheaper for everything else. You can feast here for £2. So Helen has been doing that.
Our first full day was spent walking way too far in very, very hot and humid weather. We walked from Little India all the way to the River front area, walked around the brand new F1 track (parts will be street circuit, but a lot is brand new...), around the Ruffles hotel and Fountain of Wealth (largest fountain in the world, but only at night
A308 Wing
. At 10am its hardly bigger than my drool). From there we mooched arund Boat Quay, up to Fort Canning and then jumped onto a tube to Sentosa Island. Its basically a small island off Singapore that will be one giant theme park when its fully finished. It doesnt have a lot of stuff really, its mostly themed restaurants, crappy 3d cinemas etc. You know the places - Orlando, Myrtle Beach etc...but we did have a go on the Luge - part go-kart, part sledge, lots of fun and Im happy with my racing line attitude the entire way.We also walked down to a beach thats supposed to be the Southern Most Point of Continential Asia. Im not sure how as the beach next door looked even further south, but who am I to argue. I got the photo of me at the sign and watched all the ships out waiting to dock. You can also see some of the islands of Indonesia quite clearly. Shame we wont have time to go out to them.
We did lots more, but its kinda dull to type about - just looked around a cool city, with all its different areas - Little India, China Town, Business District etc. Had a nice cool beer on the way back at some bar in Little India and watched the world (Indians and Backpackers mostly) go by.
The second full day was more interesting, and gets its own entry...
