Singapore

The bus from Melaka dropped us off 5 minutes from our hostel, which was lucky! We'd booked our hostel for once as Singapore can be expensive, even then we paid £25 a night!! What happened to £2.50?!

We stayed in little India, not far from the MRT, so getting around was easy. We headed to the Colonial area, which all looked very British. Every sign is in English only, the buildings were like London, one is even based on St Paul's Cathedral. Feeling slightly overwhelmed we did what British tourist do best when on holiday, and had a beer! We stopped at a nice waterfront location. We then walked to Chinatown as it wasn't far and headed for a ultra cheap eat. My meal was chicken and peanuts in floating oil (wast meant to be!), Emma's meal was a lot nicer.

We found out just how expensive Singapore was when we walked to Clarke's quay. Happy hour prices for 1 glass (1/2 pint) was about £5!! We wondered around watching everyone enjoying their expensive drinks and headed home feeling thirsty!

The next day we planned to goto to the zoo but by the time we were ready , it was getting a bit too late. We decided to head over to sentosa island instead. It had some man-made beaches which used imported sand, they actually looked pretty nice. Although the view was nothing spectacular, consisting of huge container ships! We then came across 'Wavehouse' which is an artificial surf machine. We didn't have the correct clothing so we decided to go back on Wednesday when luckily enough it was half price anyway! In the evening we headed to 'Newton' food court which as some of you know is part of Emma's middle name so of course she had to have her photo taken (it also had a recommendation in the LP). We went to a specific curry stand and the best they could offer was 'chicken curry'. So we had one of those and a pretty gross Mutton soup. Not impressed with Newton's! Coming to think of it, I don't know many other Newtons that are good cooks!! Just joking!

We managed to get up early enough to get to the zoo, hurrah! As we were queuing a guy came up to us asked if we wanted 2 free tickets! Dubious (because nothings free) we asked was there a catch but there wasn't! The wife worked for a company that sponsored the zoo and had two extra free tickets! We were pretty shocked and happy as we walked in with this Chinese family completely free!! A welcome saving in an expensive place! The zoo itself was really good. They had a lot of different sorts of monkeys, and most had large areas to move around, including swinging freely right above your head. The orangutans could move freely throughout the zoo but they seemed to stick to their area. Emma fed the kangaroos which were surprisingly soft (Kris didn't get a photo of him feeding the Kangaroos, hence the photo of him with the giant plastic one!!).

To finished the day we went to the aqua show. The guy running the show asked for 2 adult volunteers. The crowd wasn't the most active, willing or enthusiastic bunch shall we say so he picked on Emma! The idea was that Emma would throw a frisbee to a sea lion, everyone claps and she sits down. But unfortunately that wasn't reality. Emma failed to mention to the guy that she couldn't throw a frisbee in the right direction.

The first throw sailed over the sealions head, which meant another attempt was required. This time, Emma tried harder but somehow the frisbee sailed wildly out of control to the right, missing the sea lion by 10 metres. See the photos and look for the blue frisbee on the right! The 3rd attempt was successful but they were only 1 metre apart!!

Continuing the saving money theme we went to a supermarket and bought a bottle of wine, baguette and cheese for dinner. How very francais. The wine was so good, after 3 months without it!

An earylish start and we headed to the wavehouse again for the half price rides. Unfortunately this time Emma didn't have any ID! To cut a long story short we headed back to the hostel 45mins and then back to the wavehouse!! There was a lot of umming and arrring about doing the journey for the 3rd time, we were glad we did.

The wavehouse has 2 artificial waves, 1 gentle slope and a full on barrel!
We started the first hour learning how to use the board on a gentle wave. I say gentle but when you fall off, the pressure of the wave pushes you up and over the slope!! So pretty powerful.

Emma picked it up straight away but it wasn't until about the 5th go that the wobbling stopped. The instructor could tell that we surf and snowboard as we were that good!

After the hour was up we were deemed good enough for the barrel. We were a bit apprehensive as we had watched loads of people wipe out time after time! We both picked it up pretty quick and were surfing better than the other people in our group. The instructor turned the power higher for us first! You held a rope that the instructor was holding and when you felt comfortable, you let go!! We got some great pictures and it was so good. Why don't they have things like that in Bristol?!?!

Absolutely knackered, we did nothing in the evening which was the first time in ages!!

Singapore is good with lots to do.... especially if you have a lot of money, which we didn't! We were lucky we got in free to the zoo and discount to wavehouse.

On the last day we got up at 5.15am to catch the first metro to the airport.

Next time, it's not only a new country, but a new continent!!!!