Sunday, March 18, 2012

Singapore July 2011

When I landed in Singapore at the very end of July 2011, I hadn't been to Singapore in 21 years, to be perfectly honest, I didn't know much about the place, my memories from when I was five consisted of The Merlion and possibly a tiny bit of Sentosa Island but I am really not sure.

My former flatmate, Leonard, met me at the airport and escorted me to my hostel which I had booked through HostelWorld. I think that was my big mistake. Not knowing anything about Singapore I just jumped on HostelWorld, went "that looks fairly central and vaguely nice" and booked WoW Hostel. I really should have consulted my family more because I ended up in Geylang, the "redlight" district... not entirely all that central and AlJuneid station is about as dodgy as Singapore gets at night. The hostel was not well sign posted and I got quite lost more than once. Next time I am going to stay Hotel 88 or whatever it is in Central Singapore because at least that way I know that I am safe. My friend's friends were staying there and it was soooo much nicer.

Other than the weird hostel experience Singapore was about as awesome as it gets. I really liked it and would live there if given the opportunity.

I had 2 days and 3 nights in beautiful Singapore. On day 1 I caught up with my former flatmate who had met me at the airport the night before and helped me find my hostel and met up with our former neighbour, Jeroen from Switzerland, who was a student at NUS at the time. He had some girlfriends from Switzerland visiting too. They were also on their way to a wedding in a different country.

As four out of the six of us were tourists we headed up the Singapore Flyer, just as awesome as London Eye but cooler because it's in Singapore. It provides a fantastic start to a first day in Singapore because it allows you to get your bearings from on high. It takes a fair bit of time but gives you such amazing views and such an awesome chance to decide where to next.

For us, next was Vivo City for spot of lunch and shopping. Via the Merlion of course. I remembered it being much much bigger but then I was five the last time I had seen it...
Vivo City resulted in a lunch a murtabak and banana paratha. Oh my gosh, Singaporean food is so dreamy. I am still not sold on Sugar Cane Juice but everything else is just amazing. Leonard, who has seen me not finish a whole pizza before, was wondering where I was putting all the food I was stuffing into my mouth.

After a spot of lunch was a spot of shopping. UNIQLO!!! Oh how I had missed Uniqlo. Shorts, T-shirt, umbrella... gets! I was very happy. So happy in fact that I let the others con me into going to Sentosa Island with them even though I had said that I really didn't want to go there... aaaahahahahaha.

Sentosa actually ended up being possibly one of my best memories of Singapore this time around. Jeroen's friend from the university joined us and dragged us in the direction of a foam party at a beach bar. I laughed so hard because it was a) the last thing I expected and b) the one thing I needed. The music seemed as though it was coming off of my ipod too which made me laugh a little. So we had our Singapore Slings there then headed off for Satay back in town.

Om nom nom nom nom nom nom Singapore Satay. Enough said.

Next day:

Singapore Zoo: as awesome as it is reputed to be, though I thought it would be larger, again small child memory deception. Got lost trying to get there by train then bus but I did get there in the end despite Lonely Planet's rather amusingly bad instructions.

Arab Street and Little India: Also awesome! My parents think that that area has changed a lot since they first lived there in the 1970s. Well duh! It's called progress. The boogies that used to hang out around the area around the Bugis MTR stop have gone and the atmosphere has changed completely. BUT amazing pancakey crepe things in that area at a Swedish cafe and of course, Arab Street being the former Muslim precinct had awesome scarves for awesome prices. ;-)

Orchard Road: Everything is there, everything!!! Even Sephora... more money spent... too much money spent... awesome flip flops purchased that then got worn to Ladylovescake's wedding. :D

Jammed a million and one too many things into my pack and jumped on my plane to Sri Lanka at the end of Day 2. Late night flight landed me into Sri Lanka at 0100 which is another story for another day.


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