Singapore, Singapore

13th May – 16th May 2018

After making our way through the thunderstorm to the airport, and checking in, we sat at the gate and waited for time to pass. It was so early in the morning, but we were both pretty hungry, so had to wait for the cafés to open up. Once they did, we treated ourselves to a chocolate croissant and a hot chocolate, to keep us going.

Once we had boarded the plane, we were sat across the aisle from each other again. We both fell asleep pretty quickly, which was needed, as we had a long day ahead of us. The flight seemed to set off quite late, but it was only a fifty minute flight, so it didn’t seem to be too bad – it gave us extra nap time.

When we landed in Singapore, we had another long walk through the airport, before reaching immigration, who seemed very strict. We got through and collected our bags before making our way to the MRT (the subway).

It felt like a bit of a wild goose chase to find tickets and get the right things to get onto the subway, but we got there eventually. When we got on the subway, we had to do two changes and a little walk around the corner, before we finally reached the hostel.

When we arrived, the staff were a little rude and ignored us at first, despite us standing there with our big bags on. We were then told to put our bags around the corner, as we couldn’t check in until 1 and it was only 9.30.

As the hostel provides free breakfast, we were able to help ourselves while we waited. It was only jam on toast, but it was better than nothing, I suppose. We had a couple of slices and sat and planned our Singapore time on a map. It was a rainy Sunday morning in Singapore, and it was also Mother’s Day, so we expected indoor things to be busy.

Once we had a little plan, we set off to the local markets to look for a patch. We didn’t want to venture too far at first, but we were kitted up with our raincoats and waterproofs in case we got caught in a massive downpour – the rain had started to ease off when we set out.

It was difficult walking with my big raincoat on, as it was still very humid. We made it to one market area, but it was the strangest market I have ever seen. It was more like a shopping centre, but there weren’t different shops, there were just rows and rows of stock and then till dotted about randomly. It was also packed and unenjoyable, so we didn’t stay there very long.

From this market, we walked to Bugis Street market, which is the biggest Singapore market. It was a little more like what we were expecting, so that was good. We wandered up and down the stalls looking at what was on offer. While looking for a patch, we also needed a new holder for the GoPro, as that had snapped at some point along the trip – yet another problem with it.

We struggled to find what we needed, but there were rows and rows and rows of keyrings and other souvenirs. We had a little break, while Joe got some food, as the toast hadn’t filled him. We sat and tried to regain some energy, before having one last look around. I thought I should buy a patch while we were there, even though the options were limited, but I didn’t want to leave it too late and be rushing to find one.

Once the patch was purchased, we started to make our way back to the hostel, as it was almost time to check in and as we were in a 12-bed dorm, we wanted to try and get some beds near each other. We went via an electronics mall, but in there, there were no signs of anything GoPro related which was strange.

When we got back to the hostel, we had about ten minutes to wait before it was time to check in. We sat and did a little research, before we went to the desk to get our key and room. It turns out that we are assigned beds anyway, so we didn’t need to rush back (not that we did really) and the rest was a welcome break.

After getting our keys, we grabbed our bags and went to make our way upstairs. When I picked my bag up, I noticed something different about it. When I looked closely I noticed a patch had gone, and then when I looked again, I noticed two were missing! We had a look around the bags to see if they were on the floor but they weren’t. We took our bags up to the room and thought about when they could have gone, because I looked at my bag when getting it off the luggage belt at the airport, but I didn’t notice them missing then.

As there are cameras in the hostel lobby, we asked the receptionist if we could look at the cameras to see if I had them when I came in. To get the patches off, someone would have had to really ripped them with some force because we tested some that were left, and they didn’t budge. The lady showed us the footage but it was that quick and blurry, we couldn’t really tell, but it looked like they were missing when we came in, suggesting that the airline ripped them off and the only way I can imagine they did this, is if they tried to lift my bag using the patches, despite the fact that my bag had a fragile sticker on it.

I contacted the airline by email, hoping to hear something back before leaving Singapore, but then I had to wait. It’s so upsetting as I have worked hard on collecting them and now two were gone.

As time was getting on, we didn’t really have the time to sit around and dwell on it, so we got up and head back out again. We were heading for battlebox, which is the bunker where the army hid out during the war. We wanted to do the tour at 2.45, but you could only buy tickets on the door, around fifteen minutes before.

On the way, we stopped off at a café to get a drink and arrived just on time at 2.30. Once we had bought the tickets, we waited for the tour to start. The group was quite big, and there was lots of information so it was difficult to keep up with what the tour guide was saying.

The battlebox itself was built for the army to hideout in, during the war. There were two buildings either side of it: the army headquarters and the army barracks. These are now both still used, but one is a hotel and the other is the arts centre.

Inside the battlebox, we learned the background story of why twelve men had to decide to surrender on behalf of 120,000 troops and 1 million civilians. Originally, over seventy years ago, the hill above the battlebox, was a forbidden hill, as it was there where kings and rulers, ruled from. A fort was then built on the hill, as it was the highest land around, and was a good lookout point for protection.

Although it seemed big to us, it wasn’t big when it was home to thousands and thousands of soldiers. The steel doors made it an airtight building, which was good in case of poison gas attacks.

It took from the year 1936 – 1941 to build the battlebox, and it was to be the headquarters for the army, navy and RAF. However, it was decided that it was too small, so a new one was built further north. This one, was only completed two days before the Pacific War broke out on 6^th December 1941.

Once the war had started, it didn’t take Japan long to take over Malaysia. Within 55 days, they had gained power over the whole country, and were heading for Singapore. They managed to defeat the navy and the RAF, using newer and quicker aircraft. Although the Japanese army only consisted of 50,000 troops, compared to the 120,000 in the Malayan army, they Malayan army just didn’t have the ammunition.

Japan arrived on the land with 240 tanks, which was 240 more than the Malayan army had, and those Japanese troops who weren’t driving the tanks, had bicycles to ride down the country, keeping up with the machines. Singapore brought their army down from Malaya into the battlebox, blowing up the bridge behind them, that connected the two countries. The only problem was, was that there was still a land link in low tide, so the tanks just had to wait. Due to poor communication methods during the war, many civilians lost their lives.

It was when the Japanese entered Singapore and had taken over most of it, that the time came to surrender. The twelve men had a difficult decision ahead of them, but eventually they knew the best thing was to give in to the Japanese. All twelve men, besides one (Gorden Bennett) were taken into to captivity by the Japanese. Bennett managed to escape on the boats, leaving his men behind.

They remained in prisons until 1945, when the Japanese then surrendered, as their country was under attack. The final surrender document wasn’t technically binding, as the man who signed it, wasn’t the same person as whose name was on the document, as he was ill. However, once he was better, he signed a separate document.

The tour was really interesting and we did learn a lot, but we would have liked a little more time in each room to be able to look at things properly. Sadly we were ushered on. Entry to the battlebox was only allowed during the tours, and we weren’t allowed to take photos in there.

Just after 4, we were back in the information centre, as the tour came to a close. Once it was over, we made our way back to the hostel. We nipped to the market on the way, as I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was getting peckish. I grabbed  some sweet potato fries to eat as we walked.

Back at the hostel, we had about half an hour to get ourselves ready before our scooter tour. We packed up the dry bag, as there was rain forecast, and sat and waited.

Although it was meant to start at 5.30, the tour guide was running a little late, so we set off just after. We were provided with a scooter each from the hostel, which we had to be able to use, with some pace.

Our first stop on the tour, was to Bugis market, where we had been earlier in the day. We stopped at the fruit stalls, and Daniel (the guide) bought some durian for people to try. Durian is a local fruit and something we saw a lot of in Malaysia. I didn’t try any of it, as I was given a sample of durian flavoured ice cream to try in Kuala Lumpur and I didn’t like that, so I knew I wouldn’t like the real thing. A few people tried it though and most had the same reaction – it is not nice, and it smells worse than it tastes. Apparently it is meant to be really good for you, but that’s not enough to persuade me.

From the market, we made our way up to Geylang. On the way, we stopped to look at some typical Singapore accommodation buildings. Apparently 80% of locals live in buildings like the ones we saw, and they are massively subsidised by the government. However, even with the subsidisation, the residents still have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to live there. Property prices in Singapore sound ridiculous. Daniel said that our hostel building, including the land that it is on, is worth ten million Singapore dollars!! We couldn’t believe it, that just sounds crazy!

We were already getting tired from the scootering, and the tour had only just begun! We tried to keep swapping legs along the way, to get an even workout, but that was too hard, as my left leg had no power to push. I also ran over myself at one point, causing my heel to bleed quite badly down the back of my foot. It was sore, but I carried on and decided to stick with what I was strongest with.

Geylang Street was a beautiful looking street with lots going on outside. There was lots of artwork on the walls too, making it nice and bright. We didn’t stop for long though, as we had to get on. They apparently have great night markets on at this time of year, as its Ramadan but we didn’t get time to go to them unfortunately.

 

After Geylang Street, we made our way to the Fountain of Wealth. The Fountain of Wealth is an upside down fountain which is in the middle of five buildings (one shorter and four taller). The buildings are positioned to create the image of a left hand, with the fountain in the middle (as the palm of the hand), bringing good fortune. We went up to the fountain and walked around it, putting our hands in the water. It is good luck to circle the fountain three times with your hand in the water, making a wish, apparently, so we did!

Our next stop, after the fountain, was to a food court, to grab some dinner. Daniel told us to order to take out, as he knew a good spot to go and eat, so we did. Me and Joe ordered from different stalls: I got sweet and sour pork and Joe had a chicken dish.

Once everyone had their food, we followed Daniel to a roof top spot, on top of the theatre. It was such an amazing place to eat dinner, as we had views over the whole bay, and as this was our first time seeing it all, it made us very excited! We took some photos and tucked into our food, whilst taking in the views.

After everyone had finished dinner, we scootered our way to Marina Bay Sands to watch the free water show. We got there just in time, and were sat right in front of the display. The show was only fifteen minutes long but it was so cool: there were lights and fountains and projected images onto the water. Although we enjoyed it, Daniel said it has been the same show for eight years, since it started, so he wasn’t too interested in it, understandably.

As soon as the show finished, we had to get back to Daniel, to scooter our way over to the gardens to watch their show. There was half an hour between one show finishing and the other starting, but we had to fight through the crowds.

We made it to the Gardens by the Bay with loads of time to spare, so there was nothing to worry about. Apparently, the groups usually lie on the ground underneath the Supertrees and watch the show. However, as we arrived at the gardens, it started to rain, and it rained quite heavily, so we stayed stood up, under the trees. The show was another good one: the trees lit up beautifully.

After the show was over, the rain started to ease. We got back on our scooters, and made our way back to the Helix Bridge, just by the Marina Bay Sands hotel. We stopped on the bridge for an ice cream sandwich, which was good! It was so much harder riding a wet scooter though, as the brakes were pretty much non existent.

From the bridge, we started to make our way back to the hostel, making a few more short stops along the way. The first was at the Merlion, which is also by the bay. It is a statue of a lion spraying water into the bay, so we had some fun trying to ‘catch’ the water in our mouths. Apparently the lion status attached to Singapore comes from a king, who saw a large animal run across the land when he first arrived. He described the animal to one of his workers who said it must have been a lion, but it was very unlikely that it was. The king probably saw a white tiger, as these can still be found in the wild in Malaysia, but lions aren’t found in this part of the world. Despite this, as he was told that it was a lion, he named the city Singapura, meaning lion city.

We also stopped by the National Gallery, which was a beautiful building and is apparently free to walk around inside, but we didn’t do that as a group. We stopped outside Raffles Hotel, which is currently shut for renovations, so we couldn’t actually see any of it, which was a shame. Apparently, Raffles used to be a beachfront hotel, as the road in front of it, was the beach. Over the years, Singapore has expanded and one third of it, is manmade! Meaning everything in front of Raffles, including the Marina Bay, is all manmade. Daniel also told us about Marina Bay Sands having free entry on a Sunday night in case people wanted to go up and have a look – we didn’t have the energy though.

After a fantastic tour of the city, we made it back to the hostel at around 10.30. We had showers, as we felt horrible after the sweaty and rainy scooter trip, before finally falling into bed. It had been a very long day, from leaving Kuala Lumpur at 2.30am, to falling into bed after 11pm, it’s safe to say it didn’t take long to get to sleep.

As we had such a long and busy first day in Singapore, we had a lie in the next day. Usually when I have a lie in, my body wakes up naturally at 7ish, so it was nice to sleep in until after 9 for a change. Once we were up, we went down for some breakfast, and had a chilled out morning. We caught up on some trip planning and blog writing for a while, before getting ready for the day.

Once we were ready, we finally ventured out of the hostel just after 12. As we were getting a little sick of the deep fried street food, we decided to have a westernised lunch for a change. We ended up at a burger place, called 25 degrees, as they had a lunchtime offer on. It was more expensive than street food, but the constant fried stuff was making me feel ill. I had a beef burger and really enjoyed it, but to be different, Joe had a tuna burger, which he wasn’t too keen on.

From the burger place, we started to make our way to Gardens by the Bay. We decided to walk via Seah Street, which is where there is a pop-up shop and ‘Long Bar’, while Raffles Hotel is being done up. We could see the back of the hotel, which was huge, from Seah Street, but it didn’t really give away much information to indicate how grand it was inside. We had a look in the shop, before finally decided to go into the Long Bar to try a Singapore Sling.

As it wasn’t technically the place it was created, I was a bit unsure, but it was as close to the real place, as we could get, so we gave it a go. It was a very tasty drink and despite Joe not wanting one, he drank an awful lot of mine! I had a read of the signs on the wall and found out that the drink was made by a bartender, near to the time when Raffles had first opened. He created the drink, so that the men could have a fruity looking, but alcoholic drink to hold in their hand, while they watch women glide across the ballroom floor.

Once we had finished our drink, we carried on to the gardens. We had to stop at Marina Square on the way, to pick up the tickets we have pre-ordered through the hostel (as it was cheaper), to get into the domes.

When we arrived at the gardens, we had a little sit, to try and regain some energy that the humidity had taken. We walked across the bridge, taking in views of the gardens. We had seen on the map of the park that there was a flower clock, which looked pretty cool, so we tried to look for that. We couldn’t seem to find it, and as there was a lot of construction work going on, we assumed that it mustn’t be available for viewing at the moment.

Eventually, we arrived at the domes. We decided to go into the Flower Dome first, as apparently the Cloud Dome is better. We seemed to time just out, again, as the exhibitions were in between things, so there was more work going on. The workers were in the middle of taking up the tulip display which had just finished, and were replanting the new one. As we got closer, we could tell that the tulips were ready to come out, as a lot were dead, but it was still a shame for us.

We wandered around the dome, looking at the beautiful exhibitions. I got a little carried away with my photography and got lots of photos of flowers, but they all looked so beautiful and the colours were so bright.

Once Joe could drag me away from the flowers, we made our way out of the dome. We had a little sit down on a bench so that Joe could defrost his toes, as the domes were cold, before we went into the Cloud Forrest Dome.

The huge rainforest and waterfall construction that you see as soon as you enter the dome, is amazing. The way it has been designed is just beautiful – I could have watched it for ages. In the Cloud Dome, we are allowed to go right to the top and then take a tree top walk back down again. It’s all very clever, the way it has been designed, I really liked it in there.

By the time we made it back to the ground, it was already nearly 6 o’clock. From the domes, we walked to Supertree Grove and had a look at the supertrees in the light. They are another very cool feature of the gardens. While we sat and enjoyed the views, we thought about where to go next. As Joe was getting hungry, we looked at where were could head for dinner. We thought about the Geylang market that Daniel had mentioned but we didn’t know where it was in relation to where we were and we didn’t have the energy to try and risk getting lost.

Instead, we made our way to China Town, where we thought we would find some food centres. Unfortunately we didn’t find anything we fancied, as they were quite small and didn’t look too appealing. We wandered a little bit, but in the end, we decided to head to where we got food from the night before, on the tour. Joe fancied sweet and sour after trying mine, and we knew we could get it there.

After buying our dinner, we walked down to the bay and ate outside again. We decided not to go to the roof top, but instead sit on the front and watch the water show from the other side of the bay. It was good to have a different view, but we were definitely more interested in our food by this stage, so didn’t fully pay attention to the show.

Once the show was over, and we had finished eating, we decided to head back to the hostel, as we were both pretty tired.

We got back around 9ish and after sitting downstairs for a while, we made our way up to bed. As it was after 11 by this point, lights in the dorm were out, so we needed to use torches. I had used Joe’s phone and then put it in my back pocket, forgetting about it. When we went down to the bathrooms to brush our teeth, I went to the toilet and the phone fell in! I panicked at first, but Joe found it hilarious because it still worked.

After putting the phone in a bag of rice, as a safety precaution, we made our way to our own beds to fall asleep.

During the night, I woke up feeling quite ill. I thought it would be typical for me to get sick the day we were booked into Marina Bay Sands, it would be my third bad luck in Singapore (after losing two patches and dropping Joe’s phone down the toilet). Fortunately, I think it was just that I got too hot in my bed, as I had put my sarong up along the side for some privacy, so I pulled that down and soon cooled down, making me feel much better.

Just after 8, I woke up properly and decided to get up. Joe got up with me and we went down to get some breakfast – a very exciting portion of jam and toast. We sat downstairs for a while doing some planning and organising bits and pieces for the next week or so.

At 11am, we had to check out of the hostel, so we did do, and made our way to Marina Bay Sands. As I was checking out, a guy in our room told me I had the coolest bag ever, I just wished it wasn’t missing two patches! We got the subway along the line a few stops, until we got to Bayfront, where the hotel was.

When we arrived at the hotel, we just intended to drop our bags off, as it was only 12 and check-in didn’t start until 3. We were allowed to check-in when we got there, although the room wasn’t ready right away, which was fine with us, as we had planned to go and look around the National Gallery while we waited.

Once we had dropped our bags off, we went looking for the ‘Rewards Desk’, as we got a special membership package for booking through the website. We had to sign up, but it was free and we got special discounts and offers for various places within the Marina Bay group. After going to one desk, we were sent to another in the casino, as we got $30 for free to spend in the casino, if we signed up with them.

While we were signing up, I got an email to say that our room was ready early, so we were allowed to go and pick up our keys! On our way back into the hotel, we borrowed a phone to make an international call, as I still hadn’t heard back from AirAsia about my damaged bag, but after almost half an hour on the phone, they were useless, so I’ve given up hope on that now.

After collecting our keys, we made our way up to the eleventh floor, where our room was. At first, I thought it was a little disappointing to be so low down, but when we got there and saw our room and our views, all of that went away! We had a look around our room and got very excited. After a couple of minutes, the door bell rang – who knew hotel rooms had door bells! It was the porter with our bags – this is definitely service we are not used to!

Once we had our bags, and were settled, we nipped out for lunch. It felt like we were wasting valuable pool time by going out again, but we were both very hungry, and didn’t want to pay hotel prices. We ended up at a hawker centre around the corner which was full of different types of Asian foods. We opted for Indian in the end and shared a platter of different curries, rice and naan bread, for S$12 (£6). Although it was tasty, it was a little too spicy for me, so I couldn’t eat very much.

After we had finished eating, we made our way back to the hotel. We stopped off in our room to sort a bag out for the pool and apply the sun cream before heading up to floor 57.

When we got up there, the views were so good! We could see over the whole bay and the infinity pool was positioned perfectly. We took some photos and got in the pool, just as the rain started to fall – typical, as it had been beautiful sunshine all morning. We stayed in the pool anyway, as the rain wasn’t going to put us off, but as soon and the thunder and lightning started to close in we were out of there!

Just after we got out, the pool closed for cleaning anyway, so it wasn’t timed too badly, we just didn’t get very long up there. We made our way back to the room and watched the thunderstorm out of our window, while we chilled out. We did some research on where to go for dinner, and as we had discount vouchers, we decided to treat ourselves in one of the Marina restaurants – we couldn’t not.

Once we had showered and got dressed up (kind of), we made our way back up to the 57^th floor for a rooftop cocktail before dinner. We went to a bar called Lavo, which had a special offer of 1-for-1 cocktails. This offer sounded weird to us at first but we soon came to learn that it’s similar to 2-for-1, so we decided to get one each. When the bill came, we noticed that we couldn’t actually share the deal, and had to get two each, so we each bought one and got one free. Because of this, we ended up spending a little more money than planned, but that was okay as we got to enjoy the lovely views outside, as the rain had stopped.

Just before 8, we made our way back downstairs to ‘The Bird Southern Table and Bar’ where we had a reservation for dinner. We sat on the bayfront and managed to catch the water show for the third night. As they were still on happy hour and had 50% off cocktails, we decided to order another – we really were splashing out. For dinner, we both ordered the burger which was so nice – probably one of the best burgers I have ever had!

After dinner, we made our way to the casino, to spend our free chips. We had to go back up to the room first though, as we had forgotten our passports and needed them to get in. Once we were inside, we went to the desk to collect our chips, before finding somewhere to play. I wanted to be like Monica in ‘Friends’ and play the table she played on, but we stood and watched it for a while and didn’t understand anything that was going on, so we gave it a miss.

From the craps table, we went to a roulette table. The woman who was running it was so rude and unfriendly, we only had one bet on there (which we lost) before moving on. It wasn’t very nice in the room, as people were allowed to smoke so there was a strong smell and thick air. We eventually found another roulette table with no one playing at it, so decided to give that a go. The man was a little friendlier but it was still quite daunting, but the roulette was the only thing we knew how to play.

On our first go, we won over $80! But this was short lived, as it was all lost again on the next few spins! Technically we didn’t lose a penny though, as the money was free in the first place. We had fun and it was an experience – my first one in a casino.

Once the free money had run out, we decided to make our way back to the room. We tried to link the laptop up the TV but couldn’t get it to work, so just watched Netflix from the laptop instead. We are still trying to get into a new series but it’s difficult when we only watch an episode every few weeks! Part way through we turned it off, as we were falling asleep.

The next morning, we had planned an early start, to make the most of the time we had left in the hotel. We woke up around 8, which was later than planned, but I couldn’t wake up earlier. We got ready and packed our bags before heading up to the pool. We wanted to make sure that everything was ready to check out so we weren’t rushing after the pool.

We made our way up to the pool and flaked out on some sunbeds. It was much brighter than the previous day, but the sun wasn’t quite high enough yet to be on the pool, which was nice in a way, as it wasn’t too hot. We took some more photos, without the grey sky and enjoyed our final few hours. The photos were a challenge though, as we wanted a nice one together and as everyone around was either in the pool or asleep, we tried to put it on timer. This was way too difficult though, as the timer is ten seconds and  swimming the width of the pool in that time, was a challenge! In the end, someone stepped in to help!

About half an hour before check out, we made our way back down to the room to finish packing and get changed for the day. We made it downstairs just after 11am but luckily we could express check out by dropping our cards in the box, so no one technically knew we were a few minutes late. We dropped our bags off in storage, and planned to head out for a couple of hours to get some food and see the National Gallery, as we postponed it because of the pool.

This plan changed slightly, when we walked passed a café called ‘SweetSpot’. The smells coming from there drew me right in, and we ended up getting a chocolate croissant for brunch, along with a drink. It wasn’t quite the lunch plan we had, but I really couldn’t resist.

After brunch, we walked along the towers, inside, to tower 1, where I checked my loyalty card. As I had earned $7 of points already, we decided we would treat ourselves to one of the gorgeous looking cakes in SweetSpot when we went back to collect our bags.

From the hotel, we walked around the bay, to the National Gallery. As we knew it was free entry, we could just wander in, which was definitely needed when we arrived as it was the hottest day we had had for a while and we were very hot and sweaty! Inside, we had a quick rest and cool down in the air con, before exploring.

To Joe’s delight, as it meant he didn’t have to carry it round, he had to check his bag into the lockers. We could carry the cameras around but bags are more likely to damage displays accidentally. At the information desk, we asked for advice on where we could go for free within the building.

The National Gallery used to be two buildings: the Supreme Court, and City Hall, but it is now joined together to create the gallery. We were allowed to go and visit the old holding cells, as well as the court waiting areas, in the Supreme Court wing. It was so interesting to know that the holding cells were still used in 2006 while prisoners were waiting for their court appearance. They would never be used overnight, so only contained a bench and a toilet, in which the flushing system was outside the cell.

From the Supreme Court wing, we walked into the City Hall wing, and had a look at the City Hall Chamber. It was a very grand room, and when it was built in 1929, it was the grandest building in the whole of Singapore, and we could definitely see why. It was the room where the Japanese allies surrendered in 1945 and was then also where the first Singapore Prime Minister was sworn in, in 1959.

Above the City Hall chamber, was a room which was full of information about Singapore’s early architecture. The City Hall building was originally the Municipal building, until Singapore gained city status in 1951. The Supreme Court building was completed in 1939, after the roof of the original court building collapsed after a heavy downpour. These two buildings were an important symbol of British prestige; they are composed of classical architectural elements, modelling the Supreme Court on the Old Bailey courthouse in London.

On top the City Hall wing, was a rooftop garden which was really beautiful. If we went a little higher, there were viewing decks, over the bay and the city. We seemed to be able to get views of the city from every angle during our stay.

As time was getting on, we started to make our way back to the hotel. We stopped off at the Merlion to get some pictures in the daylight. As we approached, it was so funny to see everyone stood there with their mouths open, trying to get the shots of them ‘catching the water’. It was funny to see, but it didn’t stop us being those people a few minutes later!

From the Merlion, we went back to the hotel, grabbing a sandwich from the 7/ 11 to keep us going in the airport. While Joe collected the bags, I bought our cake from SweetSpot, so that we could share it after our sandwiches.

Once everything was in order, we made our way to the subway station, to get to the airport. We had two changes again, but as it wasn’t too busy, it wasn’t too bad with our big bags.

When we got to the airport, I made sure my bag was all wrapped up safely before checking it in. I put my back straps away, and put the rain cover over my patches, before checking it in as fragile. I wasn’t risking any more damage! Once the bags were checked in, we went through security, where we lost our suncream as it was still in Joe’s day bag – luckily it was nearly empty.

After we were through security, we made our way to the gate, where we sat and waited. We ate our sandwiches and did some blog organisation before it was time to board our next flight to head back into Malaysia.

Although we spent way more money than we should have done, Singapore has been another favourite! It was beautiful in both the day and at night. Our treat in Marina Bay Sands was definitely a one-off experience, and while we loved it up there, we both agreed we wouldn’t pay it again, as the prices were very high! The scooter tour was amazing and such a great free activity for the hostel to offer, it was worth staying there just for that! It’s time to try and get back on track with the budget now, as we head to Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian part of Borneo.

To travel is to live, Katie x