Nadine's Blog

Singapore 18.07.2007- 22.07.2007

Singapore is a great city and after spending almost a whole year in China it was just a great change. The city is not only clean (thanks to the 1000 dollar fine for littering) but the people are all really helpful and very nice!

I arrived in Singapore late at night (22.oo) due to a delay in Haikou (海口). I took a taxi to my hotel (I couldn’t find a hostel for the first night so that I had to stay in an rather expensive hotel in the red light district which I found out when I looked out of my window the other morning and only saw the prostitutes standing at the corner waiting for a job) and even the taxi ride was totally different from china. The taxi all look like mafia cars from the 70s if you ask me and they are very clean and you have a lot of space and the best thing of al you can use your credit card to ay for the ride. When I got into the car it didn’t even occur to me to use the seat belt since even the slightest attempt to do so in China ends in a rude commentary from the taxi driver who feels offended (or whatever their reasons might be, but most of the times the cars don’t even have a seatbelt). So I was already sitting in the tax for about 10 minutes until I saw the sticker which said ”buckle up” well of course I didn’t do since the driving n Singapore is rather smooth and I’m used to all of the sudden stepping on the emergency break… without even moving an eyebrow. I guess I have to get used to that when I go back to Germany, won’t I!?

Well after arriving at the hotel I decided to explore the street an was quite surprised when I saw all the altars in front of the small houses. After getting some cheap street food (I just love Asia!) I enjoyed the luxury of having an English TV program! (ESPN is such a great channel I never really noticed before, although I have to admit that I really missed the constant 加油 from CCTV5 the Chinese sports channel!;)

After exploring the red light district in daylight and staring at the prostitution scene( I have to admit it was quite shocking to see how many guys just took the opportunity) on my way to the internet shop I changed the district and the hostel. Because of the rain and my quite heavy luggage (about 30kg altogether, to get to Singapore I had to book a 10kg luggage upgrade with Tiger airways) I took a taxi again and I really enjoyed the nice atmosphere and not having to be afraid to get ripped of or driving into circles. (In this moment I really fell in love with Singapore).

In the hostel (like in a lot of places in Singapore and Malaysia- even in some museums) I had to take my shoes off which was not so easy with two backpacks and a laptop bag in my hand but hey I’m multitasking!;)

After getting checked in and everything I went to Chinatown (well what shall I say I just can’t get away from it!;)) which actually didn’t have much about the real china except for all the cheap souvenirs in Chinese style which I already bought in China though so hat t wasn’t really interesting for me o see. But after walking through Chinatown I took a stroll through the bar street which has a really nice architecture. Late in the afternoon I went to Bugis junction a huge shopping mall (although it is nothing compared to the malls at Orchard road, Singapore’s main shopping street) and to my delight I found out that the great Singapore sale took place while I was there. You can’ imagine how happy I was to se all the familiar stores like Mango, Zara, Esprit, ect. And everything was so cheap. Well as you probably already guessed I bought some stuff (although it took me along time to stop dividing everything by ten instead of two, which a couple of times almost lead me to buy some expensive stuff but in the end I always remembered the correct exchange rate. (thank god!)

I sent the following morning in Little India ( I even got hooked on a Singapore TV show which was only in chinese but really exciting, well what can I say, I just love TV shows)and was surprised by the beautiful architecture. Since I was told the wrong bus stop to get off I spend my first hours looking for Little India but after having a tasty lunch at one of the various food stalls (unfortunately I saw the poster with the rat warning after I ate there) I managed to find the right way.

After exploring Little India I was hitting the malls at Orchard Street. It was like being in a dream (ok, I have to admit I’m a shoppaholic, but what shall I do? everything was just so cheap and the quality was just so much better than in China!)

It was just really great to walk along his street at night with all the shimmering lights on, after finishing my shopping trip.

On Saturday I went on a boat cruise along Singapore’s amazing and pretty skyscrapers. Although it was quite rainy that morning the cruise was worth its money since the view was just fantastic.

After lunch I was in a quite daring mood so that I had he great idea to try Japanese favorite ice cream and you’ll never guess what flavor I chose--- Wasabi!!! Yes, there is actually an ice cream with wasabi flavor. And as you can see on the picture it’s really green and it was really, really spicy and quite disgusting actually. Well but how many people on earth (except for Japanese people of course) can actually claim to have eaten wasabi ice cream before? ;)

At night I went to a night safari with Bruce, a guy from South Africa that I met I the hostel. The safari was pretty cool actually and it prepared me quite a lot for my bat incident in Malaysia but I will tell you later about that!;)

We saw a lot of wild animals and amongst them a humongous elephant. I think we spent 4-5 hours there in total and we had an awesome time.

After getting back to the hostel we had a quite interesting Singapore meal at one of the street restaurants. Sinaporean food is just really good.

posted by Nadine @ 12:08 AM