Singapore was a world away from both Malaysia and Thailand; clean, orderly and kind of quirky from the “no narcotics, no firearms, no chewing gum…..” signs at immigrations to the Durian-shaped concert hall.
If you’re ever in Singapore, definitely visit the Asian Civilisations Museum. I’m not a museum buff but this was such a great museum and you could easily spend a day there but at least allow half a day just in case. Just to read/see how Singapore evolved is worth a visit alone. It really is quite remarkable just how small Singapore is but, for a city, an island and a country, it is a pretty cool place to visit.
We spend a lot of time walking (again) and first on the list was the wonderful Raffles Hotel, opened in 1887 and restored back to its former glory after a $190 million face lift in 1991. One of the first things Euan said was that the whole Raffles complex was cleaner on the outside than many of the places that we’d stayed in were on the inside!
The actual hotel was flanked by a shopping complex in the same style as the hotel
and there were various courtyards, some surrounded by trees and almost all lit up with Christmas lights
The fountain in this courtyard was made of cast iron and was made in Glasgow
We met up a few times with Kristen and Kirsten who we’d met on the boat to Penang and spent time with in George Town and it was lovely to see them again and we had a lot of laughs over dinner, coffee etc.
After having dinner with them we walked back past Raffles to see what it looked like all lit up.
Walking home at 0130 there were gigantic cockroaches scuttling down the drains. So many that it was difficult not to step on them!
We were staying near the very imposing Park View building that was clad in dark marble
and it had the most impressive courtyard surrounded by statues of individuals such as Aristotle, Mozart and Darwin among others
This is one of the two concert building that looked like a Durian fruit. Apparently opinions on them are somewhat mixed but Singapore has a very mixed range of architecture
with some pretty cool old buildings among the smaller streets away from the centre
and the Victoria Theatre was very British
It was great weather when we flew out of Singapore to Hong Kong so we got a fantastic view of the harbour and this is only a very small sample of the ships that were moored there
We left Singapore quite shattered after a long spiel of late nights and early starts but its pointless trying to explain tiredness or stress due to travel to anyone who has to go to work every day. Euan tried it once and got a look of such disgust we’ve never tried it again!
If you’re ever in Singapore, definitely visit the Asian Civilisations Museum. I’m not a museum buff but this was such a great museum and you could easily spend a day there but at least allow half a day just in case. Just to read/see how Singapore evolved is worth a visit alone. It really is quite remarkable just how small Singapore is but, for a city, an island and a country, it is a pretty cool place to visit.
We spend a lot of time walking (again) and first on the list was the wonderful Raffles Hotel, opened in 1887 and restored back to its former glory after a $190 million face lift in 1991. One of the first things Euan said was that the whole Raffles complex was cleaner on the outside than many of the places that we’d stayed in were on the inside!
The actual hotel was flanked by a shopping complex in the same style as the hotel
and there were various courtyards, some surrounded by trees and almost all lit up with Christmas lights
The fountain in this courtyard was made of cast iron and was made in Glasgow
We met up a few times with Kristen and Kirsten who we’d met on the boat to Penang and spent time with in George Town and it was lovely to see them again and we had a lot of laughs over dinner, coffee etc.
After having dinner with them we walked back past Raffles to see what it looked like all lit up.
Walking home at 0130 there were gigantic cockroaches scuttling down the drains. So many that it was difficult not to step on them!
We were staying near the very imposing Park View building that was clad in dark marble
and it had the most impressive courtyard surrounded by statues of individuals such as Aristotle, Mozart and Darwin among others
This is one of the two concert building that looked like a Durian fruit. Apparently opinions on them are somewhat mixed but Singapore has a very mixed range of architecture
with some pretty cool old buildings among the smaller streets away from the centre
and the Victoria Theatre was very British
It was great weather when we flew out of Singapore to Hong Kong so we got a fantastic view of the harbour and this is only a very small sample of the ships that were moored there
We left Singapore quite shattered after a long spiel of late nights and early starts but its pointless trying to explain tiredness or stress due to travel to anyone who has to go to work every day. Euan tried it once and got a look of such disgust we’ve never tried it again!
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