Kings, Queens, Pubs n Castles

Had a pretty good flight to Singapore. Makes all the difference when you fly during the day and have the exit seats. Found our hotel and took ourselves around to Chinatown for some dinner. It wasn't far and the taxi driver had pointed out where food street was on the way. Roast duck and port belly, don't think you can go wrong with either of them.

Coffee and breakfast the next morning in this little street shop, very strong and sweet coffee, wasn't too bad after the initial shock. After a walk around the local neighbourhood we thought we may as well just kept walking and ended up down at the bay. Went to look at Garden on the bay, absolutely amazing and a real credit to Singapore. The flower dome was having a orchid spectacular, so of course we had to go to that. Gorgeous displays and so many different species of plants and flowers, big plus the domes all all airconditioned. Not too many people early on but as the day went on they were finding us and it was getting pretty hot by now too, so we headed home for a afternoon siesta.

We came back down late afternoon to see the cloud forest. A huge rock under a class dome filled with plants and walkways and waterfalls. Incredible and all those people who slept in this morning were there. Few too many for us a d we heading up to Satay On the Bay for some food. It's a hawker centre not far from the domes. On the way a group of otters came out of the water and across the walkway in front of us. They were so cute and funny chasing each other across the walkway.

Had some delicious satay sticks with this delicious peanut sauce, I feel really sorry for people with a peanut allergy they are really missing out. They want to sell you ten or more of everything but Graham had a lovely time convincing this lady to just give him five so we could try a few different ones.

The domes have a night display as well and we called back in there to see them all lit up. It's a different perspective but not a patch on daylight. A walk along the harbour and we were in time for the nightly light show, big crowd and it was pretty spectacular too. By this time we'd walked about 16 kms so time for a taxi back to the Hotel!

Back to our favourite neighbourhood shop for coffee and fruit again the next day. I love how when you go back a second time they greet you like a long lost friend. The old gentlemen at the fruit bar told us we should visit little India, so thats the plan this morning. He told us how to get there on the subway so we tried our luck buying tickets. It was pretty simple really, bit like Hong Kong they have a great subway system. We got there no problem and had a look around the market. Hundreds of flower garlands hanging in all the stalls. They must have some huge greenhouses somewhere to grow so many. And sari shops, Indian women must have hundreds of saris. I was so tempted to buy some material, they were such beautiful vibrant colours. One of the tailors we were talking to told us to try out the vegetarian restaurant a few doors down. And you know how we love to eat so we didn't take much presuading! Delicious Samos and some sort of bread filled with veges and dipping sauces for everything, Yummo!

Got the subway back downtown then and found Raffles Hotel. Wow pretty popular place, but holy moly they must be making a fortune. We had a Singapore Sling and it was delicious but it cost more than all the food and drinks we'd had for the last 48 hours. We did do our best to get get our money's worth out of the free peanuts and Wifi though.

To top off the day we headed back to Chinatown for one last meal and couldn't go past the Chilli Crab. Omg it was the messiest thing I have ever eaten, and we both just about needed a bath afterwards, not to mention a change of clothes. Since we had already checked out of our hotel that wasn't an option, poor other passengers on the plane that night, they're going to be smelling chilli sauce the whole flight!Read more