Singapore

We had a bit of a long morning as we spent almost an hour in the post office sending a parcel full of little trinkets we'd picked up along the away home. We're not sure how tight customs will be in Australia and it's taking up lots of room in our bags (mainly my bag) so we just decided it's better to send it home now. It cost £45 in the end. A lot more than the estimate said online but having gone to all the effort of boxing it all up twice and filling out all of the custom labels we still decided to go ahead with it. Hopefully it gets delivered okay and it'll be worth it. We hadn't had breakfast so we went and had some much needed brunch after. I wasn't feeling too well so we had a break from doing things and relaxed back at the hostel for a while. After recouping we headed to Little India and then Chinatown. Having been to both India and China these small areas in major cities are always interesting to see. They show the best parts of the country and shield the residents and tourists from the no so nice parts, especially in Little India. Living in Little India in Singapore must be a world away from what the country is like back home. After an early tea we headed back to Marina Bay where we visited yesterday with the hopes of catching sunset while on the top of the Marina Bay Sands hotel, a huge hotel where the top is shaped like a boat and rooms start from almost £300 a night. We had very little money left but managed to have enough to pay to go to the 56th floor or sky deck as they call it and what an amazing view it was! It was still light when we got up there but very cloudy so no amazing sunset to be seen so after walking around the area we were allowed in we sat down looking out and waited and watched as the nighttime skyline came to life with beautiful lights. By the time we left 2 hours later the city was a buzz of activity and electricity. We walked back across the road to the Gardens by the Bay to attempt to use our tickets to climb up one of their metal plant covered trees and luckily we arrived 2 minutes before the last entry and walked up the stairs all the way to the viewing bridge. The height gave the area and design so much more depth and perspective and that combined with the lights was most impressive. It was the perfect evening to end our short time here in Singapore.Read more