Jon and Rach's Big Trip: Hot in the City

Thursday February 14th - Saturday February 16th

The only previous experience we'd had of Singapore was a few hours in Changi Airport so we were looking forward to our 3 days in the city. Our flight from New Zealand arrived in the evening and after getting to our hostel we headed out on the forage for food. Singapore has a lot of hawker markets where you find hundreds of stalls selling all kinds of food and drink for next to nothing and it's good quality. Our hostel was a little out of the main tourist centre so we stood out a mile amongst the locals but didn't once feel unsafe and we helped ourselves to some very good food.

We hit the ground running the next morning. Our first port of call was Sentosa Island. This is where tourists and locals alike go for the beach (albeit manmade and facing the polluted waters of the Straits) and where the rich people (of which we were not included according to the frank tourist officer) have their apartments and boats, etc. We travelled to the island by cable car and you got a good sense of a) the development and land reclamation that is going on in Singapore and b) what a huge industrial port is in the city. We spent a short while looking around the island before the humidity 'forced' us to seek solace in a bar for a drink and some food.

Back on the mainland (or main island) we headed to two distinct areas of Singapore; Chinatown and Little India. Both areas are fascinating and relatively untouched by the huge flashy side of Singapore to the extent that you feel like you could be walking in either of those two countries. We looked around the many markets and temples of each area and enjoyed the sights and smells. The temples in particular were extremely ornate and elaborately decorated and yet fitted in perfectly.

Our final day begin with an early alarm call as we were off to school, cooking school that is. We'd booked ourselves onto a Thai cooking course for the morning and had a whale of a time. Our chef, McDonald, was fluent in Singlish (the Singaporean take on English) and was very funny, as well as extremely talented, as he described the interesting properties of some of the spices he was using and had Rach in tears of laughter at some points. We were shown a couple of dishes and then got to prepare 3 of our own which we then enjoyed for lunch with the others on the course. Really good fun and anyone who visits us now will be treated to some awesome garlic prawns!

There's one thing that is considered a must when visiting Singapore and that's a trip to Raffles Hotel. We duly obliged and were surprised at how good it actually looked and how large it was. We took it all in over a Singapore Sling cocktail in the Bar & Billiards Room, well you have to really don't you?

With that box well and truly ticked we then headed onto the Singapore River for a quick trip in a bumboat. The sun was just going down so we got the best of both worlds seeing the city at dusk and then all lit up for the evening. Back off the boat we headed a short distance and got ourselves a good viewing spot to watch some of the Chingay Parade that celebrates the Lunar New Year. This is a huge event and has numerous colourful floats, dancers, Chinese dragons, etc. For once we'd turned up in a city at the same time as a big event was taking place, not something we'd managed often while away.