Flying to Brisbane..

I hate catching taxis - I just feel so silly sticking my arm out, luckily I caught a taxi super quickly this morning so the torture only lasted a few minutes. I figured catching a taxi would just be much easier than attempting the MRT with a suitcase (it gets incredibly crowded at peak times and can be a little rocky)

I was a little early at the airport so I decided to weigh my suitcase before getting in line. Somehow, no idea how, my suitcase has gained another 5kg?! I mean yes, I bought some shoes on orchard road, and some other bits and piece... but I don’t not 5kg worth surely? Anyway I pushed my, rather heavy, suitcase to the front of the line where I got chatting to a lovely couple from Brisbane who have travelled all over from the sounds of it and funnily enough one of the professors at Waikato went to school with the woman and they’ve stayed friends.

Despite my worrying I didn't have to pay any extra for my luggage - lovely surprise!

I’ve been really very lucky with my flights, and the one to Brisbane was no different – it was another light load. I was on the left hand side and got all three seats to myself! Another great surprise! So once again, I kicked off my shoes, wrapped myself in the 3 blankets, and settled in to watch a film. It was also a bit of a relief to have edible food on the plane again rather than the stuff I got on the flight through India.

Then it was just immigration, for some reason I had to get my passport stamped, which is a little strange as last time I entered OZ I didn’t need one? I’m assuming it’s because I flew in from Singapore whereas last time it was from NZ… Regardless I got another stamp in passport!

My flight had been delayed a fair bit in Singapore, and then we had turbulence pretty much the entire way to Brisbane so instead of getting in just before 1am we ended up arriving closer to 3am. The YHA’s reception is open 24hrs so it wasn’t too much of a problem, I did feel bad going into the room though when there were 3 other people asleep… I don’t think I made too much noise. I have a top bunk, but I can’t complain, the room is nice enough, and the girls I’m sharing with seem nice.

Also I should just mention when I got off the plane Brisbane was warm! Warm! In the middle of the night! Apparently it’s going to be low 40s tomorrow… all I think is at least it won’t be humid like Singapore!

Sky Park

Today was all about the Marina Bay Sky Park. I couldn't decide whether it'd be better to go up during the day, so I could see everything, or at night since I adore the evening in the city. So, I did the only logical thing and went up twice!

The view was even better than I was hoping.

I zoomed in a little on china town as I love how it's nestled next to the towers of the financial district with the river cutting it off from the colonial region. 

obligatory photo of me and the view!

On the other side were great views over the gardens, including the two conservatories 

and a shot over eastern singapor

I was a little mesmerised by the boats just outside the reservoir. I saw them when I last landed in Singapore on my way home for Christmas from the airplane and something about seeing a working port is just really interesting… I've never seen so many ships in my life! And they dot the entire coast all the way to the horizon

Anyway I spent a good portion of the day pottering about Singapore, just enjoying the city. I did go back to the merlon as I realised after I went through photos I forgot to ask someone to take a photo of me and the lion and I kind of wanted one. 

Ignore the fact I'm wearing my sunglasses…

After pottering about I popped on some make up and headed back to Marina Bay Sands to attempt to get into the 'Sky Deck'. This is a club on the 57th floor with views over the city and it's right next to th pool which i wanted to see. 

There's quite a strict dress code, and there's normally a door charge which I didn't want to pay. Anyway I got in, and I didn't have to pay the $20 to get in as the bouncers were lovely to chat to! :)

I managed to get over to the glass railing and enjoy the sun setting over singapore 

I had to be ruthless to cut down the amount of skyline/sunset photos I uploaded - they are all so beautiful but I think these three may be my favourites, partly because you can see the different stages of the sunset. 

 I love this photo (perhaps because it took several attempts and my heart was in my mouth as I placed the bottle on the edge when it was so windy)

I'm so glad I didn't have to pay the door charge as my little bottle of tiger beer was $22! That's over £10… now I don't normally drink beer but I'm pretty sure that's expensive… 

The infinity pool of which there are hundreds of photos circulating online. You can only go in if you're staying at the hotel (2 guys who were in my hostel booked a room together purely so they could go for a dip) Got to say, it was pretty cool.

On my way back to the hostel I took my usual walk along the water front - where you can get the best views of the CBD and found a performance going on! I keep forgetting because it's chinese New Year there's some sort of performance every night, I've caught a few, but this one was my favourite evening. 

The dancers were hypnotising, and as such I only have one or two photos as I was too caught up in the various dances to even think about taking photos!

(I think this particular dance was my favourite)

Orchard Road

I opted to take the MRT(underground train service) today rather than walking to orchard road, mainly because i knew id do lots of walking once i got there and the humidity was crazy today (over 80%) so i just couldn't be bothered walking for an hour to get to some shopping centres :p

The MRT was pretty simple to use, so much simpler than Sydney's train service (by that I mean it didn't take 3 of us taking 5 wrong trains to get where i wanted)

Singapore is going a little valentine's day crazy at the moment, the first indication being the bright pink horses which line the entire road

Some models.. casually posing outside the ion shopping centre. This is the third professional photoshoot I've stumbled across in Singapore - I guess there's just a lot of beautiful backgrounds

Had a very weird moment where there was a george...

more valentine's decorations - every shopping centre was decked out in pink!

Plaza Singapura, Dubai might have the biggest shopping centres but Singapore seems to be right behind them challenging them with the sheer amount of malls! On this one road there's about 8 massive shopping centres all of which stretch over at least 5 floors

I only noticed today that the lion image is dotted all around the city

And I finally got around to trying this Singapore… peculiarity! There are lots of little ice cream carts dotted around the city and most sell ice cream the traditional way for Singapore - sliced and in a piece of bread! Apparently the dying of the bread fun colours is a recent addition. Anyway it was weirdly nice - and no where near as strange as I expected it to be!

I finally made my way to Instana Park - I think I turned around about 5 times, as the maps I had (all 3) showed the park to be significantly bigger than it actually was. It wasn't until I walked around the entire walk twice that I saw this sign hidden behind some bushes I realised! 

The park was lovely, and it was the perfect place to relax in the afternoon sun. I also went on a bit of a butterfly walk and managed to spot 5 different types - all completely beautiful 

Arab Street

I was so excited to find Arab Street! Some governor or other of Singapore decided that the different ethnicities congregated in Singapore needed to be sectioned off - with each race/ethnicity/whatever you wanted to call it, getting an allotted section of space within Singapore. That's why there's a distinctive China Town, a Little India as well as 'colonial' district, so today I went to Arab Street, the street and the surrounding area caters predominantly to people who've moved to singapore from the middle east

As soon as you walk through the high arch which signifies this area the Golden topped Mosque takes pride of place. 

 The 'main' street was a public walkway and it's been majorly renovated in the last few years, so it almost feels mediteranean rather than middle eastern, it did have a lovely relaxed vibe though with people coming here purely to sip some coffee and have some seesha (whenever I smell sheesha I can't help but think of Dubai!)

 The Mosque dominates this area of Singapore as it's high golden dome can be seem above every building in the surrounding area

I loved some of the little shops, there was one filled with beautiful leatherwork, lots devoted to silks and cashmere, the best of the bunch for me was this perfume shop though

Alcohol is banned in Islam which means so are most mainstream perfumes. This shop sold oil based perfumes and some of them smelt amazing!

There were a couple of these painted dotted around the moque

 Aside from the one main street leading to the Mosque there were a few narrow little side roads which had a great range of hippy shops

There were so many fabric shops I lost count

 a shop called the alternative who, selling all sorts of bits and pieces

I loved the side of this building!

After relaxing at the hostel for a little bit I headed into China Town - the place looks so lovely when it's all hit up at night!

 The Buddha Tooth Temple all lit up

some incredibly spicy popiah 

Year of the Horse Decorations!

Can't believe how fast my time in Singapore is going! It feels like I've been here forever and yet I can't believe how little time I have left! 

Little India

Today was an absolutely beautiful day in Singapore! Everyday here i hot and humid and there's normally some blue sky too but there's also normally a fair amount of cloud, today was all about blue skies though! having said that it probably wasn't the best day to decide to walk to the other side of city..

Little India is the other side of town so on my way over I stopped off at a few places, the first one was CHJMES (pronounced as chimes). It's a converted Catholic school so that it now hosts lots of cafes and the odd restaurant. Slightly strange when there's dining table sin the chapel but it was pretty nevertheless.

The church and the surrounding courtyard were beautiful

The steps led to some more cafes and restaurants

Not too far away was Bras Basah where there are two temples literally next door to each other. Because of the new year the usual stalls which dot the square in front of the temples was packed!

 There were tons of stalls selling different types of incense and flowers!

And then there were the fortune tellers! There were people who would predict your year based on your birth, others who would read your palms, and one of my favourite - the birds would sit on your hand and then pick out a card from the deck which would have your fortune on it!

One guy having his fortune picked by a little quite parrot

 There were bundles and bundles of different incense and the piles were going down so quickly! People were buying handfuls of the stuff constantly!

The actual temples themselves are Sri Krishnan, a hindu temple, & Kwan Im. 

Sri Krishnan was almost deserted - I'm assuming because no one wanted to brave the crazy crowds outside the temple!

The detail and story telling within the decoration was amazing, perhaps the most decorative of all the Hindu temples I've visited 

I had to remove my shoes, as it pretty standard, and isn't a problem but what i didn't notice was that although some parts of the temple were covered others were open to the sun and as such the stone floor was so hot at some points! 

And the packed, Kwan Im Buddhist Temple. Hindus don't have any particular affiliation with the chinese new year and so the temple was very quiet, the Buddhist temple however was so busy I actually couldn't get into the main chamber. 

The entire temple was packed with people placing incense and their hopes for the new year

The stalls continued all the way down the street gradually branching out from fortune tellers to random bits and pieces!

I also passed the pretty striking Arts College

There's constant building work going on in Singapore and so getting to Little India was a bit of a pain, but eventually I managed to cross the river. Little India was described as being one of the most atmospheric regions of Singapore (a lot of people feel China Town as been too deeply sanitised to feel authentic anymore). And it definitely had a very different vibe to the rest of singapore. 

Personally I loved the merging of traditional european architecture with and asian twist and the brash indian ware stores. 

There are places selling coconuts everywhere in Singapore but I noticed there were definitely more on offer in Little India (they just remind me of thailand whenever I have one now!)

I also saw this which I thought was… interesting. I think the guy is trying to dry the straw/grass and there's why he's put it on his bike… Definitely not something i've seen elsewhere

Little India was just made up of lots small streets each one housing an eclectic mix of shops from traditional spices, gold stores as well as one store selling modern pots and pans 

I loved the traditional shops myself though - this one in particular was filed with sacks selling all manner off different spices and dried chillies. 

I really like how throughout Singapore the street names have, generally speaking, remained the same throughout it's development and every so often I'll cross a sign which makes no sense now but tells you a little bit about the area before urbanisation.

After dawdling away the afternoon in Little India I headed back towards the main CBD area, this time I made sure to find the Bugis Centre. Traditional Chinese markets seem to be predominantly moving inside and the Bugis centre was one example I really wanted to catch.

There's stall everywhere, again selling a little bit of everything, it was mainly clothes, shoes and food in the area I was exploring. It was a real rabbit's warren and it was ridiculously easy to get completely lost!

I also made my way to Arab Street after the Bugis centre but I'm going to put that in a separate post :)