Marina Bay North

-This was another long day so lots of pictures and rambling!-

After a terrible nights sleep - think pounding club music, opera (?!), a snorer, a guy who talks in his sleep and then 3 girls coming in at half 5 drunk and falling over. Today was all about exploring the northern part of Marina Bay though! Singapore has created a huge reservoir (so they don't have to rely on fresh water from malaysia) and in creating the damn they reclaimed a huge portion of land - marina bay! Aside from it rendering some street names redundant (Beach Rd which is now a 10 minute walk from the water) it's also created a huge commercialised area of Singapore - everything is brand new, most of it so new it's not finished yet, but the shopping centres are pretty much done (the ones that aren't finished are a complete jumble of shops and you can't get from one end of the mall to the other without walking for 20minutes on the road). 

Looking back at China Town

Anyway to get there I walked along the river as it's one of my favourite places in Singapore right now to take a stroll. 

By the time I got to the millennia walk I was dying for some air conditioning - Singapore City is actually quite compact but the humidity makes walking everywhere a pain!

The colourful ceiling

There were quite a few mini art galleries in the various malls too

 Singapore is getting ready for Valentines Day already!

I've definitely been spoilt with the Dubai Malls where there are maps of the logical and clear layout of the gigantic mall.. But aside from the illogical and baffling layout the shopping centre was very pretty

The whole recent I went into the mall (aside from air conditioning) was to get to the fountain of wealth!

I'd just missed when it goes really high (I saw it from the window of the lift as I was on my way to the fountain) and things seem to only go 'off' every couple of hours in Singapore and as much as I wanted a photo of it when it's all dramatic I wasn't going to wait around in the boiling hot sun for it!

 Donburi

Kimchi

I stopped by a little Korean restaurant while I was here and finally got to try some kimchi!! I've wanted to try it for ages but I couldn't find anywhere in the UK that had it while I was home and I haven't found anywhere in NZ either. Anyway I had donburi in a 'hot stone' with some kimchi and it was completely delicious!

After that I took the iconic Helix footbridge over the Marina Bay Sands.

 I loved how you could look through the bridge and see the skyline!

I popped into the Art Science Museum briefly

 The museum itself was nothing special but there were a few interesting bits and pieces - the setting was by far the highlight of the museum for me though

Just outside the museum was a lovely water lilly pond!

 love this photo!

Then it was into the Marina Bay Sands to enjoy the view and potter about the shops a little bit

 Inside was this slightly bizarre… waterfall? that fell into a canal which went around part of the mall!

If your legs got tired shopping you could just hop on a little boat! (Dubai's malls need these!)

Once it had cooled a little bit I walked back over the bridge to the 'Singapore Flyer' and after running around like a crazy lady looking for the ticket office (the sun looked like it was going to set and I really wanted to go on when it wasn't dark so I could see the city and not just a bunch of lights - although I do think that'd be pretty). I eventually found it and jumped on board for my 'flight' (i think they call it a flight just to be dramatic… It is the world's biggest ferris/observation wheel at 165m though)

Luckily I was with some lovely people in the my 'shuttle' as the whole thing takes over half an hour and I was really lucky to be with a lovely couple and a family. 

Then I was planning to just wander back to the hostel taking in the evening skyline but what I hadn't realised was Chinese New Year is celebrated for weeks after the actual new moon! Every weekend from now until the end of feb there will be some live music and events on, last night was the big celebration though!

I'm just going to let the pictures talk for themselves the skyline, the event itself was all really beautiful!

Day 43 Conical Hill

 After a lovely lie in I woke up to find Mrs Jackson, a lovely lady who lives just across the street from the hostel had baked scones with homemade jam and whipped cream for everyone at the hostel! So after a lovely breakfast of scones I set off on my walk up to conical hill.

(I found out later she made them once she heard an english person was staying at the hostel!)

The walk was, as the name suggests, all up hill, which was rubbish, but the view was stunning once you reached the top. Surrounded by mountain peaks the valley spread out from the hill, filled with farm land and forest.

I’d only planned to walk to the top, spend a little time dawdling and then head back down but it was so beautiful, and tranquil – which is surprising considering the amount of people I saw on the walk up, I took the book I’d gotten from the book exchange at the hostel and promptly spent a good portion of the day reading in picturesque settings.

When I got back to the hostel later I was surprised to find Cara and Axel checking in! Apparently they’re just spending one night at Hanmer Backpackers and then another at the Japanese bathhouse instead of the original two nights at the Bathhouse. After a quick catch up we made dinner, explored the town a little bit and collapsed into bed!

Day 4. Cable Cars and Cuba

First adventure of the day was finding the cable cars as we set off from the hostel without bothering to find a map – figuring the best way to get to know a city is to just walk it and get a little lost (Axel and George didn’t agree with me and Cara on this one). We found the cable cars really easily, after nearly getting run over, and got the student fare so instead of it being $6 return (which is really cheap anyway) we got it for $2.50!

The distinctive red cable car ride only took 5-10 minutes but it took us to the top of a ridiculously steep hill and up to beautiful views over Wellington (Mount Victoria is on the other side of Wellington). After a couple of pictures we went up to the observatory and just sat down on the grass at the top of a hill overlooking the city and just soaked up the sun and the views.

After chatting and lounging about for an hour or so me and Axel set of to find Cuba street! It’s just a street filled with some more alternative shops, nearly everything was privately owned and it was really fun window shopping and dawdling in the ‘op-shops’, flipping through the pages of some old books and browsing the menus of various cafes and bistros. We finished our afternoon on Cuba street with a drink in one of the many coffee shops, and just whiled away the hot midday sun in the shade sipping our drinks.

After wandering the city for another hour or so we bumped into Cara and George again and we set off in hunt of dinner, there was sun race on tonight, and obviously it’s bonfire night too, so most of the restaurants were packed! 

P.S pictures are on there way they're just a pain to upload!