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Singapore (The Lion city) is a unique and remarkable place. The city which was built on swamp land and designed by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1819 and used as a base for the British, has now been transformed in to a extremely organized and safe city. Given that there are nearly 4.6 million people living there, and the fact that there are many different religious beliefs living side by side in peace. It has to struggle though to keep a fresh water supply, which is mostly imported from Malaysia. Also most of its fresh produce are imported, which makes for a very busy port. Despite it being such a metropolis, there are still plenty of places to escape from the heat and to get back to the nature on the island.Fabian and i arrived in Singapore late at night and were met by a wall of heat as soon as we walked out of the air conditioned building. It was 22.00 and the temperature was 82. The airport is very modern and well organized. We headed over to terminal 2, where we caught the MRT (mass rapid transit) into the city. This took around 20 minuets. We got off and headed for a area called little India, which has the main hub of backpacker accommodation. Bad news for us was that all were full! It appears that Singapore is a accommodation nightmare at the weekend and this being now 23.00 on a Friday night. We spent the next 1.5 hours walking the city trying to find a couple of beds for the night, at one stage we thought we had stuck lucky, as one hostel had a room. I think the owner must have misunderstood, as when we checked it, it was more like a rubbish dump than a room, there was probably a family of rats in there feeding on a family of roach's, but no one would have known for the amount of waste that had been left in there. Needless to say we moved on. Fed up with walking i turned to the phone and started calling every hostel in our guide books. The very last one had just two beds left. It was the other side of town so we hailed a taxi (which was no easy task either) and finally got checked in at around 01.30. We had food and a well needed beer in a bar underneath the hostel, then hit the sack. The next morning after breakfast we decided to try and get a another hostel, not that there was anything wrong with the one we found for the night just gone, but it was out of the city a bit to much. So we caught the extremely efficient MRT back to a station called Bugis, from here we found a hostel that was just across from the station. It was an OK hostel, but nothing to wright home about really. The dorm room that we were put in had 6 beds but due to the size of it there should have only been 4 at the most. There was no window and no air condition either, just a celling fan. But it was cheap, just around 5 GBP. So anyway after dropping our bags in we headed on foot to the famous Orchard Rd, which is known for its shopping. Here you can purchase any thing electrical, any thing fake or any thing designer, all on one street of around 1 mile long. There must have been at least 15 shopping malls, and all of them were just floors and floors of shops and food courts. That is something i noticed about Singapore within an hour of being there, i would never go hungry, There is so much choice from all over the world. You can buy authentic Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malay, hokkien and Indonesian cuisines, all of which would cost round 2 GBP. There was also the more familiar dishes on offer too. Like pizza, pasta, steak, and of course burgers from the well known chains. After taking advantage of this Singaporean obsession, we walked back to the hostel and had a couple of beers at a Chinese street Hawker stand, then called it a night. The next day we walked to the area called the colonial district and the quays. Here you have a new art gallery, Victoria concert hall and theater, the city hall, and the world famous Raffles hotel. This area is also the main hub of the business world for Singapore, so there are many high rise sky scrappers and expensive restaurants along the waters edge. After a long walk around here it was time to get a cool drink, and being where we were it would have been rude to not have made that drink a Singapore sling, and where else to have one other than Raffles.The Hotel is very grand and is pure white all over. There are balconies that wrap themselves completely around the colonial building. It was on one of these that we sat at the long bar. We both had a Singapore sling, but to be honest i think they may have forgot to put in the alcohol. The floor of the bar is covered in shells of peanuts, which is as much of tradition here as the drink. You are always given a large bowl of nuts and you are expected to just drop the shell on the floor. It did feel good as well to be able to be so messy in such a posh hotel for a change. After here we made our way over to Little India for a beer. This was a Sunday night, and the area was alive with thousands of Indian men. This is there day apparently, when they leave the wife at home and meet their friends. Having never been to India it seemed a little strange as there was men holding hand as they walked down the packed streets. This is very common apparently within the Indian Community and not a sign of Homosexuality. We stayed here for a couple of beers, just people watching, it was fascinating. The next day we made our way by MRT then a light railway over to the island of Sentosa, This is a small island that has been turned into one of Singapore's biggest attractions. They have constructed beaches with imported sand, There is a underwater world, a dolphin lagoon, a luge ride and a couple of hotels, bars and a night club. They are also currently building a new universal studios theme park, which is due for completion in 2010. The water world for me was the best part to the island, although it all made for a good half day out of the city heat. The trip back we took the cable car that takes you back over to the mainland and to the harbor. From here we traveled to the other side of Singapore to the zoo and night safari. This journey involved a MRT ride then 30 minuets on a bus. The zoo and safari are two separate parks but are next two each other. The zoo offers a chance to see some animals roaming wild, which included orangutans. They also have tigers, lions and elephants, which thankfully are not roaming wild. The night safari was very good also, but it offered the chance to see the nocturnal animals that would normally be fast asleep in a normal zoo. There is also a very good show put on with some of the animals. But it was done in a very responsible way, that not only was fun but also was used as a teaching implement to how we have an effect on these animals and their environment. The show ended with a group of raccoons recycling rubbish, very funny.After we got back to the hostel there was just enough time to have a beer at the street hawkers stall, then crashed. As i left for Kuala Lumpur in the morning.
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