A short weekend in Singapore.

Day 1

After flying for 13 hours me and my friend, Wiztom, arrived in Singapore. I managed to sleep for a good 5-6 hours on the huuuuge Airbus 380 plane so i actually felt quite rested when we landed. Getting our luggage and getting through the passport control went without any problems. The cabfare to town was about 30SGD (which is really cheap) and we arrived at our hotel after about 25 minutes. The hotel was adequate and at a very good location but thanks to F1 being arranged here this weekend almost all hotels had doubled their prices...

After a change of clothes and a quick shower we met up with our common friend, Loke, and headed out to grab a beer and some food. I decided that i wanted to visit The Archipelago Brewery Company before i left home as i'd read some positive reviews of it. The beers was averageish and the food was alright for being a pub. A bit of a letdown to be honest. However, the company made it bearable (beerable?) esp since another common geekfriend of ours, MSG (and his lovely girlfriend), decided to come and join us for an drink or two.

2 pints later we decided that we should visit some other establishment and ended up around the corner at Molly Malones since MSG is a big friend of ciders and informed us that they have cider on draught there (strongbow). Unfortunately they also had several tv's running with the volume cranked way up so after we finished our drinks we decided to get the fudge out of there. I should have known better than to visit a pub that shows sport on tv....(yes, i am _not_ a fan of sports...neither on tv or any form of media.).

We decided that we needed one more drink for the road and ended up at the microbrewery pub Brewerkz Restaurant & Microbrewery. They were about to close when we got there so we only had time for one pint. (Which was probably a good thing as most of us were feeling slightly intoxicated at the time). After the beer we headed back to the hotel to get some well earned rest. (Actually, there was no sleep until about 4am because of a severe case of jetlag...). It was a good first day!

Day 2

My roomie kicked me up from bed at approx. 11am claiming he wanted to actually see a little of Singapore before we have to leave the next day. Such demands! I was in no mood to get up feeling tired as fudge but soon realized he was right and managed to get up from my, very comfy, bed. After a somewhat light breakfast we headed out into the heat (hello +32C and high++ humidity) to see some of the sights Singapore has to offer.

If you're into architecture, like i am, Singapore is a very interesting town. There is always something new to discover but this time i was completely blown away by the Mariny Bay Sands Hotel. It looks like something from the future. Awesomeness to the max! Hopefully the high-end restaurant there will have opened next time i'm in Singapore.

We wandered around for a bit to take in the sights and made some stops at the shoppingmalls, that can be found pretty much everywhere, whenever we needed to cool off since those are like giant fridges. The heat and esp the humidity are the main reasons i don't think i could ever live here. Some heat isn't a bad thing but the humidity is a true pain in the behind when exposed to it under longer periods of time. Also, they don't really have any change in seasons here. Oh well.

We made a pitstop at Brewerkz Restaurant & Microbrewery (yes again) to fuel up with a light snack (ok, we ordered a small size nacho-plate and got an overfull plate filled with nachos that were drenched in cheese, sour-cream, guacamole and salsa) and a beer. After this quick stop we headed off again to see more of this wonderful town. Quite close to our hotel we found a par and decided to take a small detour and pass through it. The park was quite pleasant with lots of flowers and butterflies feeding from them. However, after a while we found a couple of escalators in the middle of the park. We laughed ourselves silly over this and decided that it was very Singaporeish (this is a country that has air conditioned huts along the path at their, world famous, zoo).

After a quick stop at our hotel to change clothes and take a quick shower (yes, i was doing my very best at emulating an waterfall...a very smelly waterfall too) we were invited to check out our good friend, Loke and his wife's house. The house itself was very nice indeed and they had a huge backyard which is something very uncommon in the slightly crowded Singapore. We found out that his wife is an avid collector of Barbie-dolls and founds a huge stash of this in one of the backrooms. I also noticed they had an extensive collection of cookbooks, many focusing on chocolate and desserts :) (Who can blame them, chocolate is one the best things ever created :)).

We had decided that we should go out and eat at a proper restaurant once i came down to Singapore and Loke had been recommended the restaurant called The Song Of India and hence we decided to visit it. We had different kind of tasting-menus but i decided on the menu called "a journey through India" which is a 6-course meal representing different parts of India. The food was presented in an professional way and tasted wonderfully. Also the food itself did not cost more than 95SGD which, at least i, thought was extremely good value for the money. I wouldn't hesitate to back to this place in an instant given the possibility to do so. My thanks to Loke and his wonderful wife for their company and generosity. I hope we'll meet again soon!

As i am writing this the clock is almost 1.30am and i have to get up in about 4 1/2 hours to get to the airport and catch the plane to Sydney. So i guess i'll be back in a few days from "down under". Peace!