We flew with Singapore Airlines, which meant a changeover in Singapore (it's a slightly circuitous route between Sydney and Tokyo but hey). It was my first time flying over Australia in daylight, which was cool as I got to see the desert. It's exciting at first, but after a couple of hours it's dull. Australia really is a big old country of nothing!
On the way out to Tokyo, we spent two nights in Singapore, staying with Neil (and his mum, who was also visiting from the US, as it happened!) in his lovely condo.
We arrived after a 7 hour flight on Wednesday evening, and after dropping our stuff headed out with Neil to Little India for dinner. We had a really great meal at a restaurant, and since Neil's mother grew up in India (they are Indian although he grew up in the US) we learnt a lot from her about Indian food and ways of cooking! After the meal, we went for a walk through the area - Little India is great, it's an area of Indian immigrants and it feels like being in India! Really different to the shiny calm of the rest of the city. A lot of shops were open even late at night and it was really interesting. We wandered down to the Temple, which entertained us by being quite traditional in style, but then having a big neon front. Haha.
On Thursday we had the whole day in Singapore. We got up and caught a taxi from Neil's to Orchard Road and looked around the shops for an hour or so and got some breakfast in a food court. We looked in a camera shop and Mark bought a really good Canon camera bag for only AU$40! (About £20 - we'd seen the same bag in Sydney for about $80!).
We also found good old Marks and Spencer and bought Percy Pigs and square crisps (omg I love M&S square crisps SO much).
CBD view.
Walked down to the marina and found a thai restaurant on the water where we had a pretty good lunch, but while we were eating it starting POURING with rain. We sat in the restaurant for as long as possible but eventually had to go, so we retreated next door into the Esplanade, Theatres on the Bay building. The building is pretty cool and they didn't seem to mind people sitting around inside, there was even a free exhibition on how they designed it.
It's nicknamed the 'Durian' after the prickly tropical fruit native to the area. More on durians later.
It stopped raining so we made our way back towards Raffles Hotel.
Raffles is so colonial it's crazy! It makes you feel like at the beginning of Empire of the Sun, like drinking cocktails in the middle of the afternoon is perfectly natural.
We went into the Long Bar and enjoyed our Singapore Slings (we had one each cus we're not stingy like Pere :-P).
Mark enjoyed the abundance of peanuts to eat on each table.
We got kind of bored after our cocktails. Just wanted to get off to Tokyo by that point I think. We did the best bits of Singapore on our previous visit, I think (Botanic Gardens and the Zoo) and to be honest there's not that much to do there. Other than shop. We looked round another mall but I wanted to save money for Japan so we didn't really look properly. Eventually it was time to head back to meet Neil and his mum and we walked up the road for a meal - it was a crazy buffet type place with all sorts of asian cuisine - I got to try a lot of fun things! I tried three new fruits, I shall review them here.
1. Durian
Wikipedia on Durian. The Durian is an odd fruit. It has a very unique smell and taste and is very popular in south east asia. Inexplicably popular. It has an intense stench, such that it is banned on planes, in hotels and on the Singapore subway system (there are signs forbidding durians next to the usual 'no smoking' signs, it's quite an amusing sight!). If you read the wiki page there are some wonderful descriptions of durian eating by different people. I ate mine in a 'durian puff' - a chunk of fruit wrapped in thin pastry - a popular dessert. The flesh is creamy and pulpy and pungent, the smell is like gone off milk and smelly feet. It was, quite frankly, revolting.
2. Soursop
Wikipedia on the Soursop. The Soursop was a far more pleasant experience. Again it's soft and fleshy, but sweet and creamy and pleasant. It's quite light and refreshing.
3. Longan
Wikipedia on the Longan. The Longan is even more pleasant still. It's like a small lychee, but slightly less stringy and much much sweeter. I find lychees can be a bit bland, but these were delicious.
Fruit tested, we returned to bed, for an early start on Friday as we were off on the plane again, this time to Tokyo!!
