Singapore

ingapore
day 1:
Our vacation has begun in Singapore. We haven't slept much in the 13 hour flight to get here, and seeing as we can't check in to our hostel till 2 pm, we're quite tired. We're staying in thelofi inn hostel, which has a pub attached to it. Our room has no windows but it has air conditioning which is quite nice. Essential even, as we have not gotten used to the temperature and level of humidity. The weather is semi cloudy with bursts of rain. It is quite hot though, so we're not bothered by the rain.

We started our day in Singapore by scouting around for things to see and food to buy. Food and drinks are surprisingly expensive though. A regular coffee is about 2 euros and a soda in a pub is about 3 euros which makes it more expensive than the Netherlands. alcohol is even more extreme in that sense as a beer costs approximately 5 euros.

After scouting around for a bit we saw a small local temple with loads of people burning incense. What struck us as weird is that they were selling incense in faggots of approx 50 sticks at the time. The locals would buy these, then leave about 45 of them by the door as some kind of offering before praying with about 5 of them. A heap of sticks was created of hundreds of them. As it started to rain we went back to the hostel to check in and sleep. At night we went to something of a food court for locals with cheap meals after which we chilled at the hostel with a small bottle of whiskey.

While sitting at the hostel we decided to play some card game. One of the hostel employees then told us that playing cards is actually illegal as it implies gambling. It is fined with a penalty of 500 Singapore dollars which is about 330 euros. Littering, smoking on terrasses, eating in the metro and eating chewing gum (in all of Singapore) is penalized between 500 and 1000 Singapore dollars.

day 2.
We set out to go to the Singapore flyer, which is a 165 metre tall ferris wheel. We were out of cash by then so we figured we'd go to the mall to find an ATM. As we scouted the mall it started to rain really hard. As in really, really hard. So we waited around for a bit, but it lasted quite a while. The rain and clouds didn't do the view much good so we decided to go to the Singapore bay gardens instead which were quite beautiful. Like a small tropical rainforest in the outskirts of the city.

Although we weren't impressed by Singapore at first, the gardens and the rich part of town made up for that. The financial district was quite impressive with skyscrapers all around us.

At night, we went to the Indian part of town where we ate some kind of banana pancake recommended to us by some dude at the hostel. There we also found a huge department store crammed with loads of different items. The jeweler inside was loaded with gold necklaces and what not. hardly any silver though. Just gold.

Day 3:
We finally went inside the Singapore flyer. Which gave us an amazing view of the city. By this time we noticed there were quite a few cats with broken or cut off tails. Which seemed weird to us. We asked about it in the hostel and the guy told us it wasn't an easthetical thing. He believed it was just people being mean to stray cats.

After the ferris wheel we decided to check out a mosque, Buddhist and Hindu temple. The mosque and Hindu temple seemed quite plain compared to the Buddhist temple. We had to wear an apron and shawl. Although the shawl might have only been for women. We're not sure, felt right though :). I wore as a cape for a while pretending to be darkwing duck.