After fully recharging the batteries in Australia and catching up with so many of our friends it was time to move on to the next leg of our journey - Southeast Asia!!!!! First stop Singapore and we were lucky to have our friend Sylvie and her partner Ben to put us up for our time there. It was great as it broke us gently into the Asian culture which neither of us had experienced before. They had a lovely apartment on the 42nd floor of a high rise overlooking the amazing pinnacle building and we got a great view of the sunset every evening. Our first impressions of Singapore were 1) WoW its hot!! 2) The population density here is unreal!! There are soooo many 50/60 storey apartment blocks!! 3) But it wasnt as busy as we thought it would be!! 4) And its so clean!! Although we experienced very high temps in South America it was the first time we had been in such high humidity and we spent our time hopping from one air-con shopping mall to the next in order to be able to walk around without looking like we had just stepped out of a swimming pool. The shopping malls were huge and they seemed to be never ending along Orchid Road!!
We were in search of a new camera as our Canon had a limited zoom and was a bit worse for wear after 1000s of pictures, lots of dust, heat and even a dip in the ocean in the Galapagos!! There were malls dedicated to electronics, 6 storey’s high, it would take you a whole day just to go through one. Luckily we had one camera model in mind and we found a very helpful guy in a store which seemed to be doing a lot of business with locals so we bought it from him. There were so many dodgy dealers it was difficult to find one you could trust but its still working and taking great pictures.
The thing we really loved about Singapore was seeing all the cultures mingled together, Chinese temples, Indian temples & Mosque’s were all only a block away from each other and all intertwined by modern high rise tower blocks! Its such a multi-culture city you can eat from a different part of the world every evening and we certainly proved it while we were there!!! Sylvie & Ben were unbelievable hosts, they showed us all the major sites downtown whilst stopping for great food along the way. We went to a hawker centre, a mad outdoor seating area surrounded by food stalls serving anything and everything. At one of the stalls they had a deal where you could challenge the record for the most satay sticks eaten in 20 mins - the record was held by a Singaporean who had eaten 102!! If you beat it you ate for free - we didn’t take up the challenge!! There was also fabulous bakeries, trendy bars with great views, restaurants along the Singapore river and Sylvie cooked her speciality for us one of the evenings too. They gave us our first introduction to the Durian fruit which was the smelliest, most awful texture, disgusting fruit we have ever tasted!!! Apparently it is like the Aussies and Marmite - you either love it or you hate it!!
While we were in Singapore Michaela had decided to look for a half marathon that we could run somewhere in Asia!! She found one in Nong Khai in the north east of Thailand and there was also the chance to do some volunteer work there, teaching English to local children. So I started training for a half marathon and Michaela for a 10km while we were in Singapore!! We only had 4 weeks to go from ZERO fitness to being able to run 21.5km and 10km!! So Ben took me out for my first run at 5.30am around downtown Singapore. We ended up running 10km which is more than I have ever run and we looked like drowned rats when we got back to the apartment. It took us an hour to cool down but at least a start had been made. The city looked so different at that hour of the morning, little traffic and people sitting on the bridges just chatting & watching the sunrise after a good night out.
Thanks a mill Sylvie & Ben, you made our trip to Singapore a great one and hopefully we can return the favour in Ireland some day in the near future.
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