Day 2!!

(first an apology for any bad typos in Day 1 and 2.. this keyboard sux!!)

Alright! Day 2.. Wait first a few observations from last night..

Singapore is HOT! Singpore is HUMID!!
There are millions of taxis everywhere and they all seem to be Toyota Crowns :).
The rest of the cars that arent taxis are either utes with people sitting in the back.. little dirt bike things with people wearing singlets and shorts cranking along at 90kmph, or flash as cars that look as if they have just been driven off the yard!
Dont trust cab drivers.
Singapore is hot.

Anyway, so i got up at about 8 a.m and went down to my buffet breakfast (which i made FULL use of ha ha!) then went upstairs to my room and had another shower, and packed up some stuff and went to catch a free bus into Orchard road (the massive big shopping street). However I missed the bus and so instead of wait another hours i decided to walk in. (found out later i could caught a normal bus for 90c.. doh!) ha ha but anyway.. by the time i got to Orchard road my t-shirt was stuck to me.. and it pretty much stayed that way all day :). although it wasnt smell-making sweat if that makes any sence.. at the end of the day i still smelt fine.. it was weird! just this kinda film over my whole body. Anyways I walked around Orchard road and checked out some of the massive malls and amazing shops.. got prussured by some sleazy slaesmen.. and got mighty thirsty, so got some slurpy thingy that hit the spot pretty well!

I wandered around for a while, saw some amazing buildings (the buildings here are all amazing!) then headed down to the underground to catch a train somewhere. OK.. a few more observations..

In Singapore NOBODY uses the stairs next to an esculator.. There can be a queue for the esculator, but the stairs will be completely empty... weird... also it seems nobody that I saw seems to walk anywhere except around the main city, so it was a rather lonely walk into Orchard road that I took in the morning :). (probably coz the public transport is so good, and it seems most the roads everywhere are 90 kmph).

I decided I'd go to Sentosa Island for a while coz that looked pretty cool, so i headed to the relevant underground station then headed up to the massive queue to buy tickets for the gondala ride over. Once finally on the gondala I got some nice views of some of the city and harbour and took a video and a few pictures, then was on the Island.

Oh that reminds me.. flying into Singapore was awesome! There are container ships EVERYWHERE!! and the lights were soo cool!! You could see all the road and stuf on all the different islands, and Singapore itself look spectacular. I didnt know where to look for the Merlion, but it looks like that gets lit up at night which must be nice.. anyway back to Sentosa..

Sentosa rocked my socks off. It was quite different to over in the city and i really liked it!! There were some AWESOME beaches.. and some amazing forest, and this awesome abandoned replica fishing village thingy (so wanna go visit some more of those things!!). First up I walked over to the Merlion, which is a pretty impressive looking thing! I'd bought a ticket thingy, so I got a little presentation thingy about a brief history of Singapore and the Merlion (and listened to some coll as music). Then I got to climb up the inside to the mouth and ontop of the head (there are a few pictures of that coming at flickr).

After doing the Merlion to death I climbed back down and went off to a beach, then on the way back passed this little herb and spice garden thing that sold this really nice home-made drink (I took all the drink I could ha ha). The whole place smelt awesome too cozza all the herbs and stuff.

By now I was really hot, as it was the middle of the day, but i was kinda used to it. I decided to walk around the island and see what I could see.. Was so the highlight of my trip so far (and probably will be for a while!) First I passed these cool hut things, then these cool stone tablets with faces on them.. then walked along the waterfront beside the jungle (trees). There were lizards sunning themselves everywhere and some seriously awesome insects the like of which id never seen before! Altho it must of been some kind of cicada... but anyway some insect that seemed to be everywhere made the most awful screeching sound.. ha ha sounded like an alarm was going off whereever i went :). Somebody said there were monkeys.. but i never managed to see any.

Next I came to this awesome little ruined palace thingy.. it was cool as! there were hyroglyphics (spelling?!) everywhere, and cool statues and this awesome arch.. It was sooo awesome! Then I wandered around more and found some cool totem-like stone pillars and some cool arranged stones.. (im carrying on a bit). After a while I found that fishing village thing I was talking about (had seen it from the gondala).. and that place totally rocked!!

Ha ha anyway.. better stop yakking about Sentosa.. but anyway, I LOVED it!!! (oh i had some burger king for lunch there. a beef rendang double burger, with iced tea and a 'taro turnover'.. the jury is still out on them both ha ha! Altho the taro turnover was pretty good really!

Anyway, so I left and went back over to the city, and down to the underground (in brilliant sunlight). I got out of the underground which opened into a mall, so I looked around for a while and had an icecream (Haegen Dazs.. MMMMM!!!) and went to go back outside and it was POURING!!!!!
Anyway an old soccer injury of my foot had seriously flared up by then (still sore and swollen now) from all the walking, so a little sit down was quite welcome.

Eventually I ventured outside after the rain reduced to a light drizzle (altho the heat seemed to intensify.. probably the humidity) and visited some more awesome buildings (photos of the best ones coming). On the way i went through this pedestrian underpass, undeground in the massive hall type space that you walked through were TONS of youths breakdanceing, skating, freestyle biking and doing all kinda of stuff. ha ha it was pretty cool, altho i didnt feel completely secure from the looks i was getting so kinda fast-hobbled over to where i needed to go, took a photo and left (to crys of 'hey man, thats not cool!) - In Singapore they have English, Chinese and Malay, all the signs and stuff are in at least english, and most people will understand you etc if you use english (phew).

Anyway, by now my foot was killing me and i was tired so i caught a train then bus, then walked (alone again) back to the hostel, even though i was tempted to catch a taxi cozza my foot. altho i figured out where the taxi rdriver from the airport actually took me on my mini map of singapore, and was quite unimpressed, so i decided that the taxis could do without some more custom from me. Back at my room I rested for a bit (and took pain killers), then headed back into the city.

Another observation.. There are SO many more people out at nighttime in Singapore then during the day.

Anyway, it was cool walking around at nighttime in the city! But I eventually grabbed some dinner (two rice burgers.. totally awesome!) and headed to the station to go to the night safari. I then cought a bus out there and started heading around. The night safari was cool ay! altho all photos i tried to take failed miserably :(. But anyway, on the bus i met to girls from the Netherlands who were also going to the night safari, so we all went round together (must have been the grimy t-shirt and the matt-sheen all over my body ha ha i mean thats pretty irresistable! ha ha ha). anyways, like I said, the night safari was great!!! could have speant twice as long there, and resolved to go to the zoo the next day (dont see that happening now ha ha).
Time came to leave so we got back on the bus, then onto the train. In the city i saw the end of the Germany - Sweden game (awwww! Swedens out already! - but hey im going to Germany tomorrow, so its probably a good thing they are still in the running :). And then my walk back to the YMCA again.. ha ha altho walking alone at midnight with a backpack and camera was a little un-nerving.. but it was all good.

Got to my room finally at about 1 a.m (that i had set at 8 degrees before i left) So i turned off the a/c and went to sleep.