We wanted to get as much out of one day in Singapore as we possible could, so this meant of course that we couldn’t sleep in.
I set our alarm clock a few hours ago, but this time around it wasn’t that small obnoxious thing that woke me up. I don’t know for how long actually, but there was a noise that was bugging me. It sounded like something was nibbling on a piece of paper, but I didn’t know if it was for real or it was all in my head. Have I finally gone crazy???
Not certain what to do, Tania made the decision for me by turning on the light. At that moment I was looking at our desk / cupboard because I figured out that the noise was coming from that direction. As soon as we had light, I saw something small and grey running for its life towards the curtains. What the heck!?
Getting a closer look at the desk, I noticed that something took a few bites out of my cereal bar, which I left there just a few hours ago. Okay, I have to admit, this wasn’t a smart move of yours truly, but it never crossed my mind that there was a 3rd roommate!
The only conclusion we both could give was … better a mouse than a freaking cockroach!
Although I had a good night’s rest, it wasn’t the same for my roommate (and I am not talking about the fury one!!!). Tania slept right under the AC and during the few hours that we could have had some sleep, it turned into a real fridge, which isn’t good of course. Hopefully she gets some sleep during our long flight home this evening.
Because we are limited with time, we managed to get dressed in no time and the only thing on our minds right now besides doing lots of sightseeing is food. Being home based in Chinatown is excellent for the first thing, but not for the second as we both aren’t big fans of hot food in the morning.
As soon as we stepped outside, the humidity hits me and I am not liking it. While Tania is making a few pictures of the hotel, I am trying to sweat as little as possible. Blimey, this is really difficult for me!
Outside, there are a few Chinese food stalls, but the smell isn’t really helping so, we walk onwards, leaving Temple Street and try to look for the first sightseeing of the day, this being the Sri Mariamman Temple. It takes a few minutes to figure out our street map, but once we get the hang of it, we manage to find in no time Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple and I immediately fell “in love” with the vibrant colours. There’s already lots of activity at the entrance tower and it looks like there is going to be a wedding later this afternoon. Although we are invited to have a closer look, we politely reject the offer. After all, there’s still so much to discover and so little time.
We walk into Pagoda Street which looks very abandoned at this early hour. There are many shops, but sadly enough they are all closed and we agree to owe it to ourselves to come back later this evening, knowing that it is going to be more “alive” then!
Still looking for a place to eat, we cross lots of streets and even have a stop at Telok Ayer Park with its lovely statues, but still see nothing to our satisfaction. After wandering around the neighborhood for a while, we arrive in what looks like a financial district area and when we finally have given up hope of ever finding something, we manage to see a Starbucks.
This time around we don’t have to think twice about the whole thing and take this opportunity with both hands. It takes a while to get our order placed, but after a lot of sign language we each end up with a yummy juice and cream cheese bagel. There is a God! 
Now that our stomachs are happy, we are planning to see as much of the city as we possibly can. Our initial thought was to take a hop on / hop off bus but till now, we haven’t seen much of those. We know they have to be around here somewhere because we saw that on the internet, but for some reason we can’t seem to spot them.
Instead of waiting at the same place and secretly hoping that one of them comes along, we decide to walk towards the nearest sightseeing in the neighborhood.
Upon our arrival at the Thian Hock Keng Temple, we notice a few people walking around, but unfortunately no busses. We look for a sign of the hop on / hop off bus, but once again we get disappointed, there’s just nothing there. How strange ???
Now that we are at the Temple of Heavenly Happiness, we might as well have a closer look at it and although I already saw many temples in the past, this one is nice as well. We have a quick look at the different offering shrines and then the search for the hop on / hop off bus is back on!
I figured we might have a better chance of finding one when we get to the Merlion. This statue of a mythical creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish, is used as a mascot and national personification of the city of Singapore. The fish body represents Singapore’s past when it was only a fishing village and the lion head represents Singapore’s original name being “Lion City” … Asian people, they are so creative … me like! 
Along the way, the traffic gets busier and busier and when we are almost at the Marina Bay, we notice one of the busses … see, we were right. We asked a few people “on route” if they knew a bus stop and they all looked at us as if we were crazy … this proofs it. We aren’t insane, there is a hop on / hop off bus. We just have to find the nearest bus stop and we are on our way! How difficult can that be!?
Our best bet is still the Merlion and as we are walking towards it, using a pedestrian zone along the waterfront area, it gave us also a better look at all the futuristic buildings on the other side of the river.
Just moments later we arrive at this famous statue and while Tania gets something to drink, I have a closer look at the miniature Merlion, while sweating like crazy. I read somewhere that the humidity is about 85 % in this country … now that is something insane!!!
It looks like this statue is the number one sightseeing attraction, we are definitely not alone here and as soon as we made a few pictures and tried out our jump moves, we were back on duty in finding a local bus stop.
We went back and forth along the Esplanade Drive and call us (indeed) crazy, but we didn’t find one single bus stop. How weird???
It looks like this is going to be our number one obsession of the day and we decide to go and have one more look at the Singapore Flyer. We both agreed, if we can’t find it there, we aren’t going to find it anywhere else.
It’s quite a walk and this insane humidity isn’t helping either, but when we suddenly see one of the busses again, it kind of gives us wings and in no time we arrive at this giant attraction.
Believe it or not … we are looking for those damn busses all morning long and at noon we finally figured out that these things start and end here at the world’s largest observation wheel, the Singapore Flyer.
Unfortunately we can’t seem to find one single driver, maybe they are all on their lunch break and instead of wasting more precise time, we are going to find out how things are with my fear of heights in this 165 meters tall Ferris Wheel.
Getting a ticket is easy and we quickly manage to take several escalators without queuing at all. Inside there’s a small exhibition, but we wisely decide to skip this and prolong our way towards the entrance of the capsules. We don’t have to wait in line all that long, after all, the capsules are really big and can take on lots of people.
I am really not all that nervous, but when it’s our turn to get into one of the capsules, we are “lucky” enough to end up with an obnoxious family as well. Their children run around like crazy and even knocking (or should I say banging) on windows looks like a national sport. It seems that not only on the streets, but even inside this capsule with good AC, I am breaking a sweat.
I enjoy most of the views from my safe seat in the middle of the capsule and once in a while I dare to have a closer look from the window, but I must say … I would feel better at ease when some parents do their actual job and look after their children. But that’s just me thinking out loud of course!
After this “experience”, we both got a bit hungry, but once again it looked like a giant ordeal to find something suitable to eat. Besides strange Asian dishes, there was also the choice of fast food. Because we didn’t want to jump into the deep and try some of the local delicacies, we ended up at Subway. We both ordered a small piece of bread with a soft drink and although I expected the worst, it was eatable.
Just before we went to have a bite to eat, we bought ourselves a ticket to the hop on / hop off bus and a little after 1 PM we were able to catch a ride on the green route of the Funvee City Hopper.
At long last we are on our way!!!!
It’s quite nice to just sit, relax and enjoy the views from up above the open air double-decker. The first thing we see again is the Merlion and with it, its futuristic buildings across the water and than it is of again towards Chinatown. It looks like we only saw a little bit of the area and there was no chance that we could have walked all of this on foot.
Our first real stop is at the Singapore Botanic Gardens and although it is near to impossible to have a complete idea of the beauty of this garden, we do manage to walk through a few paths all the way up to the National Orchid Garden. Instead of buying an entrance ticket for the garden, we chose to spend our money on an ice cream … we are so transparent, aren’t we!? 
With this cold delight in our hands, we walked all the way back to the entrance of the Nassim Gate, just to arrive a few minutes early before we could catch our next Funvee Hopper back towards the Singapore Flyer.
We hoped to catch another bus, the Sentosa Hopper (red route), on its next trip. As we are looking at the different time schedules, we noticed that there is about half an hour of waiting between both busses. Instead of sweating like a horse at the base of this big Ferris Wheel, we decided to go and have a closer look at the Marina Bay Sands hotel. We wanted to go all the way up to the observation deck, but unfortunately it was closed.
There was still some time left to have a quick look inside the hotel. It looks futuristic from the outside, but inside it is just the same. Such luxury!!!
I guess it’s a bit more expensive than our “romantic” hotel with 3rd roommate back in Chinatown! 
Because we only had time for a quick glance, we hurried back towards the starting point of the Sentosa hopper. I expected lots of scenic buildings along the way, but it looked like I couldn’t have been more wrong. Instead of taking the local streets, the bus drove straight to the highway and the only thing we saw of Sentosa was the underground parking lot. Oh well, there is always next time of course!
Instead of going all the way back to the Singapore Flyer, we decided to get out of the bus at Orchard Road, the main shopping street of Singapore. To me it looked like the best decision of the moment. Ever since we took off from our starting point, our driver drove like a mad man and I never for one moment thought I was going to be car sick … I was wrong!
Glad to be out of the bus, we started to walk towards the Raffles hotel. We had such a wonderful holiday, so why not end it in style!
But before we did that, we first decided to grab a bite to eat and we ended up at a small Mexican place with friendly staff and delicious quesadillas.
Once outside again, it looked very dark and just one moment later we had to undergo a heavy rain shower. Luckily we were smart enough to bring an umbrella with us, otherwise we certainly became soaking wet.
The Raffles hotel and more specific, the Long Bar, were just minutes away. This was kind of a good thing, but once at the spot, it was harder to find a seat. The outside porch was out of the question because of the bad weather and once inside, we soon noticed that we weren’t the only ones. But it helps to persevere and after a few seconds we were already able to find two seats at the bar itself. Talking about the best place in the room!
We were advised by friends of Tania to come here and enjoy the best thing that Singapore has to offer … the Singapore Sling!
Although it is a bit expensive for a cocktail, I must say that it is worth every penny and the surrounding isn’t that bad either. We couldn’t have come up with a better way to end our holiday than with such a delicious liquid.
We only had time for one Sling and as soon as we were outside again, it looked like the cocktail did his job correctly. Both a bit wobbly on our legs (luckily we ate something, otherwise it would have been a total disaster!) and with a big smile on our faces, we walked all the way back to Chinatown.
It looked like we were flying instead of walking. We made some good time and decided to have one more look at the Pagoda Street and its night market. This was the opportunity to get rid of our last dollars and in the meantime we had an excellent excuse to buy some cheap souvenirs.
Once back at our hotel, we changed into warmer cloths, asked the receptionist to call for a taxi and the only thing left for us to do is sit and wait till it arrived.
It took a while to tell you the truth and I thought it would never come, but luckily for us it was already late in the evening, so we didn’t have to be afraid of getting stuck into a traffic jam. I was happy that we managed to arrive at the international airport just in time.
After we checked in, the only thing left for us to do, was board our plane back to grey and cloudy Europe.