Day 1: Singapore Tour

Day 1 in Singapore dawned warm and grey, with the sun held back by low misty cloud.  It's hot and humid here, and with all the buildings well serviced with air-conditioning, the heat always surprises you when you step out from your hotel/ bus/ shopping mall!

At around 9am we left the hotel, first stop the Singapore Flyer.  This Ferris wheel on steroids is apparently a couple of meters taller than London's Eye and offers an incredible view of the island country.  It was a little grey this early, but you can still see for miles - towards the east of us hundreds of ships at anchor waiting to unload/ reload their cargo,  apartment block upon apartment block stretch northwards, and directly in front of us office skyscrapers and fancy hotels, and the incredible Marina Bay Sands hotel.  It all takes your breath away!!

After the obligatory trawl of the souvenir shops, we were off again, stopping across Marina Bay at the iconic Merlion park - the Merlion (half lion, half mermaid if you didn't already know) is Singapore's national icon and a must-see for tourists.  We stopped here for a quick photo opp and ice block - 10am and we were already cooking!!  From here, we toured the colourful districts of China Town and Little India and while just a few minutes away from our hotel, they were distinctly different suberbs in the middle of Singapore, with street markets, food centres and beautiful temples.

Driving a little further north, we stopped to smell the flowers at the world-famous Singapore Botanic Gardens.  With about 30 minutes alotted to this stop, we made quick work of the orchid gardens and got to see some incredibly colourful flowers of the kind you just don't see back home.

Next stop: Singapore Zoo!  We had lunch here and had the choice of real authentic Singapore KFC
(!!), pizza or local cuisine Ah Meng for the more adventurous...  The rest of the day was spent wandering the huge zoo and seeing some cute, incredible, and sometimes wierd animals like white tigers, zebras, lemurs, mice deer, naked mole rats, football coaches, elephants, pygmy hippo, snakes, more scary football coaches, lizards, otters, orang utans, and more and more and more.  Was an

amazing time and enjoyed by all - even in the 30 minute torrential downpour late in the day!

So we were all a bit tired heading back to the hotel, but we made a small detour and had dinner at a local food centre below a shopping mall.  Here we found that $5 bought you a great dinner of pad thai or green curry or mango salad or anything Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian, etc, etc.  Unfortunately Ian couldn't find any ethnic NZ food like a ham'n'cheese toasted sarny, so maybe there's an opening for that here...

Today there's only one thing on our agenda: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!