Greetings from Singapore, the most expensive place on the planet!!

Hey all,

I've had quite a few comments from people saying they are enjoying the blog, so thanks for that. Kelly and I are enjoying doing it as it is fun to recount everything we are doing, and it will be something good to look back on. We are not getting many comments though, which would be quite fun, so if you like the blog, or have any suggestions, or just want to say hi, remember at the bottom of the blog you can send a comment to us. :-)

OK, so we arrived in Singapore last night around 8.30pm. We dumped our bags and got on the metro to Clarke Quay, which is a kind of trendy area full of bars etc. We wandered around a bit and then got Tapas, before going for a drink at a bar called 'The Clinic'. This is a seriously expensive place here, we paid $17 (£8) for a vodka and lemonade and $14 (£7) for a bottle of carlsberg! The Clinic was a weird bar, you could buy cocktails which were served in drips and you sucked the drink out of them, and you could also buy big syringes full of cocktails. All the seats were wheelchairs too! Very odd. Not quite as odd as the obvious prostitutes hanging around all the bars at the same time as families with young children eating and playing!! We decided to head home around midnight and (I'm blaming Kelly for this although she'll probably deny it) we got in a rickshaw. I showed the little Chinese man the business card of our Hostel and asked him to take us there, he said $10. We had a nice little ride past the parliament building and a bit of a laugh, however he dropped us right in the middle of some seriously dodgy area. Having never been to Singapore before we were not sure about things and he assured us that our hostel was just round the corner. I gave him $10 and then he said "each"!! Long story short, he got told that was all he was getting and was sent packing. Turns out we were miles from our hostel and had to get a cab home. It was a bit of a laugh and at the end of the day it was only £4.50 anyway, but lesson learnt, don't trust rickshaw drivers in Singapore.

Today we've spent most of the day trying to organise transport from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and accommodation when we get there. Has been a bit of a nightmare, but it's all sorted now. Leaving at midday tomorrow on the bus (we're in Super VIP seats!!) and should arrive in Kuala Lumpur around 7pm. We then went out for dinner at a little place opposite Raffles Hotel. I got some pork dish and Kelly went with a plate of vegetables. Unfortunately for her the vegetables also included lots of prawns and squid type things which weren't to her liking. However they were probably slightly better than what she had been offered about half an hour before. We were walking around looking for a restaurant when Kelly stopped because she saw a tank full of live frogs. The woman asked her if she would like one, and Kelly's response was something like "no, I don't think I do, they're frogs!!". We then went to Raffles and visited the Long Bar for a couple of Singapore Slings (we were obviously more desirable than you Bob, haha). Nice bar, but incredibly expensive, it cost us $55 (£28) for two cocktails. They do have a crazy amount of shelled peanuts that are at the bar and every table. The done thing is to eat the peanuts and drop the shells all over the floor, I certainly ate a lot of them, but not $55 worth, while Kelly managed her drink without throwing up at the smell of peanuts, which was a bonus!

One good thing about Singapore, it's hot!! Here's some pictures from today of us on the rooftop terrace of where we are staying, and also out tonight:






So as I said, it's off to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow for a couple of nights before hitting the beaches of Malaysia. Lets hope it's better than Singapore. I was really looking forward to coming here but it's not really met my expectations at all, it's been extremely disappointing after Japan. Where Japan was busy and full of people who went about their business and were extremely polite and helpful if asked, I just find Singapore to be full of chancers and I'm pretty glad to be leaving tomorrow. So there's my top tip so far, visit Japan because it's a fantastic place, avoid Singapore because it's pretty ordinary.