Day one

Day One: New Years at 40’000 feet.

Malaysian Airlines is so much better than Air Mauritius. Our flights were almost… Pleasant? They went by fast enough! The Singaporean airport was miles and miles and miles better than the Malaysian one, it was incredibly well organized – we were out in about ten minutes. The first ever Singaporean shop I saw was…. Gloria Jeans! Bit of a let down. Then family picked us up and we were taken to our temporary flat, its very noisy. We went to a local mall, the shopping here is crazy, the ‘local mall’ was really 3 different malls, each with 6 stories, one of which is a dedicated food court. What an awesome country.

Ah, to be one of the privileged few who are able to sleep on planes. Such bliss. The flight went well, although most hours were spent with my with my mouth wide open in a comatose state. The most amusing thing however was seeing Christo’s face when we landed in Singapore. I chuckled inwardly at my vast prior knowledge of the country which, as a result, caused me to remain indifferent and superior when I replied with “Oh…haven’t you seen that before?”.

We settled in. We didn’t do much. At night we were treated to a scrumptious homecooked Indian meal of chicken briyani and a selection of curries at our hosts’ place. Afterwards we were taken on a tour from one end of the city to the other (only 45 minutes!) during which a mini tour of the infamous (to all credit card holders) street of Orchard Road. The Christmas lights are indeed brilliant this year (cue more jaw agape on Christo’s behalf) with the gigantic malls practically being a large and imposing tv screen that seemed to only advertise Avatar and English football. At 11 o’clock, it was time to hit the sack – and we hit it hard.

Day Two: The Quest For Immortality.

Today was Audrey’s turn to spend a few hours with her jaw dragging across the floor. We went to an exhibition on Ancient Egypt at the National Singapore Museum, a truly beautiful building! The exhibition was seriously awesome, many of the statues were over 4’500 years old, and my respect for the Egyptians has grown considerably! I went through the exhibition in about an hour, Audrey took considerably longer. She managed to take photos of every single exhibit, along with its accompanying description. Then we went to the rather opulent Raffles hotel, a hotel that is so excessive its able to sustain its own set of ultra-lux shops, like “Harry Winston” and “What are you, a student? Your type isn’t allowed in here”. I’m pretty sure nothing had a price tag, and they were all called “pieces”. Singapore Slings are pretty tasty though!
Then we went to ‘Orchard Road’, at night, during Christmas sales, with late night shopping specials. The sheer concentration of wealth really does shine. Orchard Road is quite long, and packed with similar ultra-lux shops, Gucci, Burberry, Cartier etc. But they are neatly packaged in more malls. And there are lots of these malls, and for some reason they all have the same shops in them. It really hammers home the difference when Perth can sustain one Burberry shop, but a single road in Singapore can sustain one every twenty meters. This is ever present in Singapore, apparently Singaporeans despise walking above all else. I swear, in a single block of shops, there was a McDonalds on each corner, not 100m away from each other. And they are ALL packed, ALL THE TIME! Its crazy talk!
We had delicious food, went home, and promptly passed out.

And here I was thinking I could not be a more avid Ancient Egyptian history fan. Well, this exihibtion certainly proved me wrong! Fortunately I had managed to distract/smack Christo into not taking photos of me almost hyperventilating when we entered the exhibit. It was truly a masterpiece to behold – although the child in me was definitely more interested in the mummified cats and children than the pottery.

The illustrious Raffles Hotel was next on the agenda, with its colonial white architecture and oppressive, yet beautiful décor. The British sure knew how to party (and dominate a country)! For those who want a little bit of history (and me paraphrasing from my Lonely Planet travel book), Raffles Hotel started off as a modest 10-room bungalow for some ridiculously rich brothers built in 1887. Of course a visit to this historical and elegant piece of 19^th century finery was not complete without the signature cocktail the Singapore Sling and so, at the early hour of 4pm we had one each to commemorate our second day in this tiny, bustling city. After much giggling and pretending we were actually millionaires, the both of us made our way to Orchard Road where I did not so much as faint (like the Museum) but salivate all over the boardwalk. It was probably about now that I wished Christo was a qualified doctor already. Suffice to say, it was that night which I made my large and luxurious purchase (one of which I did not tell my mother about until the guilt threatened to choke me). I’m not sure how we managed to spend four hours on that street (and that street alone!) but at 11pm we dragged our sore feet back home (yes that’s right folks, the shops close at 11pm on Saturdays! I’m not sure where you come from, but in real cities people are encouraged to spend their money until outrageous times in the night!).

Day Three almost done, but as we’ve been on our feet since 8:30 (its now 11) sleeeep!