singapore

well, the 5 hour bus ride to tokyo followed by a 7 hour flight to singapore was well worth it. i think that we packed an incredible amount of cool stuff into our 2 days there. we arrived late thursday night and took a taxi straight to our hotel. friday morning we walked to orchard road and did a bit of shopping (on our tight budgets!), stopping for some yummy thai food for lunch. in the evening we wandered around little india (where our hotel was) and had excellent curries for dinner. that night we went to the night safari, where we stood kissing distance away from giant bats (cat-sized), howled with wolves and saw tigers fighting. the highlight of the evening, along with the bats and the lions, was the ben and jerry's stand at the gate, and the stupid kids toys which we had our fun with (will post pics tomorrow). 25 year olds being 5.
saturday morning we woke early and did another wander around little india. then we headed back for a bit more shopping on orchard road, before cabbing to to singapore's famous china town. renowned in south east asia for the food, we did more than sample. i think all of us could easily say that what we had that night was probably up there on one of our best meals ever.
after dinner and a bit of snooping around china town, we walked to the river, which was beautifully lit up with all different colours. the path beside the river was packed with really cool restaurants and bars. we had $7 coffees by the river then wandered to the 7'11 and picked up some Tiger and chilled on the grass. at about 2am we headed to the airport where we attempted to sleep on the cold floor for a few minutes until we had to check in for our early morning flight back to toko.
i think the great thing about travelling to singapore from japan was being able to see the beautiful architechture. the ethnic mix of indian, malay and chinese. the incredible food. the shopping. the western food! and the english. the perfect mini trip with the perfect company.