Promised photo post #1: Singapore

Even though Singapore and Thailand are only a small fraction of the photos that I took - Bali getting the Lion's share - I've decided to separate the photo posts out by country. I was going to do it all in one but figure it would just be too big and it's almost midnight so probably best not to push on at this point. To be honest, I wasn't really feeling the love with my camera on this trip, but there are still a few photos which are nice enough to share (pics are very small for copyright protection purposes, I get iffy about the snaps I take on holiday). There are more pictures on another card somewhere, but I haven't been able to get them organised just yet. Oh, and I'm not in any of these pictures because, in my unbiased opinion, I am much better behind the camera than in front of it...

Anyway, enjoy!

First, we went to Singapore for four nights. On one of our days there we toddled off to Sentosa Island to visit the aquarium - we seem to make time for aquariums whenever there is one. This aquarium is one of the smaller ones we have visited, but SP was fascinated at every corner.



Personally, I was taken with the octopi, beautiful creatures (and this is one of my favourite trip photos, too).


Afterwards, we had a cold drink at a certain giant multinational coffee shop.



I don't know where these two find their energy sometimes...


Of course, while in Singapore we made sure to try some chili crab at at night hawker centre (where we went with my cousin, who lives in this city of glass).


TBC...

Next post: Bali

Salamat, Singapore!

'I don't want to say it,' Chef D said.
'Say what?' I asked.
'That they're taking the piss.'
That was our response to our room in Singapore. It's practically the size of a shoebox; in fact, our shoes on the floor get in the way because there is so little room for them. Our bags on the floor only just fit in between the wall and the bed. I have enclosed a picture of the entire room, taken from the back of the bed at one corner and pointing towards the far corner. We have actually spent many nights in smaller, crappier rooms, but they were in Japan when we expected it, or in placed like Laos where it was a charming and romantic bamboo hut over the Mekong river (never mind the pigs out the back and the chickens foraging underneath. That is what we backpackers like to call charm: the rural idyll.) I think it's just the price paid for the room which irritates. Nevermind; the waitress at breakfast (where the 'cereal set' was cocopops, and the orange juice some sort of fluroescent powder of sugar, colouring and preservatives in water) sang 'twinkle, twinkle, little star' to our girl and danced around the table for her, which makes all souless rooms somehow seem lighter and brighter.  SP, our little Goodwill Ambassador, charms the pants off everyone where ever we go. I think it's the blonde curls, which have gone even curlier and more ensnarled in the humidity.
I like Singapore. We haven't spent much time here in the past, but I like to daydream about living here for a while, one day (unlikely). Every spare pocket of land sprouts a little garden. And these gardens don't huddle, or cower by the roadsides. They spring up, and spill out in verdant and luxurious growth. I always find myself taken hundreds of photos of plants whenever we travel, and here is no exception. We've already been to the Zoo and Sentosa Island, and tomorrow we are going to the Botanic Gardens. My camera will probably burn out there from overuse. What is it about orchids that makes me go ahhhh...?