A great 6 hour train journey (first class for a change!) took us across the water from Malaysia to Singapore. First impressions wern't great as Singapore station is very dull and run down looking - however that does not compare to everything else in Singapore, which is brand new and state of the art. To start with the underground is more effecient that any Swiss watch...it's all A/C'd...has safety doors...mobile phones work underground....everywhere has plasma screens giving details of every train arrival...you never have to wait more that 4-6 mins for a train...they have a EZ link card which you can top up with money for use on the trains and buses (no exact money required) - can you tell if we like it here???

We stayed in the Little India section, which was very convenient to get around, if not a little too fragrant at times! it is also far to close to the best electronics shopping plaza - The Sim Lin Center, where we had a couple of shopping weakness - hence the new Gameboy Advance SP, portable DVD/VCD player, DVD writer and some Oakley sunglasses!... just as well we cleared our credit cards before we left the UK :-)
Our hostel was The Inn Crowd, which has to be one the best hostels ever concieved - it's like an IKEA showhouse - clean, contemporary, groovy decorating, A/C, free internet and run by the most friendly of people. If you need to great cheap place to stay them check out http://www.the-inncrowd.com/

There is so much to see and do here, they advantage of it being a relatively small island/country, is that everything is easy to get too. Apart from the overwhelming number of shopping plaza's and modern buildings, there is so much history here to see. We took a 30 min boat journey along the Singapore river out to the harbour, for the best views of the city and waterfront area.
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To get a good view of the city, we took a roof top tour of one of the Suntec City skyscrapers. It's only about 45 floors high, but for a better view you can go to the 76 floor of the Swiss Hotel as they have a bar there!

Of course the boys couldn't visit Singapore without the obligatory visit to the Raffles Hotel for high tea! View image

After too much retail thearapy, we needed to beach action to chill out (if that's possible in 32c heat...), for this we went to Sentosa which is an island next to Singapore - in fact it is the southern most tip of continental Asia - we took the 100m high cable car over the harbour, where there is a free monorail around the island, which is a great way to see everything. Of course we headed to one of the great beaches (if not a little too perfect...) View image
There is also a cool rope bridge across the small bay swimming area.. View image

We also checked out the cinema and local theatres (Marriage of Inconvenience and The Odd Couple).

Claudia and Kathy took our advice and came down to Singapore and stayed in the Inn Crowd too, so we had a good home cooked meal (thanks Kathy!) and enjoyed a few sherries - good luck to you both on your further travels.

Our final observation is that Singapore is much further advanced with technology that any other country we've visited, WiFi is massive over here and almost every coffee house (good ol' Starbucks!), shopping mall and even the beach bars on Sentosa have free access! - the rest offer free regular pc internet access. David fortunatley managed to stop me buying the PDA phone just in time!