My preconceptions about Singapore were that it was a small island full of tall buildings with all these robot-like people that never jaywalk or chew gum. In fact, Singapore is nearly 1000 sq km and when we first crossed the causeway from Malaysia, we drove for miles before we saw any high rises. Our first interesting site was all these cardboard cows on the side of the road all throughout the city (unfortunately we never found out why they were there). As for jaywalking most people wait at the curb but there were plenty of jaywalkers as well as other people who did not always follow the rules.

It's safe to say that Singapore is much more than I expected but with that, there was a downside and that was the price of everything. I knew it would not be as cheap as Thailand but some things were more expensive than back at home. Before we got to Singapore, we decided to double the budget but some days even that was not enough and that was all without paying for accommodation. I reserved 3 nights at the Holiday Inn near Chinatown using my points and we had a comfortable room in a high rise with a nice view.

On our first night after looking around the hotel, we decided to take a walk around Chinatown and get something to eat. We had not eaten since we left Malaysia several hours earlier and by then we were both pretty hungry. We walked around for a bit but started to get a little cranky with each other so we just had to stop at the first place we both could agree on and our meal was over $30 US. And that was without alcohol since beer in Singapore can be as much as $8 US for a can. We thought the beer in Malaysia was expensive so we decided to give it up (that lasted about a day), in Singapore we were not that naïve so we just went to the store and bought a six pack but it was still over $2 a can. I won't even mention cocktails since that's an entirely different story so back to Chinatown.

Another of my preconceptions about Singapore was that it was super clean and yes, it is pretty clean but Chinatown was somewhat of an exception since there were a number of trash cans that were overflowing. In general my first impression was that Singapore is just another city so what's the big deal? It was not until the next day that we started to appreciate it. We were up early looking for a bakery but it took a bit of searching before we found some baked goods without meat. I know in Ireland we have sausage rolls, but it was ridiculous in Singapore with ham in all the buns or chicken in the pastries. Once we found breakfast we then were looking for a comfortable place to eat it and it was only after we were halfway through eating that we noticed the sign saying no eating or drinking so, of course, we had to take a picture. Surprisingly, Amie volunteered to be in the picture but stipulated that we had to wait until we were out of Singapore before posting.

After breakfast, we once again walked through Chinatown, this time stopping to read all the information boards spread around, which give the history of the area. We then walked to the harbor area where we did a walking tour mentioned in our guide book. It was really nice and we walked through some beautiful areas around the river and esplande. I was also dragged (kicking and screaming) to the Asian Civilizations Museum and it turned out to be a pretty good museum but we didn't have the energy to see the entire museum since it's quite big. There were a lot of boats offering harbour cruises but the only one were were tempted to to take was the DUCKtour that does a land/sea combo in the same vehicle. After an exhausting day touring the waterfront, we again made our way back to Chinatown where we had some interesting mystery meat dishes.

One of the reasons we wanted to go to Singapore is that we heard it was easy to get a 2 month Indonesian visa so the next day we made our way to the Indonesian embassy and after waiting for 2 hours we finally got to speak with an official. As soon as Amie handed him her passport, he handed it back and said she could get a visa on arrival. We knew that already, but the VOA is only a 30 day visa so Amie handed the passport back to him and explained that she wanted a 60 day visa but he wasn't having any of it and would not take her passport. I had no problems since I can't get a VOA, so I passed over $70 S ($45 US) and was told to come back in 2 days. We spent the remainder of the day in the Botanical Gardens (Amie moping because she couldn't get a 60 day visa) and walked around until around 4 pm when it got really dark suddenly and began to rain so hard that we had to take shelter with some construction workers. We were treated to an amazing lightening display but had to sit there for about an hour until the rain let up.

That night, we took our first trip on the very efficient underground to go to the Night Safari (like a zoo). At night it is so different since the animals are more active and it feels as if you're in the wild – you forget that there are barriers between you and the animals. This is especially true when you hear the lions or tigers roar and you stop to look around and hope that the barrier is still there. It was a very pleasant experience but we left it a little late to go and instead of taking the train back we decided to stay longer and took a taxi back home around midnight. Not your average zoo.