Welcome To Asia

We had arrived. It had been an uncomfortably warm nights sleep, and the rubbish bed and pillow hadn’t helped. But nevertheless, we were in Singapore, Asia. Once we had unpacked a few things and grabbed a quick shower in the small bathroom with a shower vaguely attached to the wall and headed out into the mid-morning humidity for an initial scout round the local area.

The Mustafa Centre lay across the road from our hotel, but it looked like you needed to hand your bag in to look round as there were a few security guards lurking around the entrances, so we carried on until we hit the City Mall round the corner. It is a huge place, newly built, and obviously a much nicer shopping experience than in the Mustafa Centre. It seemed like the kind of place the rich and famous would go to do their shopping for food, clothes and gold, etc. So we perused the shops for a while before grabbing a few supplies from the supermarket. Back at the hotel we made lunch and then looked at where the nearest Barclays ATM and Visitor Centre were. Thankfully they didn’t seem too far away so we saved a map to my phone and set off into the city.

The Arianna Hotel

Unsure of the jay-walking laws in Singapore we made sure we waited for the green man at all crossings, but also because we may easily get knocked down by any vehicle you care to imagine if we would try and scamper across before we should. It was a total assault on the senses, but nothing fazed us – we consider ourselves to be seasoned travellers by now. Walking through one of the street markets was amazing – the sights, the sounds, the smells, all just battering our senses with new experiences. We got slightly disorientated by the many roadworks around the city and couldn’t find the Visitor Centre in the end, but we did at least find where one of the main shopping plazas was, that according to James would contain the one and only Barclays ATM (that would give us “free” cash withdrawals). It turned out that there weren’t any Barclays ATMs in the plaza, so that was 0 out of 2 for the day.

Bugis Street market

On our way back to the hotel we tried bobbing into one of the local parks but couldn’t find the way in, so technically that was 0 for 3, but we won’t count that one. Once we got back to the hotel it was pretty late so we got the bowl noodles on the go and tried to find out what to do in Singapore and how to get up to Kuala Lumpur by train. Neither of which was an easy task.