Kate & Simon

Well, what a lovely stay we have had in Singapore. Because the exchange rate is so good we spent 2 gorgeous nights at a 6 star hotel - the Ritz Carlton Millenia, on Raffles Avenue. I personally would have liked to spend the entire stop-over in our luxury bathroom (of my dreams) but Simon insisted we had to go out and explore the city.

After an early start (leaving the hotel at 9am) we took ourselves on a walking tour and managed to cover most of the city’s salient points. Starting at the Esplanade we then walked down to China Town. Although it is called China Town we visited a Hindu temple, a mosque and a Buddist temple all within short walking distance of each other. There were many shops selling Chinese medicines and plenty of strange dried things including lizards, squids and sea cucumbers (what are you supposed to do with those??). China Town had an all pervading smell of fish and pork. Fish head curry seemed to be a particular favourite dish of the street vendors.

Strangely we ended up having Nepalese food for lunch (who says you have to eat Chinese food in China Town?!) which was much more sympathetic to vegetarians and simply delicious. Following 2 large jugs of Tiger Beer we continued our walk (although more slowly than we started out) to Little India. We only managed a fleeting visit but the smells were enticing - spices and incense. We had been walking for around 7 hours by this point so called it a day and headed back to the hotel to freshen up for the evening which we spent at the famous and wonderful Raffles Hotel.

We had the obligatory Singapore Sling in the Long Bar, which was very fruity and cool. Then headed to dinner in one of their many restaurants. We didn’t realise Raffles Hotel was so big. It takes a whole block and incudes a very exclusive shopping arcade., courtyards full of tropical greenery and many restaurants - one of them with three Michelin stars!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2006 at 11:32 am and is filed under Singapore. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.