After doing laundry at a very overpriced coin-operated Laundromat nearby, we met Daniel at his hotel for lunch. After finding that a French café that Daniel had wanted to check out was closed for the New Year, we ended up at a large open-air food court. I noticed that many people were drinking something that looked like iced coffees in mugs and asked a family what they were. They told me that everyone was drinking something called iced Milos which were a little bit like iced hot chocolates with malt flavoring. We had seen these before in both Indonesia and Malaysia but I was still surprised at how popular they were. Sean and I ordered some and agreed that they were indeed delicious. ($53 hotel, $12 laundry, $15 lunch)
We had a lot of things we wanted to do that day in Singapore and a list of places and maps that we wanted to visit. We started the day with a visit to the historic part of Singapore and took the metro to the colonial district. The primary place of interest was the Raffles Hotel which was opened in 1887. The old hotel was beautiful and is famous for not only being a popular place to stay in the past for the traveling elite but also because it was in the hotel’s Long Bar that the drink the Singapore Sling was invented. ($18 souvenirs, $23 Singapore Sling)
After looking around and checking out the museum, we headed to the bar where each table is given a box of unshelled peanuts to munch on while tossing the shells on the floor. Of course most people order the signature (and really expensive) Singapore Sling and I am sure the bartender gets really sick of making them. We had to try them of course and they were surprisingly sweet and pretty girly. Sean and I shared one because of the expense; I especially liked the fact that they were a pink color and came with fruit.
We spent the afternoon walking around the bay which was awesome. The architecture of the many museums, fountains, cathedrals, and courthouse was incredible. In some ways it reminded me of walking near the lake in Chicago. My favorite buildings were the Esplanade which was a giant outdoor theatre right on the water and a huge mall which housed an indoor casino and a giant boat on the top which made for a pretty impressive sight. Then we walked over to the docks (which they call ‘quays’ here) whose main attraction is the Singapore Flyer which is the city’s gigantic Ferris wheel that we could see all the way from our hotel. ($15 dinner, $29 Night Safari, $6 metro and bus, $13 snacks and drinks)
My favorite part of the day didn’t come until that evening, however, when we went to Singapore zoo’s night safari. The night safari was next door but separate from the zoo and was open daily from 7:30-midnight. The night safari is basically just a zoo at night but it’s really cool because all the animals on display are nocturnal and extremely active. They have small lights around so you can see the animals and just about make out the different walking paths but it’s still kind of spooky. They also offer an evening performance which was awesome and a long tram ride which takes you around the park while a guide talks about the animals. I wish it was open longer so we could have spent more time there because it was awesome. Total for the day for 2 people = $184 (ouch)
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