Singapore - City

We arrived in Singapore by bus from Malaysia.  After I was taken aside by customs and taken to a police station to write a statement (for having bought a 4" shotgun shaped lighter as a present), our bus drove off without us and we were pitied by another driver who took us into the centre of the city for free.

For a largely English speaking country, some of the choices of names are surprising (or am I just being juvenile?)

'HELLO! YEAH, NO....AM ON THE SINGPORE UNDERGROUND AND EVERYONE KEEPS STARING AT THE BULGE IN MY POCKET!'

Paul, adopting the typical Asian photo pose in front of one of the museums

Singapore has around 5 million residents.  It was once under British rule who used it as a trading post in the region during the 19th and 20th Century after Thomas Stamford Raffles signed a treaty with the Sultan of the time to develop the south part of the island.  As such, lots of places are named after him.  It gained independence from Britain in 1963, merged with Malaysia for 2 years and became Republic of Singapore' in 1965, completely running themselves

It's an ultra modern city, very clean, very expensive, very busy, lots and lots of rules (and busybodies to ensure they're being followed)

The hotel room we stayed in felt a bit ostentatious

Everyone there was as friendly as anyone is in a big city....

This is on Fort Canning Hill, previously called Forbidden Hill by the Malays before the fort was built.  It's only 60m high and has a lighthouse on top as is the highest place in the south of the island.  This could be seen for miles out to sea, but is hard to imagine now, as it's surrounded by skyscrapers

Raffles also built his first residence there and a botanic garden.  Although not there now, there are pretty gardens to walk through and there's an old terrace named after him

St Andrew's Cathedral (Anglican), built in 1861 using Indian convict labour to save money.  It's a beautiful building

It was built to replace a previous church which lasted less than 10 years before being torn down due to locals believing it was haunted and being hit by lightning

The Marina Bay Sands Hotel which looks like it has a boat on top.  Probably just a sneaky ploy to get out of paying 3 building's worth of insurance.  Different

We went to the Botanic Gardens there which are very well used by the locals and a beautiful place to get out of the city to

I opened another hotel whilst I was there....

...MG!'

The world famous 'Raffles Hotel', built in 1899.  It's not where we stayed though....

Hard to see, but this foot long spider was just hanging around in the Botanic Gardens.  Ewww!

It had lots of pretty features with the gardens to pose by..

It was Paul's birthday whilst we were there and Ged and Sarah's pressie was a trip on the 'Singapore Flyer' equivalent to the London Eye.  It's the world's biggest, 30m higher than the one in London

The views were stunning, all across the city.  This is the boat hotel, as seen from the side

Below is the start and finish point for the Singapore F1, the green roofed building being the main stand

You can see the starting marks on the tarmac.  The track then runs through the city, taking in some key landmarks

This is the Central Business District.  There's a lot of very important people in the buildings you can see....apparently

They try and have green areas between the skyscrapers and numerous shopping malls.  This is under the Singapore Flyer