Singapore

View from the Singapore Flyer

As I was attending a course in Singapore, we figured this was a good opportunity to see the city. Though the days were mostly booked up for meetings and course for me and work for Espen who actually here had an office to go to, we managed to find some time to also enjoy Singapore. Landing in Singapore was a totally different world…It was CLEAN and ORGANISED!!  I suppose in that prospect Singapore is the total opposite of Mumbai! We stayed at a really nice hotel in Clarke Quai, which is a really nice and lively area with a lot of restaurants, loved it J

We arrived Singapore Saturday morning after a night flight from Mumbai (flew Air India, not recommended as among other things my seat would not recline leading to little sleep)  and after a little nap at the hotel we hopped on one of those city buses to get a guided tour of the city. We chose the bus stopping closest to our hotel (which also happened to be the cheapest) which was maybe not the best one… But anyways we got to see the city J

Me and my burger!

First meal in Singapore just had to be…. A big, fat, American beef burger! Mmm, so missed my meat… I mean, you can get meat also in Mumbai, but the quality is not quite there and since they do not eat it themselves they do not prepare it in the best way either… So a good burger was just heaven!



Espen enjoying his Starbucks



One more thing we have missed (which we don’t have in Norway either, but we love) is Starbucks! They just have the best coffee and chai latte (I know, India probably has the best chai latte, but have not tasted much of it here though, want to get my tummy used to India before trying too much street food/drinks). So when we realized that there was a Starbucks just across the road from our hotel we were in heaven! No need to say that we visited this one frequently during our stay ;) I even went over there in during the breaks in my course to load up on coffee and chai latte (yes, both at the same time, too hard to decide on just one of them…)



Can see the Skybar in the background, is on top of that building!



View from Skybar




Champagne at Skybar



We also went to Marina Bay Sands and their Skybar, what an amazing view!! We started off having a cocktail…But then decided that this view deserves some good French champagne, so we got a bottle ;) We agree that we would rather book the dead-cheap hotel in the Red Light district of Singapore for our last night, prioritizes you know… ;) Having the champagne up at the rooftop bar/lounge at the 57^th floor was just amazing!

On the way to the skybar we also stumbled by Marina Bay shopping mall, an enormous mall with a canal inside where you can go on a gondola ride!

Another indulgence we enjoyed on this trip was good wine and food (in that order).  We frequently attended the beef restaurants and enjoyed good meat with nice red wine J I love Indian food also, but when having the option to eat beef, pork and potatoes I enjoy this! We also found a wine bar, which was just lovely as wine is not something India is very good at… You can get some good Indian wine, but also lots of bad… So seeing all the European and South African wines we are used to from back home was really nice and we consumed a few bottles during our stay ;)



Mmm, beef....



Inside the mall

I also planned on doing quite a bit of shopping…But ended up only buying a pair of high heels.. Think it was a bit overwhelming with all the nice, clean shops so that I did not really manage to actually buy anything… But just looking was nice too…And so much cheaper! ;)

Getting my drip...

As I said previously, the area we stayed in was very lively in the evenings and had heaps of bars and restaurants, some more special than others… This one place Clinic bar was quite something different…It was set up as an actual clinic, having wheelchairs as chairs, hospital beds as couches and you could buy drinks either in syringes , test tubes or drip. We chose the latter one, which was quite interesting… Funny concept and had to be tried, though off course overpriced.

I do however notice that I have gotten used to the price level here in India as I found everything in Singapore to be very expensive.