Michelle and John

Welcome to Singapore- home of the Singapore sling at the Raffles Hotel

While they know how to make these, they DEFINITELY CANNOT pour a pint of Guinness! Which is totally beside the point. I don't know many Irish who can make a perfect Singapore Sling. Which, by the way, I had never had before, and thought was lovely.

The Sands hotel, a lesson in hotel building for all to see. With the Art& Science museum to the fore. All three towers are hotel rooms, but there is just one massive lobby at the bottom, and the roof is fully accessible to guests.

At Universal, Shrek was all day in the bathroom.

Happy these guys didn't get a job at Air Asia.

The pit area for the Singapore F1. A while until it sees any more action.

While Singapore is a westernised Asian city, it is much more western than Tokyo, and not as impressive in my opinion. There is some fine modern architecture as well as some attractive British buildings- now mostly hotels. Singapore is a haven of western brands and a city of lavish excess in shopping. The airport is also a popular shopping area for many and one of the attractions according to the tour guides.

Otherwise, there are many impressive temples and areas in Singapore, and the Chinatown area is one of the most attractive.

For me, on the other hand, Singapore was my favourite city so far, and I really enjoyed our time here. We stayed in one of the cheaper areas, but our hotel was ok. The room was tiny, but at least it was clean.

Our first day there we went into the CBD, which is quite an impressive area, with lots of amzing buildings, but still with a good sense of space. I found the people to be friendlier here than in Tokyo. We did a tour of the city on one of the open top bus tours, which was a good way to see a lot in a short time. We also went up to the top of the Sands hotel. This is a fantastic looking hotel, which is really recognisable on the Singapore skyline. The view from up here was decent enough - unfortunately it was fairly hazy, so we couldn't see too far. The city is quite beautiful, and very clean. The shopping centres were all nicely done up, and there were loads of lovely fountains all over the place.

Most things in Singapore are quite cheap, or at least cheaper than anywhere else that we have been. The public transport is cheap - we paid $28 for a two day pass, but we got a refund of $10 when we returned the card. The exception to this rule seems to be the price of alcohol - it is around the same as Dublin prices, more in some places. And of course when drinking a Singapore Sling in the original bar is one of the important "must dos" of Singapore, they are not cheap! Between tax, a service charge and the price of the two drinks, the total came to $60 (over €30). We spent that evening wandering around the harbour area, which looks very good at night.

The next day (Wednesday), we went to Sentosa, advertised as Asia's favourite playground. This is a smaller area off the coast of Singapore. Here we visited Universal Studios, where we had fun on some of the rides, and poor John had to put up with me squeezing his arm on one or two. It was a decent theme park, but not the best, and the pouring rain didn't help. We went to a show in the evening called Songs of the Sea. (Fortunately the rain had stopped as it was all outdoors). This was a real highlight for me. It was a combination of pyrotechnics, fountains, lasers, and most impressive of all, images being projected onto water as a screen. I really enjoyed it, and it was an excellent end to our short stay in Singapore.