Singapore

Singapore
I arrived in Singapore at 12:10 pm and went with the metro to my hostel (5footway.inn Project Boat Quay) at the Clarke Quay district. I was still exhausted from my night out in Ho Chi Minh so I relaxed at the hostel until 6:00 pm. I went to the common room that has a beautiful view over Clarke Quay and met Gregor and Adrian. They were planning to go to Marina Bay Sand and invited me to join. While I was getting my stuff together I also met a Dutch couple Mark and Moniek and a Russian girl Sabina. I invited them to join and we all went together to the Marina Bay Sand. We went to the rooftop bar and I ordered a beer... €12,50 for a single glass, this was a shock because a beer in Vietnam would have cost me €0,50... Anyway, the view was beautiful and the people with who I was with were very friendly. After a while we went back to the hostel and drank some more beers, this time €3,00 each that I bought at a supermarket...

Sabina and I decided to visit the gardens by the bay the next day. We walked together through the gardens and also visited the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome. In the afternoon the weather changed and it started to rain and thunder very badly. We went back to the hostel and met up with Mark and Moniek again. We ate something at China town and went to Orchard Street for a beer. We played a game called "I never..." and we got to know each other very quickly. We grabbed a taxi back home and went to bed very late :).

After a slow start Sabina and I went to the Art Science Museum. This was a stunning display of photos from photographers all over the world. The nice thing about the display was that there was a story next to the photo. It gave an extra dimension to the photo and made it very interesting. I said goodbye to Sabina at the museum since she was flying out later that day. I ate something at the shopping mall at the Marina Bay Sand and went back to the hostel for a power nap. I met up with Mark and Moniek around 6:00 pm and grabbed something to eat. After some Chinese food we watched the light show at the gardens by the bay and lake. After the light show it was showtime at the Marina Bay Sand casino. I played a little bit of blackjack and won $135,00 (€84,00), thank you Marina Bay Sand casino. We went back to the hostel and I went to bed early for a change.

I woke up pretty late and ate a heavy breakfast. Today I was going to update my blog since I didn't write anything for 10 days. It took me almost the entire afternoon to write everything down... But I was up to date once again! During the day I said goodbye to Mark and Moniek, they were flying back home. The rest of the day I used to write and Skype with people from home. Although I didn't go out the whole day, I had a very nice and relaxing day :).

Today was gonna be an active day but I first had to make a backup of my photos and videos. "The last time I made a backup was in Hong Kong, I plugged my SD card in the computer but it got extremely hot straight away. I pulled it out and nothing seemed to be wrong, all the photos were still on it..." I've been using it ever since but I noticed in Vietnam that there was something wrong with the SD card. It wasn't counting the videos and photos anymore but I could still see it on my Gopro app. When I plugged the SD card in at the computer in Singapore I couldn't see any photos or videos of the last month... I decided to download a SD recovery software and recover all the material. When the scan was done I tried recovering the data but I didn't have a serial key so it wouldn't work... I gave up, plugged the SD card out off the computer and opened the SD card with my Gopro app. I stared at my iPhone for a minute and thought: "Houston we (I) have a problem", all the pictures and videos from Vietnam and Singapore are gone... I stated counting 1, 2, 3, ...,10 packed my bag and went outside to buy a new SD card...

Art (a guy from France) brought me in contact with two local girls (Aj and Mechelle). They told me to visit some famous places in Singapore. I first started at Haji lane and Arab street, this is the Arabic area of Singapore. Second stop: Little India and last but not least the botanical gardens. It was 6:00 pm when I got back to the hostel. I got changed and went to the casino. When I was walking it started to rain and thunder very intense. The lightning was hitting the tall buildings and the sound was just amazing. I grabbed a metro and went to the casino at the Marina Bay Sand. I stated playing blackjack and I was on a roll. Within 30 minutes I had a profit of $400,00 (€250,00) and cashed out straight away. I went to the roof of the Marina Bay Sand and enjoyed the view once again. When I got to the hostel there was a group of exchange students that we're going out. I joined them and drank a couple of beers at a bar before going back home again.

I had seen all the major highlight of Singapore so I started up slow again. I updated my blog and chatted with Patrick (mate from the train ride) via Skype. After meeting a guy from Malaysia we went out for lunch at a Korean place. The food was very good and the Korean guy payed for everything, nice :). When I walked out of the restaurant I saw a barbershop and went in for a haircut. 45 minutes later I walked out with short hair again. I got changed and went to the nearest subway station to meet with Aj and Mechelle. They brought me to Sentosa and showed me around. We ate some very good Malasian food at a street market and flushed it away with a smoothie at the beach. We grabbed one of the last trains back and said goodbye to each other. It was a nice evening and the girls were great.

In the morning I packed my bags and checked out of the hostel. I sticked around for a bit and prepared some stuff for Indonesia. Mid day I went to the airport and boarded my flight around 5:50 pm. After a nice stay I was happy to leave the city and was looking forward to arrive in Jakarta.