Singapore!

March 20, 2008
We woke up and caught a flight to Singapore this morning. Not only was the flight amazing, but the Singapore Airport was unreal! It is the only airport in the world that has a golf course and a pool in it. It also had every designer store in the world and was huge. People actually go there 6 hours ahead of time just to hang out and shop around. Ridiculous.
Our tour bus drove us around with a great guide telling us about all of the buildings and tons of world records that Singapore has (and seems to be obsessed with). Seriously by the end of the trip everything our guide would say we just added "in the world" to it because it fit.
This is the cleanest country I have ever seen. There are a ton of weird laws like you cannot chew gum; therefore gum is not sold in ANY gas station, grocery store- no where. You cannot have food on the trains. No walking on the grass. No littering. If you are caught with or using marijuana or any other drugs you are executed by hanging. Because there are so many laws, everywhere is so clean and you feel so safe, but slightly nervous that at any point you could be doing something illegal. I never thought that I could live in a big city, but if I could afford it I would live here.
This brings up a huge point of how expensive this place is. Alcohol has a 100% tax on it, cars have at least 100 but up to 200% tax, clothes, food, everything is unbelievably overpriced and then have a huge tax on top of it. Even the taxis look to be cheap but as soon as you pull out the money to pay a $3 charge is automatically added.
We took a boat ride around the harbor and got to see more of the city. One stop was at the "Raffles Hotel" where the very first settlers to Singapore landed. It is supposed to be a very nice and expensive hotel but didn't seem like anything special to me. We got tea and chocolate mousse cake which my roommate, who is a chocolate fiend, finished in minutes and I could only eat half of. Then we went to a silver factory where they make money trees!! It was cool to see it be done but too expensive to buy anything. After checking into our hotel we had the night to ourselves so Lindsay and I walked around town to see all of the shops and malls. We ate at a Hokra I think it is called, where there are just tons of different stands of native foods. Then we went out to the clubs.
Now I am not much of a club person but this place was crazy! It was like a big bubbled-in strip of all different types of clubs. Egyptian, Chinese, Fashion- every genre you can think of. There was one called "The Clinic" where you sat in wheelchairs and your drinks came in IV tubes that you drank out of (seriously crazy). We just walked around going from place to place for a while in shock at how different it was. We had heard that Singapore is one of the top 5 countries in the world for nightlife, shopping and fine dining, but this was insane. I cannot imagine what the other places are like.

March 21, 2008
Today we went to Sentosa island by way of a gondola. Everything is so lush and green here. The island was very pretty and we got to see pink dolphins perform tricks. It was very hot and humid so you can imagine my hair. We went to an aquarium where we could pet sharks, stingrays and other sea creatures. A ride around the beautiful city and we were dropped back off at Vivo City Center Mall which is huge and so overwhelming with tons of people (little Asians). We shopped went back to the hotel, napped and went out for a crazy night at the clubs.
The next day we woke up just in time for lunch and went to the airport, we spent the day traveling back to Malaysia and didn't do anything too special. And our last day in Malaysia I spent sick in bed, I don't know why I seem to be getting sick so often but it sucks. It will be a four day trip on the ship on our way to Vietnam!

Singapore Fun Facts:
-currency: the Singapore Dollar 1.3 = $1 US
-boasts Asia's highest standard of living after Japan
-huge fines for many crimes, including not flushing a public toilet

Malaysia Fun Facts:
-Malaysia Currency: 3.16 Ringgits = $1 US
-Muslim is the main religion
-Extreme diversity of Malays, Chinese, Japanese, Islamics

Sorry if I repeated some stuff! LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU SO MUCH. Oh and please don't leave comments on my blog it is too hard to check just email me (brit0073@aol.com)