Singapore (cont)

The next morning we went off to the Asia Civilisations Museum (after a quick stop at the train station to buy tickets). It is in a beautiful old colonial style building and features those cultures which are prominent in Singapore. Afterwards we walked around Boat Quay and back towards a shopping district. We had indian/asian fusion for lunch, which was really delicious.

In the afternoon we went to the Raffles Hotel for afternoon tea and cake. It is a gorgeous, gorgeous building... it's a white structure that exudes british colonialism and wealth. As mear tourists we weren't allowed inside the lobby, but we snuck a peak past the Raj-era dressed doorman. It is at the Raffles where you see a disproportionate amount of caucasians! It was strange how I really noticed that.

We saw a doorman dressed just like this guy... maybe it was the same dude?

To try a Singapore Sling (invented at the Raffles), we went upstairs to their Long Room bar. But we were tourned off by the atmosphere and decided to head across the road to the Chijmera development. If we lived in Singapore, we would love to frequent that place. It has an inner courtyard, facing the back of a catholic church, with bars and restaurants lining a beautiful, tree-covered square. Quite lovely. And as we were the only 2 people at the bar (5pm on a Saturday--low key time I guess!) the bar tender paid extra special attention to the Singapore Slings, which turned out to be lovely. I could only drink one though -- so sweet and filling!

We had a quick, but delicious $3.50 meal (that was so big we shared) and then went off to the train station. We had sleeping berths for the overnight train to Kuala Lumpur. Our cabin had it's own bathroom! So high class ;) Anyway, we settled in and went to sleep. An hour into the trip they woke us up and we had to go through immigration... but by 11:30pm we were back on the train, not to be woken up again until 6:00am to announce that we were 30 minutes away. Hmm... 30 = 90, but oh well!