Welcome back

The night was dominated by a very intense thunderstorm and I was wondering if it ever stopped before we had to go to the ferry. In the end I did get a couple of hours of sleep and even woke up 15 min before the Alarm went off.

After another posh breakfast we got our bags and since we still had the Rupees we didn't spent on the Indian food yesterday we thought we might take a taxi, although it was only 1.5 km.

When we asked the concierge at the hotel we learned it would cost 50000 Rupees to get us there. That was half of what we paid from the airport to the hotel which was at least 15 km.
 
We decided to walk. We had done this way plenty of times by now and knew we had enough time. This way we also were able to keep a bit of the funny money.

 Emigration from Indonesia was no problem and now we were waiting for the ferry.

The last view of Indonesia was a township (as I imagine them down in Johannesburg or Capetown) that lay across the bay. Next to the tin huts on poles was an impressive but rotten oil tanker laying half tilted on shore. A real view of property. The most memorizing thing within this scenario was that the people in the huts could see the Skyline of Singapore across the bay.

I have never seen such a huge difference in quality of living and culture in so close proximity only divided by a few kilometers of water and a 45 minute boat ride.

The ride on our air conditioned Fast ferry was very pleasant and the huge amounts of boats and ships and enormous vessels on the left and right made sure we didn't get bored. It seems that all of the East-West shipping lanes pass through the Singapore straight.

Closer to the Singaporean Coast we even got boarded by the Coast guard who did a quick inspection and satisfied that we did not try to smuggle any chewing gum (which is not openly available in Singapore) they let us go our way.

And again when pulling into Singapore harbour (the ferry dock is right behind Sentosa Island) it all looked so artificial and clean. Very much like Disney World. But to be honest after not even a week in Indonesia it was nice to walk on a pavement without the fear of falling into some gaping holes.

Suddenly there were also hundreds of foreigners again and no one looked at us or said "Hi Mister" any more. It is really such a big difference between these two places that are so close together.

Immigration took a bit of time as multiple ferries arrived all at the same time. Next stop was the Green Kiwi Backpackers Hostel again.

After checking in and dropping off our bags we went to a small skate board shop that was specialized on Long boards, of which Basti wanted to buy one. Apparently these are much cheaper here. So, we got a board and rode around a bit. One of the plans was to ride down the Henderson Waves Bridge that we have visited before.It stretches from one peak to another and is made from smooth wood.

We started off with only a tiny slope in the beginning and realized that this board becomes very quick very fast.

So we decided to only roll up the Bridge rather than down.

We continued our walk around the Park and then headed back to the Hostel to drop off the board.

In the evening we wanted to meet up with Antonio again. He suggested a great little Noodle place in a food court where the noodles are being made by hand on site. It was really cool who the guy was stretching the dough and folding it and stretching it until he had several strings that all were the same length and width.

For all three of us this was the first food (except breakfast and an Ice cream) of the day, which meant we ate loads of noodles and Dim Sum dumplings and were stuffed.

Afterwards we took a stroll along the Orchard road which hosts all the major malls in Singapore (it really is mall next to mall, next to mall, here) and they just started to put up the extremely tacky Christmas decoration which really felt quite strange as we were walking around in shorts and t-shirts at night. Anyhow, there were reindeers and pine trees and even artificial snow.

In a quite side street with colonial houses and palm trees, just 50 m away from the Christmas craze we had a beer and then headed to Antonio's place for swim in his (well it belongs to the apartment block)50 m open air pool on the 7th floor.

After our swim we went up to the 31st floor to relax a little with a view over the city.

The evening was then completed with a few episodes of "injustice" which is a UK crime drama, but unfortunately we were so tired at this point that we could only watch 4 of the 5 episodes. I guess to see what happens I will have to find them somewhere in Ireland.