Day 7 (12/11/2011) Singapore

What a day. One I probably will never forget. I did not expect such adventures when I woke up with bright sunshine this morning.

After a not so yummy breakfast this morning we started our day with a boat trip around the Singapore River. It was very hot in the sun and the breeze on the boat was refreshing.

After we left the boat we continued with a visit to Little India and the nearby Arab street. We went to several temples. I should have known that as a woman you need to wear proper clothes in order to enter the mosques. I didn’t even think about it when I put my top and skirt on this morning…ANWAY I got some nice gowns there and looked fabulous.

We learned very interesting things about the religion and historic background. I might not remember them by tomorrow but at least I now have heard of it.

We even met a nice man working at one of the temples from New Zealand who converted 19.. to the Islam. We expected another lesson about the temple but he started to talk from his son and grandchildren, very interesting, a must tell story for later…

So, until that point everything seems to work out except the heavy rain showers in between. As we still had several hours before bedtime, I came up with the BRILLIANT idea to visit the Kranji War Memorial in the North of Singapore. Just 30 min by train we thought we should be able to get there before closing time. As we didn’t plan it for the day, we had not really an idea where exactly the memorial was and started. Arriving at the train station we could not find a sign or anything else that matters. Looking at the bus plan, the memorial was supposed to be only 1 km away, so we jumped on one of the buses with the right bus number (yes, we did check that before boarding) and kept an eye on the area. After several minutes we got worried as we still didn’t see anything.

Suddenly most people left the bus and we thought this must be somewhere nearby. Marina even made a joke that we would soon leave Singapore if we stay on the bus. Asking the bus driver was another great idea, I nearly gave him a heart attack (at least by the looks of it). He asked us to get out and send us to the entry door of the Woodlands Checkpoint. Before we realized where we actually were, it was already too late as we were not able to get over to the other side anymore to take the bus back. We were at the border to Malaysia without a passport and any other identification.

We were standing in front of the police who just looked at us as if we would be really STUPID tourists (ok, at that point I would have agreed). He told us that they have specific procedures and that the police would escort us to the other site after filling out some forms. He ordered us to another office and just a second later he followed us and told us with a smile that he would let us go without it. So we just run over to the other side and were relieved when the bus finally came and took us back to the station.

Still determined to find the memorial we walked a little bit around the area and asked a few passing pedestrian, but no one seems to know what we were talking about. Suddenly one of the guys came back with his iPhone in his hand and showed us where we should go. Happy about the gesture we thanked him a lot and were on our way with a direction. After a while and a lot of walking we still could not see it so we finally gave up. But I do have to say, that Kranji is such a NICE area; please do not go there without a map….mine unfortunately was too small.

Of course I googled later for this place and we realised that at the end we were not too far away, it was just on the other site behind the very large trees…shit happened.

We decided that this was enough for one day and returned to the city. Leaving the train I realised that something was missing and indeed my tourist pass was gone and with that the ticket for tomorrow and the deposit I paid for the card. Not really bad, but still, not a very nice feeling. So I went to the next office and bought a new one.

After all the unwanted adventures we decided that we absolute deserved a very nice cocktail in the IndoChine Restaurant, also called the Forbidden City in Singapore Riverstreet. As we only have a limited Budget we decided to go to the bars around the hotel next.

Finally I am in my room and hope tomorrow will be a better day with even more fun :)

Good night.