Universal Studios Day and the final day in Singapore

 After a decent nights kip we woke early and headed out on the Metro system (Singapores better version of the Tube) and caught the bus out to Sentosa Island also known as Universal Studios Singapore. I didn’t realise the sheer size of the place till we went into the car park, I genuinely couldn’t see to the other end. At that point I realised we were in for a treat in our last day in Singapore. Everyone back home had said Universal Studios is unreal!! Apparently this place was meant to be very very similar and it weren’t half impressive! Madagascar, Shrek, The Mummy Returns, Jurassic Park, Transformers. All these were areas of the park which were themed through rides, shows and characters. Then you had Hollywood, New York and everything in between! It was amazing.

Highlight of the day had to be the Donkey 3D show, basically an animated Donkey was on a screen cracking jokes and singing etc with a very good impersonator at the side of the stage. There was a point in the show where it involved audience participation and they had to find a princess, with Suzie being the only British looking girl in the audience and with the added bonus of Ginger hair (just like Fiona) she was picked and her face streamed on the big screen while she talked to ‘Donkey’. She had to do her best Sin-glish language and phrases. It was hilarious to watch with many of the audience probably not understanding a word. Picture is below for proof!

Ride of the day, Transformers 3D. OH MY DAYS, I have never watched Transformers in my life but I WILL watch either when I am over here or when I get home. 5 minutes in a car transformer, it followed a scene and then you were the transformer. It threw you about, made you feel like you were falling, rocked you everywhere, I cant really do it justice by writing on here about it. And then in the end Optimus prime saves the day. Such an awesome ride with the Mummy Returns being the next one behind.

So after visiting various rides, film sets, shows and Steven Spielbergs shows ‘Lights, Camera, Action’ in which you see how a sound stage works and special effects which was great and a pleasure to watch. So after getting to the studios at 11 it was now 5pm and time to head back to the hostel. We had spent 6 hours there without even realising! Crazy! Oh and one weird thing I found out at Universal studios, after every ride especially transformers all the locals clap as a show of appreciation and the staff of the ride clap back. Was surreal and something you’d never see back home!

So after a trip back to the hostel and a coffee on the great balcony we had to use as freely as we wanted we headed out to Little India on the metro.

Little India was a show of culture, colour, smell and food. The main road was closed off for some traffic and it was very busy with many people just coming out of prayer. We asked a local policeman why it was so busy and he told us it was Thaipusam, this is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai. They were rebuilding the temple which we were really gutted about as it looked like such a beautiful building with brilliant architecture. We walked the whole length of the main street in India taking a look down small streets where the markets were and didn’t realise how long we had been there! It was late on and we had also planned to head to Chinatown so we took our last look around Little India and jumped two stops on the metro and came into Chinatown.

Chinatown – WOW. Talk about colours and smells, now if people weren’t aware its coming up to Chinese New Year and Chinatown was in full swing in terms of preparation, lighting and something I hadn’t never seen so many of –Chinese Lanterns.

We were pretty hungry at this point and were being teased by the smells as we walked through the maze of streets! So we sat in what looked like a popular little corner café/restaurant right in the midst of Chinatown, we sat down and took everything in. It was 11.00pm at night and the streets were still heaving with some shops and stalls packing away but some still in full throw. We sat down with a couple of beers and navigated the menu taking in some dishes, with me not being a spice fan I opted for sweet and sour pork with some egg fried rice which doesn’t sound too foody I know but it was to be the best sweet and sour dish I had ever had and much better than any Chinese takeaway in England! Suzie once again opted for a dish with a bit of spice and enjoyed it all the more. As we sat waiting for our dishes to come it was a good chance to people watch and see the range of nationalities and cultures that walked past taking everything in just like we still were. It was great, so as we finished our meal we totally forgot about the last metro from Chinatown to our hostel so quickly paid and legged it to the metro station.

Ran down the escalators and thought 'oh dear', it was like a ghost town, honestly thinking we had missed the last metro we ran down to the platform to jump on the last metro of the night. Thankfully getting on that meant we didn't have 45 minute walk home, although in a heat of 16 degrees and a light wind it wouldn't have been much of problem.
So we got back to the hostel and got our heads down for the flights the next day and the last leg of the journey to New Zealand!

Singapore is a place I would truely recommend to anyone, I only got to see 2 days worth of things but WOW I was amazed and has made me want to visit Asia sometime in the near future again and spend a long period of time there. Singapore, its been a pleasure. 

And clearly Suzie weren't happy to be leaving!