We finally managed to get out on the last day and headed to Raffles Hotel, named after the founder of Singapore, and also the location of the birth of the "Singapore Sling" cocktail with our roommate, Tom, from New Zealand.
The hotel is an amazing, beautiful white building with a warren of rooms: tea rooms, bars, billiard rooms, gift shop, restaurants. If you had the money (of which apparently you'd need tons - the cheapest room is over $700) it would be a fabulous place to spend a few days.
The long bar, where we got our Singapore Slings is a classic old bar where you get a box of monkey nuts with your drink and you are actively encouraged to litter the floor with the shells. Sounds quaint, and in a way it is, but you can't help wanting them to sweep up a bit as the rest of the city is so spotless. We enjoyed our sling but tried not to be too disheartened when we spotted the barman pouring out the drinks from a tap rather than making it fresh, and yet it cost about 8 quid per glass (gulp)!!!
We then headed to a micro brewery at Clark's Quay - a trendy area full of bars and restaurants. We failed to have dinner so ended up searching the streets late at night but eventually found somewhere wo eat (phew) although the food wasn't the ideal last Asian dish we had hoped for the end of the Asian leg of our trip.
Kieran and Tom drink BEER
Lucky for us, Tom was also heading to the airport the next morning on business expenses so we shared his taxi and got to the airport cheaply and with plenty of time. Singapore airport is supposed to be the best airport in the world and we enjoyed spending our last hours in Asia sampling it's coffee shops and free internet terminals.
No comments:
Post a Comment