SingaPOOR

I really do enjoy visiting Singapore, but it's a bit of anomaly on the traveller's route through Southeast Asia. Although it's surrounded by countries which are great budget options for a family like us - Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia - it is horrendously expensive when it comes to accommodation and general tourist attractions.

If Singapore is battling for supremacy in the world economy, here is her navy (above). Wow - as we came in for our approach to Changi Airport, I was amazed how much commerce this represents. No wonder it's such a rich and modern island nation, complete with gleaming high rises and a cutting edge society.

...uuuh, are we in the right place? Although much of Singapore has been modernized, there are still old neighbourhoods to be found. It's nice to see they haven't paved over everything.

Now the one main exception to the aforementioned wallet-busting reputation of Singapore is food. While you can find very expensive food being served at some top notch restaurants in the city, some of the tastiest treats are found in the 'Hawker Stalls'. Chicken rice is a 'must-eat' in Singapore.

This one was a particularly tasty version. Annie would have been happy to eat here every meal.

We eventually made it down to the thoroughly modern Central Business District, where the amazing architecture would put most other world-class cities to shame.

And if you stick around the Marina long enough for the free light show (yes, there are a few free sights in this city), you will be in for a treat.

Singapore is an island nation that is bursting at the seams. New building developments are almost exclusively tiny apartments in massive concrete blocks stretching towards the surrounding coastline. You would think that all green space would be under threat, but there is a surprising amount of walkable forested areas - perfect for a hike in this 35 degrees sauna near the equator.

Hiding in the shade on the amazing Henderson Waves walking bridge, an beautifully designed pedestrian walkover.

Time to rest these tired, but amazingly attractive, legs. By this point Annie and Owen were feeling like there was too much walking and not enough kids fun. So I agreed to end the hike and take them somewhere a bit more exciting....

....a museum?! Not exactly what we meant (bad) Daddy. But the Singapore National Museum is actually very engaging for young and old, so they had smiles on their faces (real ones, I might add) by the time we left.

One of the highlights of our visit to Singapore was a chance to meet up with Shirley's former English teacher back from the old Taiwan days. Vasha is Australian and only recently moved to Singapore with her family for a new job. And Shirley and I would never have met if it weren't for Vasha, so as official matchmaker she holds a high rank in importance when it comes to our friends.

Another free attraction well worth a visit is the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

You could spend half a day here no problem, but you definitely need your walking legs, and after two days of walking around the city, ours were done. We needed to cool off.

So we took the kids to a movie, and then found a local recreation centre swimming complex and spent the rest of the afternoon there. That put big smiles on their faces.

While it wasn't as fancy as a big ticket waterslide theme park, it was perfect for a few hours of fun, and cost us a total of about $4.

A trip to another great Hawker Centre (the Old Airport Road) helped us fill our bellies after a long day of touring around this great city.

A tired but happy bunch. 

Singapore is a great city full of tons of cool sights and amazing food. If we were on a shorter 'vacation' with a higher budget, it would have been a different experience. Some of the things that we passed up include Universal Studios, Sentosa Park, the incredible Singapore Zoo, as well as a host of other awesome attractions. Nevertheless, we filled our three days with a great mix of other sights, and left the city feeling refreshed (and full) and ready to tackle Sri Lanka.