Fun in Singapore part 1

I was in Singapore a few weeks ago for work. I love going to Singapore just because I have so many really good friends there. It was a bit of a paid holiday in parts because not only did I get to spend a weekend there, but I was also there on May 1st, which is also a holiday in Singapore (I had to be there a couple of days before and had to continue working after). Since there was no work that day, I had lunch with Paul and Les in Hard Rock Café. Later that night, Denise and Yong Han picked me up from my hotel and we headed to Sentosa to have dinner in Coastes, a restaurant on the beach. I had never been there before, and I had never gone to Sentosa just for dinner, so it was a nice experience. The pizza there is pretty good.

I spent Friday night with Ching, Sarah, and David. John was supposed to join us too but Ching said he had to do something urgent at the last minute. We had dinner and drinks in Cuba Libre which I believe is the favorite Clarke Quay hang out of Sarah and David, and it was of course cool to see the two of them dance a bit of salsa to the live music there.

Saturday ended up being a day of firsts. Che organized a gimmick in Mind Café with my office friends - Tim, Ching, John, Steph, Tonette, and Joel (and well Che of course). Mind Café is basically a place where you can get food and coffee, and then pay an extra fee to use any of the scores of board games they have there. I had never been there before and with most of us being major board games fans, we ended spending about 6 hours there, playing Hit or miss, Snorta, Ticket to Ride, and Settlers (all of which I had just played for the first time as well).

Afterwards I met up with my high school friends Anna, Kokog, and Topher (who was there for the weekend, in transit from Dubai to Manila) for dinner in Newton Circus. Ching joined us for a bit but had to leave early and Mikey and his family joined us later on. I had been to hawker centers in Singapore before, but never in Newton Circus.

Afterwards, I headed to Clarke Quay and met up with Ben and his friends. We had a few drinks (mostly vodka-redbulls) in Bungy Bar which was right next to G-max, the reverse bungee ride in Clarke Quay. I asked the folks I was hanging out with whether they had been on it and none of them had. I then told them that I would never ever ever get on that ride. Which essentially led to Ben somehow convincing me to get on it with him and his friends. I'm not a fan of amusement park rides so I was sweating bullets while waiting for our turn and needless to say I was scared shitless whilst being thrust up and down in the air. I was a bit out of sorts for a few moments after getting of the ride haha but I was really pleased that I got on it. There's something about conquering fears, however temporary, that is quite gratifying. :)

We then headed to China One afterwards, where I ended up hanging out with a few folks from Denmark and Norway because they came up to me and chatted me up after seeing my "Sverige" (Sweden) shirt. My new Scandinavian friends were actually planning to head somewhere else after Clarke Quay closed and invited me to join them (Ben and his friends had since gone) but I told them I had an incredibly long day and had very little sleep so I needed to head back to the hotel. I ended up getting the facebook address of one of them and I now have them as friends there. I found myself back in my hotel room at 430am.

More on my awesome Singapore trip in my next post!