This place looks vaguely familiar

Thursday February 28th.

Got up quite early to check out and get the bus to Singapore. I'd booked the ticket the previous night, from what I saw that meant I paid about a euro more, to all of 6 euros. It is still very good value for a 6 hour bus trip into another country. It is all very efficient, even at the border crossing. However when I got to Singapore we were dropped in a different place to where I was expecting, which did mean a bit more of a walk to the accomodation locations.

It actually took a while to get a room in Singapore (due to the now sorted cedit card problems I had been unable to book ahead), there aren't as many cheap places, and therefore they get booked out quickly. I ended up after an hour and a half settling for a relatively expensive place. It was too hot to wander around anymore (and also once again the Rough Guide had proved itself to be quite useless). Although I later found that I could have saved myself a fair bit if I'd just wandered around the corner. Doh.

Singapore is the only place on my trip that I've been to before. So that evening I decided to do a quick tour of all the places I'd seen before. Some things were the same (Raffles hotel for example), some things were new (the new theatres on the bay, trying to be a rival for Sydney), and some things were moved. The Merlion statue is a major symbol of the city, and I'm standing taking pictures of it, when suddenly I'm thinking it wasn't here before. Now its an old statue, so I'm thinking they couldn't have moved it, I must be wrong, but it turns out I wasn't going mad, it had been moved. In fact when you look at it, there are loads of subtle changes to the city, they aren't afraid of moving things round to make things easier for both locals and tourists.

Another place I struggled with my memory to locate was the old IFS office that we worked out of when in Singapore. I was sure I had the right building, based on its proximity to the Raffles Place metro station, but it all looked different.

After seeing the changes to the sights, I decided to see the changes to the pubs I'd been to. I went up Boat Quay to see if I could find the dodgy joint that us Irish used to be taken to when we were over in Singapore working, but I couldn't. It seems to have closed. So instead I went to a british pub that the rest of the staff used to be taken to. I had a couple of drinks and then headed to the CHIJMES complex to see if I could find a restaurant where I had had one of the best steaks in my life. I'm not sure if I found it but I did have another really good steak. I did discover that an Irish bar that had been there was no longer there.

The CHIJMES complex, which is an old convent, was a lot quieter than I would have thought, so I actually was able to talk to the waitresses a bit. They said the Irish bar had only just gone, and a big chain was in its place. I was a bit disappointed even though I wouldn't have had to go there, as the rule is never pass an Irish pub you've not been in before, and I'd previously been in all Singapore's Irish bars.

So I left CHIJMES and was deciding whether or not to head back to the quays when two lads stopped me and asked in the biggest Mayo accents did I know where Clarke Quay was. I'd only been in the city 6 hours, and hadn't been to Clarke Quay for 7 years, but luckily for them I did know. I showed them and we had a few drinks. James and John were over for some Engineering conference, and it was nice to have a few Irish lads of my own age, as oppose dto all those young backpackers, to talk to. The night didn't go on too late as being a work night most places seemed to close up early enough (midnight).