Yeah, I know it's been a while

Ok, so i've not been updating this as regularly as I should but I've been doing other things.

Last time I posted I was in Singapore and about to go out for tea. We went back to Sizzlers restaurant in the Suntec Centre where Mac had yet another steak. I decided to be a bit different and had roast chicken in a honey, mustard and mango glaze. Slightly strange combination but it worked. The best thing about Sizzlers was the all you can eat salad bar since Mac and I had barely had any fruit or veg (fries don't count I'm told) since leaving Falkirk. Needless to say we more than made our money back in salad and soup alone. After that meal we decided it would be a good idea to take a walk round Toys'r'us. Toys are cool. We then took a walk down to the Singapore river to check out the statue of the Merlion which is half fish and half lion. Apparently it's the most famous symbol in Singapore, although I'd never heard of it. Again we just KO'd when we got back to the room. Walking around in 25-30C heat with 80 odd percent humidity is hard work.

The next day Mac and I decided we should check out Chinatown so we got the MRT to the station called Chinatown and got out to look around. Strangely, we didn't see much that looked remotely Chinese, then we got lost trying to find stuff that did look Chinese so we just headed back up to Orcard Road so that Mac could buy his shirt from Topman. This was now Friday evening, Mac hadn't had a drink in a week and we'd seen a really busy bar at the entrance to the Suntec Centre so we got a bit dressed up and decided that after dinner (another trip to Sizzlers) we'd go out for a couple of drinks. We started out in that bar which was called Balaclava. The drinks were extortionate, between five and six quid for a single vodka and coke, but it was heaving and the music was quality. They had a band playing called The Unexpected which sang a load of covers and they were absolutely kick-ass! The chick which did most of the singing was fantastic and managed to pull off a lot of songs that you could only imagine a guy doing. Songs by Green Day, Oasis, Led Zeppelin, U2 and even System of a Down were all carried off brilliantly by the band.

It had just past midnight, the place was starting to empty and Mac looked like he was falling asleep so we decided to see if we could find somewhere else to spend a few hours. He started chatting to a pair of local girls to try and find out where we should go next. They suggested we go with them and a guy called Lawrence to a bar called Rouge so we jumped in a couple of taxis headed there. We spent the rest of the night there, drinking, dancing, chatting and listening to another quality band which covered Take Me Out and I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). As you can imagine Mac and I were bombscaring quite considerably by this point. Well I was, Mac was acting a bit more sober for reasons I'll not go into. The bar shut at four and as we were leaving Lawrence asked us where we were staying. When we told him where our hostel was he told us that he worked at the massive Intercontinental hotel across the road as the sales and marketing manager. Then he said that he had a spare room in his flat, pointed out that his place was nicer than our hostel and invited us to crash at his place for our last couple of nights. After a quick huddle Mac and I agreed that the comedy value of taking up the offer to stay with some random punter that we'd known for four drunken hours far outweighed any possible risks so we said yes. We then got a taxi to the hostel, quickly packed and checked out and headed off to Lawrences flat.

The next day we met up with Lawrence and Adriana, his secretary who we'd met the night before, and headed off to try to see a bit more of Singapore. We took a walk through Little India, saw a little green bird tell peoples fortunes and had our own fortunes told by a cup full of sticks in a Chinese temple. I'll explain that one when I get home. We then took a walk round the Asian Civilizations Museum where I learned a bit more about the history of Singapore and Mac sat on a lot of benches. After that we got something to eat and headed off to a Balinese styled bar somewhere in the forest on the outskirts of the city centre.

I don't know/remember what the bar was called but it easily the coolest bar I have ever been to. It's made up of little huts on the side of a hill in the forest and we ended up sitting in our own private hut which felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. I don't know how to explain just how cool this place was but hopefully you'll all get to see the pictures and videos at some point. We drank quite a few vodka and cokes during happy hour, then when that ended we bought a bottle of vodka, Skyy nonetheless, for the table and drank that too. At some point between arriving at seven and leaving at half five in the morning (three and a half hours after the place was supposed to shut) Adriana pulled out a tube of henna so we all started writing on each other. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Mac got a few Chinese symbols written on his arms. One meant peace, the other meant something that he can explain to you all. I wrote "total" on his right forearm and "love" on his left. He wrote "psycho" on my right arm and Lawrence wrote some Chinese symbols on my other arm. He claims it meant "assassin" but I'm convinced it meant "I like goats" or something. Before we left, Lawrence's cousin Grace turned up with another litre of vodka which we somehow failed to finish. Yeah, I know, a bit of a poor show.

When we left at half five we headed to the beach to watch the sunrise . The beach was bouncing at six in the morning with old folk doing Tai Chi, people rollerblading!? and people camping on the beach. There was even a 24 hour McDonalds there. We ended up not watching the sunrise as after 15 minutes of waiting it hadn't appeared yet and Mac and I had to catch our flight to Sydney at 9am. We just headed to Lawrences, packed our bags, said our goodbyes and jumped in a taxi for the airport knowing full well that the last time we got in a plane half cut (Zante '03) neither of us enjoyed the experience. We got checked in fine and while we were waiting in the departure lounge got talking to an Aussie guy from Newcastle who gave us his phone number and address and told us to look him up if we were up that way and wanted to go out for a few drinks. Thankfully I slept for a lot of the flight although it didn't make me feel any better.

So I'm now in Sydney but I'll tell you what we've been up to here some other time because I'm starving and really feel like having a smoky barbeque and bacon King Kong filler from KFC. Mmmmm, KFC!!!