Singapore...Singapore

We awoke bright and early to catch another early flight. Enjoyed a hearty complimentary breakfast of omelettes, bacon,  sausage, fried rice, spring rolls, dumplings washed down with water, tea, coffee, and apple juice. Checked out of the hotel and headed to the airport via the Asian Ruby Hotel van. It's amazing how a $12 taxi ride can get you to the airport in 45 minutes. By now we have the airport check-in routine down or so we thought.  At different counters we both got stopped by immigration, the officers wanted to take an extra look at our passports. They said my picture did not look like me and they questioned the authencity of Dan's passport. With the line growing behind us and 5 minutes of nervously waiting for clearance we were cleared. The flight was about 4 hours long and not fully booked so there was enough room for us to strech out and get comfortable. 
Landed in Singapore, hopped on a bus, onto a train into the city, and walked about 10 minutes from the stop to our hostel. We saved money by booking two beds in a 16 bunk bed room. Checked in and headed into the city we were able to see a lot of Singapore's main sites: the Opera house, Singapore river, the Marina Sands hotel, Singapore flyer, etc.  Singapore is a clean, multicultural, modern, expensive, and heavily regulated city. There were two main things we wanted to do drink (Singapore sling) and eat (chilli crab).
First stop was the Raffles Hotel Long Bar the home of the Singapore Sling. The signature drink was created by Ngiam Tong Boon a bartendar at the Raffles Hotel in 1915. The Raffles Hotel is an upscale establishment that charges $20 per drink. After budgeting for the last few weeks we decided to splurge a little. The drinks were delicious and came with complimentary salted peanuts that you can throw the shells on the floor when finished eating. So I figured the $20 would be going to something useful like the clean up crew. 
Next on our list was the search for chilli crab. Chilli crab is a famous dish in town. We first saw them on Top Chef at a hawker center (a open center food court where inexpensive food is sold, the food is safe and inspected by health inspectors) and we were so excited to try them. The first center we tried had no chilli crab I asked an employee in the train station if he had any recommendations. He was extremely helpful and called around to get information for us and recommended a seafood restaurant. We took the train to the restaurant and ran into a talkative older man who told us there were hawker centers in the area. He also told us how Singapore maintained its orderly societey. He said, Singapore is a multicultural city that is extremely clean and it's maintained by the government enforcing heavy fines, jail time, caining, and public embarrassment for offenders. While he was telling us this story I almost passed out from hunger pains. We parted ways and looked for the seafood restaurant which turned out to be too expensive and kept looking for a hawker center. Finally we spotted a center that sold chilli crab.
In a big fish tank live crabs moved around as the owner picked out a 2 lb 3 oz crab for us to eat and disappered into the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned with a big plate of chilli crab and shrimp fried rice. All the build up I had to eat the chilli crab and it was just OK. I know Dan really enjoyed it. I was expecting a spicy fiery chilli crab but the taste was more sweet and tangy. The meal was overpriced $31 for eating on the street corner in plastic chairs with no table cloth or napkins. Slightly disappointed yet full we hopped on the train and headed towards a touristy area. We walked through many different cultural districts of Singapore trying to avoid going back to our 16 room bunk bed room.
The envitable can only be postponed for so long I tried doing multiple things on the Internet to pass time till I felt tired. Finally, I mentally prepared myself to go bed I turned on the light in the room to find my bed and woke some people up. Sorry but I didn't get the bunk bed room memo. I laid on the top bunk for 5 seconds just enough time to smell the moldy sheets that was long enough for me to pull an all nighter. The main hall of the hostel has a big couch Dan is asleep and I'm writing on the blog 2 more hours to go.