After visiting Singapore’s latest 2 main attractions, the Universal Studios Singapore and Marina Sands Bay casino, I’ve decided to continue adventuring into the city itself and check out the night spots downtown.

First thing most, one should take the MRT and alight at Raffles Place MRT Station and head out to the open. Immediately right after I head out of the station, I got captivated by the surroundings. All around me, towers and towers of building are climbing to the sky. A check on the signs hanging on the towers got me surprised. I’m standing at the centre of the financial district of Raffles Place, the area which helps propel Singapore’s service industry and boasts one of the main reason in which they excel in and help bringing them into a developed nation. All around me, I can see many big names in the finance industry setting up their operation centres here.

Raffles Place, the financial hub of Singapore 

Down the road, I walked down to the bank of Singapore River curving back into Clarke Quay. From here you can catch a glimpse at the famous river which was the reason Singapore came to existence where Raffles made it as the first trading port in Singapore. On the right side, there’s a building shaped like two durian shell which houses the musical concerts and show for talents, the Esplanade theatre and Fullerton Hotel. Along this lane, one can find many statue carving dedicated to the cultural presence of origination of Singapore such as the depiction of people of different race having conversation with the British, the young boys having fun at the river banks and the traditional means of transportation – cow cart.

Overview of Singapore River 

From the Fullterton hotel’s re...

Singapore is a city-state located just south of Malaysia in the South East Asia region. It is a developed state with alot of city planning mimicking United Kingdoms. The addressing system is fairly similar to Western countries. Stepping into Singapore is like stepping into a little England, minus the cold breeze. Being a small city-state with limited land spaces, you will be welcomed with skyscrapers and a modern, efficient and organized transportation infrastructure. There’s the SBS transit bus network, SMRT train system and one of the busiest airport, Changi Airport to bring you into and around Singapore. I must admit that the bus and MRT network is very efficient and comes on time.

The last time i visited Singapore was some 10 years ago where Singapore was an attraction for its shopping district and its well-planned and structured civil operations for those living in the South East Asia region. We always admire the efficient and clean country down south. However, my impression coming into Singapore 10 years has changed compared to before. Singapore as of now is flooded with China migrants, be it permanent resident or coming into the country to work. You can find them at every spot of the country right now. From the bus drivers to the restaurant waiters and chefs, the promoters in shopping malls and hawker centres, there’s never a time you will not spot them. They are just everywhere. I finally understand the grouse and frustration of the Singaporeans against their government’s policy which lead to PAP’s worst election result in history.

I have broken up my Singapore trip into two post, with this post focusing on Universal Studios and the 2 casinos available in Singapore. If you’re looking for Singapore’s city centre life, nightlife and others besides Universal Studios and Marina Sands bay, do click here.

This time around, my main purpose for coming to Singapore is to visit the 2 new main attraction in the country, the Universal Studios at Resort World Sentosa and Marina Sands bay. Universal Studios is a theme park situated in Resort World Sentosa. While the park rides were nice, I find that the theme park as a whole is relatively small in size as compared to Disneyland in Paris. The prices were similar for both, yet the number of rides choices in Universal Studios is limited in comparison, hence I find that the price is abit steep. But I got in with complimentary tickets, so I couldn’t complain anymore.

Welcome to Universal Studios Singapore

Ancient Egypt! 

A must try ride is...

We’ve decided to take on a trip to the most southwestern part of whole United Kingdom, Land’s End. Land’s End respresents the starting point and ending points of the longest journey in United Kingdom, where the other point is at John O’Groats in Scotland. Therefore, this 2 places has another for them, “The First and The Last” due to their position as the most extreme tip point of United Kingdom’s geography. One would be proud to call himself truly a person who’d visit the whole UK by visiting this 2 places!

Our journey to Land’s End and Cornwall spans over a period of 3 days, where we spent our first day traveling to Newquay, Perranporth and Hayle and staying over at Hayle for the night. On the second day, we travel down to Land’s End, Saint Michael’s Mount and Tintagel before stopping at Bristol for the night. On the third day, we traveled to Bath before going back home.

This mini travel series will be broken up into 3 posts.

- Jump to Day 1′s adventure

- Jump to Day 2′s adventure

Day 3

Bristol is one of the most culturally vibrant cities in the South of England, hosting a wide variety of visual arts, theatre, speciality shopping and live music. We did some early morning walk around by the street to the shopping district and did some shopping before we depart to visit the famous Clifton suspension bridge.

Statue of Neptune

Clifton Suspension Bridge

The bridge links Clifton to Leigh Woods in the North Somerset. With nearly 150 years of age, it is an old symbol of Bristol, still in good condition for motor vehicles to pass through it daily. The sight of the suspension bridge is breathtaking from the hillside. Such is the prowess of the engineering 150 years ago.

We then depart t...

We’ve decided to take on a trip to the most southwestern part of whole United Kingdom, Land’s End. Land’s End respresents the starting point and ending points of the longest journey in United Kingdom, where the other point is at John O’Groats in Scotland. Therefore, this 2 places has another for them, “The First and The Last” due to their position as the most extreme tip point of United Kingdom’s geography. One would be proud to call himself truly a person who’d visit the whole UK by visiting this 2 places!

Our journey to Land’s End and Cornwall spans over a period of 3 days, where we spent our first day traveling to Newquay, Perranporth and Hayle and staying over at Hayle for the night. On the second day, we travel down to Land’s End, Saint Michael’s Mount and Tintagel before stopping at Bristol for the night. On the third day, we traveled to Bath before going back home.

This mini travel series will be broken up into 3 posts.

- Jump to Day 1′s adventure

- Jump to Day 3′s adventure

Day 2

It’s the second morning of our Land’s End trip. This time, we set off straight for Land’s End, the most southwestward tip point of United Kingdom’s geography. The journey from our accommodation to Land’s End isn’t very long and we reached there much earlier than expected, even before any other tour groups arrived or even the souvenir shops were open. This could mean one thing for us, no obstacle for photo taking and scenery admiration!

Winds were calm initially when we reached and the sunlight still managed to penetrate through the clouds to shine down at Land’s End. However, just 10 minutes after we get off the bus, the temperature started to drop rapidly as we were faced with the cold sea breeze blowing towards us. The sudden strong wind, coupled with a storm brewing in the distant instantly sent shivers to our spine as some of us were unprepared with jackets and sweaters. And all of a sudden, drizzles of rain start to pour down on us over the next 15 minutes and our visibility were reduced by the strong density of water in the air.

We managed to find our most important target for this trip, “The First and Last House”. This house symbolizes the furthest house of the southern part of United Kingdom, and combined with the counterpart in John O’Groats, forms the “The First and Last House”. These 2 houses were identical in design. The sea breeze is nothing like the sea breeze at Whitby beach as it is much raw.

Land’s End Mission Accomplished

After enjoying our satisfaction of reaching Land’s End, we decided to move on to our next spot, Minack Theatre. It is an open-air theatre, constructed above a gully with a part of the stage jutting towards the sea. The theatre’s steps and seats were shaped from the rocks and stones, very natural. The theatre is owned by Rowena Cade who built it to staged a local village group’s stage production. The Tempest was played here. The theatre is unique that the sea provides a perfect backdrop for those desiring natural environment and those who watched the stage plays will find it a rare chance to catch something like this elsewhere anymore. Besides this, the sea breeze provides a natural cooling solution for theatre goers and enhances the natural effect of the whole stage production. Truly, I would love to watch a play at Minack Theatre someday.

An overview of Minack Theatre

We went off to Saint Michael Mount, bu...

We’ve decided to take on a trip to the most southwestern part of whole United Kingdom, Land’s End. Land’s End respresents the starting point and ending points of the longest journey in United Kingdom, where the other point is at John O’Groats in Scotland. Therefore, this 2 places has another for them, “The First and The Last” due to their position as the most extreme tip point of United Kingdom’s geography. One would be proud to call himself truly a person who’d visit the whole UK by visiting this 2 places!

Our journey to Land’s End and Cornwall spans over a period of 3 days, where we spent our first day traveling to Newquay, Perranporth and Hayle and staying over at Hayle for the night. On the second day, we travel down to Land’s End, Saint Michael’s Mount and Tintagel before stopping at Bristol for the night. On the third day, we traveled to Bath before going back home.

This mini travel series will be broken up into 3 posts.

- Jump to Day 2′s adventure

- Jump to Day 3′s adventure

Day 1

We set off early in the wee morning (12a.m. to be exact) and arrived early about 6 in the morning at Newquay. Breafast is simple, a healthy English breakfast at Wetherspoon restaurant and off we walk down the Newquay Bay. Newquay’s a lively, relaxing city. People here tend to take things with their own time, no sense of rushing around chasing time. And this could meant awesome weekend getaway!

The bay is famous for this house which is built on 2 big rocks which are joint by a bridge made by the owner of the house. You can get such views of this house in the postcards in town, and visitors just love to take a picture featuring this house at the back. The combination of geography and positioning of the house makes it one of the must visits for visitors coming to Newquay. And it’s a smart move for the owner to utilize such unique position to draw in lots of attention.

An overview of Newquay Bay

The water tides were very low when we reached, therefore we could play by the cliff as it was shallow. Waves were calm and the water ain’t too freezing. However, we had to trek ourselves over from the below of that house over to the main harbour which is located some 1 mile across the stretch of the bay, and we have to do so quick as the tide were rising pretty fast. In just half to an hour time, the sea level will rise rapidly till it will be at dangerous level as there will be lots of rocks coupled with strong waves which will be hitting the cliffs.

Judging from the way the gloom that descended at a quick pace, we’d have to pick up our pace to reach the harbour or we’ll be flooded.

And finally we managed to reach the harbour safely, though the journey of walking on slimy slippery rocks ...