Keeping your parents entertained in Singapore

On Friday morning (yes that's right . . . Liz got out of bed before midday!) we made our way over to Singapore Botanic Gardens. The gardens are a only located a couple of km from downtown but feel a whole world away. It's a real oasis of calm and apart from the occasional glimpse of the odd skyscraper above the trees is very easy to forget you're in the middle of one of the worlds busiest cities.

The Botanical Gardens are also home to the National Orchid Gardens which houses an absolutely stunning display of Orchids.

There's even one called Elizabeth. . .

We made our way back into town via Orchard Road which is a little bit like London's Oxford Street but on steroids. There was no sign of the credit crunch which is making things so miserable back home in the UK.

In the evening we headed out to Boat and Clarke Quay on the Singapore river for dinner and a drink.

Like in Malaysia, alcohol is ridiculously expensive in Singapore. A glass of draft larger, which must be about a half pint, costs on average $9 (£4.50). Getting tipsy, let alone drunk, is way outside of our backpacker budget.

Yesterday we headed out to Singapore Zoo. The zoo is probably the best one we've been to. Most of the animals aren't caged as in a traditional zoo but are in big open pens. In fact a lot of the primates like the orang-utans are free roaming through the trees. We've already overdosed the blog with pictures of monkeys, gibbons and urang-utans so we won't put any more primates on. Here's a flying fox and a butterfly instead!

We also got to see a Rafflasia, the worlds biggest plant . . .

. . . although this one was made of concrete!

It is hard work getting around though as the zoo is absolutely massive. Even though we spent most of the day there we ended up having to dash around a bit at the end to try and get it all in.

We ended the evening by retiring to the Long Bar at Raffles for a round of Singapore Slings and to throw peanut shells on the floor. It may have possibly been the most expensive round of 4 drinks I've ever had - $108, about £54.

It was well worth it though as we had a great time there. The hotels band were playing and did a rather strange cover of the Village People's Y.M.C.A! The last song I would expect in Raffles.