Day 79- The Singapore Sling Was Invented Here? Guess We'll Have To Do One.

I get dizzy just looking at this.

 

The previous day had been the most expensive day (by far!) of our vacation so far due to my ear malfunction.  I was now on some meds that would hopefully get me back to full health shortly and with that Colleen and I headed into the heart of Singapore to continue playing "tourist".  We headed to where all of the tour buses do their roundups and ended up aboard a double-decker bus that looked exactly like the ones you see trolling the streets of every major North American metropolis with camera-ready foreigners onboard. We ended up riding the "hop-on, hop-off" bus completely around the city for an hour, taking in such sights China Town, the Botanical Gardens, Fort Canning, etc.  It never dawned on us to get off anywhere, so before we knew it we were back at the beginning of the route and by now it was raining out.  With nowhere to go to seek refuge from the torrential rain, the wifey and I decided to stay on the bus and do the entire tour again!  I slept through most of it the second time around.  Eventually we got off at the Raffles Hotel, one of the last stops on the tour.  I like to think we got our monies worth.



World's tallest observation wheel, the Singapore Flyer.


Where are all the other tourists?
 

Hiding on the bottom level with Colleen no doubt!

China Town.

The Raffles Hotel is arguably one of the most famous hotels in the world and one of Singapore's most famous landmarks.  It has a rich history dating back to the colonial era in Singapore and is named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founding father of modern Singapore.  More importantly to Colleen, its Long Bar is where the world-renowned drink (and her cocktail of choice), the Singapore Sling was invented in the early 1900s.  This notoriety has in turn led to quite the booming business in fleecing tourists like us out of our hard earned dollars.  The Long Bar itself was nothing special, in fact the floors were covered in peanut shells.  Despite the one-star appearance, the drink prices were on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, as we paid $62(!!!) for two Singapore Slings.  Vicious.  I am also pretty sure that with the quantity of drinks they were selling the Slings were probably pre-mixed as well.  I tried to eat as many peanuts as I could to make me feel like I was maximizing my value, but alas even an elephant would've struggled to take down that many peanuts.  The people sitting behind us clearly had to the right idea: sharing one drink for five people!  Oh well, something to check off the bucket list.



I don't know her...

Inside the world famous Long Bar.



You better enjoy that drink...it cost $31!

 

I'll make up for it with the free peanuts....



Or die trying.

Having just consumed the most expensive drinks of our lives, we wanted to check out the Raffles Museum but sadly it was closed.  Instead we headed down to the trendy ClarkeQuay area of the city to grab some dinner.   The lady and I decided on an Irish pub that a friend back home had recommended to me.  After ordering our food we were forced to give them a credit card as "collateral".  I found this to be not only rude and awkward, but slightly ridiculous given the fact that: a) I'm a 30 year old dude and clearly a tourist, not some 14 year old punk, and  b) we were in Singapore which has some of the strictest laws and presumably lowest crime rates in the first world.  Do I really look like the kind of guy who is going to steal a fucking chicken Caesar salad?  Don't answer that.



Good looking lady on the water.



Once I managed to rustle my credit card back, Colleen and I had plans to go and check out the nightly light show at Marina Bay Sands that we had missed a couple of nights earlier.  Not surprisingly it started to rain, and rain down as if God and all his buddies were up there simultaneously watching Nicholas Sparks movies.  With nowhere to go we saddled up at a microbrewery/restaurant called Red Dot Brewery.  Like the hipsters we clearly are not, we sat around for the next couple hours of sampling microbrews while attempting to solve the problems of the world.  They even had some fruity beers on the menu which kept Colleen happy.  And as we all know: HAPPY WIFE EQUALS HAPPY LIFE.



When it rains, the only logical thing to do is take shelter in a brew house.



~Brentski~