Here's to being in a boat with a drink on the rocks rather than being in the drink with a boat on the rocks

Just landed in Singapore and thought i'd share my impression so far, when you fly into Singapore it looks like it's going to be the typical mass cluster of buildings, the first thing you see is the tall buildings reaching up to greet the aeroplane, but once you start your drive though it's suddenly lush, green and tropical, the architecture is exciting and modern and they use the chance to grow flowers or trees in all available spaces, the colours are vibrant as there's flowers in every colour growing in bushes and trees, they grow things in a variety of heights to create a screen of natural beauty over less interesting views like the underpasses or anything made from grey concrete slabs etc and its all spotless and well kept.

Most of the trees are what we would call gnarled in England but in this climate the effect is very different, they're wild and majestic, twisting limbs stretching out in every direction leaving space for the sun to flood into the gaps created by them and highlight the shapes they make.

Closer to the hotel I started to see the tower blocks that were visible from the plane, but given the setting the only thing offensive about them is the air conditioning units strapped to every window on every floor that kind of jut out in a pretty unattractive way.

And actually some of the buildings are pretty sleek and experimental in their architecture. My hotel was huge and glassy, very modern but kind of office like from the outside, inside it was full of bright decorations celebrating Chinese New year and a huge set up with a scene involving different breeds of dogs lounging outside kennels that reminded me of a nativity scene from home. It was without doubt the nicest place I've ever stayed too, all the internal walls in my room were glass which was pretty odd and made me glad not to have a room mate, and the outside glass wall had views of the pool directly outside but with blinds for privacy at least.

I'd been keeping the time live on my phone for the last two weeks in an attempt to acclimatise and I purposely stayed awake on flight one as much as I'd possible in order to sleep on flight two, plus I wanted lots of awake time to explore Singapore, in the que for crew check in I met a really friendly group from the Philippines who asked if I wanted to grab food and go explore, I jumped at the chance to keep myself up a little longer and eagerly joined them for a walk through the Mariner and shopping centre, since then I see these guys daily and they are some of my best friends on the ship, we've been enjoying the one dollar drinks and live bands on the crew deck after work, so far so good! Updates soon! I don't bother with buying wifi on the boat but If anyone has Google Allo add me and we can chat for free