With Emily’s leg still in plaster, we had to think carefully before rushing out onto the streets of Singapore. If we knew she’d be in plaster for much longer, we’d buy a buggy for her, but as we hope it will be off this week, it means that for the moment we’re carrying her everywhere. Although she weighs less than my rucksack, she’s a lot more awkward to carry, and my rucksack doesn’t fidget at all.

So we ended up seeing Singapore from the windows of a round-the-city sightseeing tram, and Emily and Charlotte slept right through the first circuit (the five hour time difference to New Zealand has confused them – we arrived at the hotel last night at the equivalent of 3am, but it was only 10pm in Singapore).

For lunch we hit one of the massive food courts that are all over the place in Singapore. Basically, it’s an area of tables surrounded by small stalls selling all kinds of meals and drinks. You can choose between Chinese, Thai, Indian, Malay and everything in-between, and drinks from tea and coffee, to soft-drinks, soya-bean drinks and fruit juices chock full of wheatgrass. Emily has become a fussier eater in the last few months, and so she picked at all of the different meals and decided she didn’t like any of them. But Charlotte tucked into some Malaysian noodles, followed by some Chinese stir-fry, and then a Malay desert. According to Charlotte the best bit was apparently using the chopsticks!

Later on, we had dinner of Chicken/Rice, a Singaporean speciality, at a small restaurant two doors down from Raffles Hotel (Dinner at Raffles = S$100/£30. Dinner at Yet Con = S$5/£2.70). We’d eaten there on our first day in Singapore ten years ago, and things hadn’t changed a bit – as the restaurant has been there since 1940 without changing a bit, why should that surprise us? The staff didn’t speak a word of English, but we got by. It’s actually unusual to find Singaporeans who don’t speak good English – its generally the older Chinese residents who have only speak Cantonese. After a short walk, we finished the day by watching the evening show at the SunCity fountain (“The World’s Largest Fountain, certified by the Guinness Book of Records” who cares – but it’s cooling to sit around the base!).