How long is it going to take to get used to eating a whole vary of vegetables, noodles, soup, rice, with two plastic rods and a spoon… aka welcome to the world of trying to use chopsticks, failing miserably, and ending up having to wash your clothes twice as often!

BUT, I’ll tell all future asian-travellers – don’t give up! pursuit those chopsticks, ban the knife and forks (if you can even find a knife in Singapore), and within a few meals, you’ll literally have the technique licked!

Missing cups of tea, English breakfast just doesn’t taste the same, bagels, a good bakery selection. Yes these are good, but the range of new asian cuisine to try, taste (…occasionally distaste) beats it hands down. Singapore is famous for its huuuuge amount of “Hawker stalls”, aka outdoor food courts. Go in with a group of friends, pick a table, and there’s about 20 stalls you can all choose from, give your table number, and they’ll bring it over to you within minutes.  Given the huge cultural diversity in Singapore, you can get cuisine from anywhere in asia here. Everything from Chinese (and this is not your typical Chinese takeaway from Britain), North indian, south indian (a bit more spicy, lots of dosas…which are like thin bread/pancakes to wrap the meat up in), hot plates, seafood, noodle soups, noodles with anything…everything noodles, malaysian cuisine (most famous is the dish Laksa which is coconut milk, spices, seafood in noodles), thai food, nasi lemak (another malaysian style, basically fried chicken), sushi, vietnamese, japanese, you name, it’s got it.  What’s more, it’s all costs about $5 maximum a dish, translating into 2.50 GBP. wow! Next challenge is to learn the Indian the ‘real way’ i.e. no cutlery at all – just your fingers… napkins please.