While at heart I am a backpacker, my adventure comes with a twist. The modern metropolitan cities of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur aren’t quite so suited to the budgeting traveler exploring backpacker routes. Instead they can provide a buzzing city break or for many a place of business; and if you look in the right places, you can still find heaps of character, culture and history infused within the streets, the food and the people that make these cities what they are. With three incredible and very different hotels as bases, I was free to wander and wonder within the city streets.

Not far from the busy weekend streets of Brick Lane, with its determined shoppers and queues for cereal, we found a wonderland. The location, which will remain secret at the request of Brit, was filled with wonders from years gone by. Magnificent tattered chairs, large wooden tables and a variety of antiques sat below a mist of incense. A musical duo performed in the background and an interesting chap repeatedly entered and exited to light his cigarette on the candles. The scene was set to delve into the mind of a curious illustrator with a knack for poetic one liners.