Days 5 -> 9!

Day Five: Little Big India.

Today was reserved mainly for Little India, a cute little Indian district a fair way off from our apartment. Its about now that our recent escapades have begun to catch up with us. I, in particular, spent the entire of day 3 at the zoo and bird park in thongs. I haven’t worn thongs for a long time. Being a delicate soul, I believe I have pulled my ‘flip-flop’ muscle to large amounts of pain with every step of my right foot (trust me, I’m an anatomist). None the less I put my brave face on, along with my shoes, for our troop to Little India.

We met with a family friend to show us around, and take us to a fantastic Indian vegetarian restaurant for some delicious foods, and ‘masala coffee’, which I discovered is just normal coffee, with garam masala spice in it, actually really nice. We then walked around little India, which was packed with little Indian shops, mainly jewellery shops, of the sort where you pay by the gram. Per the gram of pure 24 carat gold. We did not linger here for long, rather beat a hasty retreat to a local mall for some more delicious (and cheap) food court food.

Having stuffed ourselves yet again, we retreated at lunch time to our rooms, slept for we dearly needed the rest, then ventured out at night to make fun of local supermarket fare, and eat more food court food (I’m considering getting one air-lifted to Perth) as seen in the interlude.

Not our most exciting day, but we needed the rest.

<3

Day Six: Backstreets Back, Alright

Today we continued our trip around curious quarters\districts around Singapore, with the Arab Quarter. Thanks to the sage advice from Audrey’s travel book, we were advised to visit a “haji” (sp) lane, apparently filled with delightful little stores full of awesome things. Well we were pretty amazed at what we found, the Arab Quarter isn’t the most affluent appearing district, a lot of graffiti, old and dirty buildings and construction sites. Then, after Audrey stopped for a brief 30 minute foot massage while I massaged my own blistered feet, you come across this amazing street full of gorgeous little shops packed to the brim with fancy clothes\gifts\art\etc\etc\etc. Needless to say we did our up and down of this street once or twice, and ate at an awesome Egyptian restaurant.

We then went out on the town with some more friends! Singapore’s nightlife is somewhat more interesting than Perths, we went to the ‘clinic’, where drinks are served in IV bags to customers sitting in wheelchairs or hospital beds, and then the three girls left myself and two boys for a trip to the most expensive club in the district, as it was ladies night they got free entry to the snazziest club around, while we sipped beers on the patio benches of a pub called the ‘crazy elephant’. After having some beers with the two Muslim guys (spot the oxymoron) I had a Flaming Lambourghini (FINALLY) with one of the girls and we stayed out till 5:30 AM to much hilarity!

Day Seven: Painting Chinatown Scarlet

Today we packed our bags early, said goodbye to our flatmate, and moved to the 5 star boutique hotel, The Scarlet. The hotel is incredibly gorgeous, all red satin, leather and high backed chairs. Really, really high backed. The room is very small, a large bed with a small but adequate bathroom and a desk and minibar, but the room is very pretty and incredibly comfortable. A proper hot shower, flushing toilet and nice pillows made quite a difference to our daily comfort. The hotel staff were nice and helpful on the whole, pointing us to a delicious Dim Sim restaurant in Chinatown.

Chinatown itself is both beautiful and annoying in that distinctly Chinatown way. The stalls are gorgeous, and there are lanterns and umbrellas and pretty things all over the place, its right next to a huge Buddhist temple (the Buddha’s Golden Tooth Temple or something) that is stunning. However its full of incredibly pushy stall owners vying for your attention to their !!!!!!! SPECTACULAR AMAZING GREAT DEAL SALE SPECIAL PRICE OFFER !!!!!! That night we ate a restaurant called “ember”, at which I had frogs legs for the first time ever (if I remember correctly) and they were pretty delicious! The rest of the meal was similarly stunning, and it was at this point we clapped each other over our backs at how incredible our choice of foods had been. We had some drinks at the bar and retired to a night of incredible sleep!

Day Eight: Black Friday

Today began awesomely, we dined like kings at a Hawker center next to the hotel (omg-so-nice) and went inside the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, it seriously contains a golden tooth thought to be from Buddha himself. And by ‘contains’ I mean on the fourth story of the five story temple, which also contains 2 museums, a lotus garden with the world’s biggest prayer wheel, an ancestral hall and all the regular Temple-y things, like a 100 dragons hall where they chant all the time. Oh, and the tooth is encased in a 2 meter tall solid gold ‘stupa’, that weigh’s 420kg. That’s not including all the rest of the solid gold decorations, including light fixtures, pillars, other sculptures and the entire floor of the Sacred Light Hall where the stupa is. Pretty awesome stuff, and the chanting was amazing. But then today fell flat on its face with the money troubles I had with the hotel.

Then we returned to a mediocre lunch at the hawker centre, somewhat discouraged we retreated to our hotel room to eat 7-11 chocolate and watch the Discovery Channel ( I now know a lot about Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC) ) That night we went out to what our travel book claimed was the best Thai food in the region, and after we surmised that there must be no other thai food in the region so unimpressed with the food were we.

We arranged a wakeup call, packed our bags and went to bed, ready to leave Singapore after an 89% awesome, 11% frustrating stay.

Day Nine: Organised Chaos.

So after a 45 minute flight today we are in another country! Malaysia is similar to Singapore in some ways but polar opposites in many, many others. Singapore was overpoweringly organized, the roads always flowed, the trains were always on time, everything was clean. Malaysia is somewhat more chaotic. And by somewhat, I mean a lot. There are traffic jams that can last hours, some roads are fresh and new and clean, others are crumbling and dirty, Malaysia is a much more ‘typical’ Asian city, seriously bustling in its own strange ways. Luckily we have Audrey’s awesome family to walk us through it. Today we settled in, visited a mall, and had an incredible dinner (CHILLI CRABS =O ) and I’ve met over 10 family members already, my head is swimming with names and faces!

I am thoroughly exhausted, and I think it’s time to sleep for a week or two, I should drop a summary of Singapore, photo’s and some more blog-age when I have time, hopefully soon!

<3