Day Four

Day Four: Gelatinous Greyhound

Oh my GAWD. Having returned from yet another successful shopping trip, I believe I am finished with shopping, as I have now bought two different coloured jeans far from the normal colouring of jeans.
We then went to what is apparently the single best Chinese\Cantonese restaurant in town, and I reckon they’re spot on. The food there was amazing. Like seriously delicious. I’ll let Audrey do all the descripting, but woah, I’m sold. Shangri La is my new fav restaurant.

Today we decided to be artsy fartsy and visit the Esplanade aka the performing arts centre aka the durian aka Mickey Mouse’s feet. Yes it looks like a very funny building, I could come up with a million things it looks like right now but will refrain. Well to be honest, it was quite pretty and extremely artsy but since we went in the afternoon nothing was showing and as a result, it got pretty boring. We did manage to find a large underground watertight door that looked like something out of Deep Blue Sea. Considering there are no sharks or Morgan Freeman anywhere nearby I’m not sure why it’s there (for those people who want to argue logic and the possibility of flooding I’m going to ignore you and simply say that your reasoning is not nearly as exciting as mine).

Since being cultural quickly became tedious we decided to hit the other half of Orchard Road previously unexplored for some hardcore shopping. I managed to be frugal this time (only buying delicious macaroons and a $23 dress). Christo on the other hand was spending up a storm while I sat patiently on the plush couches of Bally silently wondering why there were more men’s shoes in here than women’s. What a travesty!

A mad rush home ensued after we spent way too much time in the malls of Orchard because we had a reservation at the Shang Palace restaurant in Shangri La Hotel. It’s a Catonese restaurant that had its own Chinese tea menu and birds nest dishes that went up to $300. Since my memory of food is vast and cavernous I have remembered everything we ate. For starters we had Nanjing Salted Duck and Drunken Chicken (which is chicken boiled in a brandy and soy sauce style soup). Both dishes were cold and both were surprisingly delicious and made us even hungrier. For the mains we ordered live fish, which was a whole Coral Trout steamed Hong Kong Style. This style is simple with a sauce of simply fish and soy sauce with the fish’s own juices mingling with it so as to “not interfere with the sweet flavours of the fish” (so said the waiter). It was cooked so perfectly that the slivers of fish simply melted in your mouth when you ate it. We also had Braised Pork Belly in a golden mantou sauce which is thick and almost gelatinous that they gave us these yummy chewy breadsticks to dip into the sauce and Diced Silken Bean Curd done Sichuan Style which was also melty in your mouthy. The best part as you all know of course is the dessert (although the fish comes close second!) I had a bowl of warm almond crème and sago while Christo had gelatinous dumplings filled with strawberry, mango and cream. Even a day after having the meal, my mouth waters as I recall all the dishes. After a good 3 hours in the restaurant we stumbled home (or rather, to the taxi) with our bellies full of food and wine to sleep it all away.

Day three

Day Three: Jungle Exploration

Today we got up bright and early, for we had an important appointment. We boarded a very nice Mercedes “limocab” and drove most of the way across this little country. On our arrival we bought tickets, and ensured our seats were booked for our appointment. We enjoyed a decent buffet breakfast, and then the fun began. Audrey had booked us in for breakfast with the orangutans at the Singapore Zoo. This began with elephant showers, then a bald python joined by a gold handed tamarind. The stars arrived via a large log, 5 borneo and Sumatran orangutans, to squeals of delight by the collected tourists, and none squealed louder than our little Audrey.
For the rest of the day we checked out the zoo, which was really snazzy. Then we taxi’d to the Jurong Bird Park, so Audrey could continue her little heart attack and hyperventilation spree. The bird park was awesome, including a very spesh Owl exhibit, a huge ‘lory loft’ somewhat akin to standing in a tree with a huge swarm of our lorikeets demanding our sweet nectar. There were two more of these ‘lofts’, an African one with the largest man made waterfall (yay!) and a south east asian bird aviary, with some very sweet parrots.
Then we came home, and went shopping again! All up we were walking around from 8:30 till about 11, so our legs and feet are very very sore. Such is life? There are bakeries here that we need to get back in Perth. NEED.

First of all I have to say that the orangutans get better fruits than we do. Dragonfruit, sugar cane and other assorted tropical delights every morning? Yes please! I was tempted to steal some from their little bucket – I was definitely not content with the mere offering of pineapple in front of me. In addition to the shower we had that morning, we got splashed by bathing elephants and overzealous seals to accompany us with their own eau de toilette. The zoo is pretty spectacular and we were also greeted in the morning to the calls of extremely loud howler monkeys and gibbons attempting to steer us away from their turf.

After a solid 3 hours we made our way to the Bird Park. This place is definitely my favourite and the birds there are a delight to look at and feed. We sat through a great parrot show where all kinds of macaws and cockatoos solved some pretty mind boggling puzzles. Those guys are smart! Apparently they have the intelligence of a 4 year old. We managed to stay for another 3 hours until the final and most awesome show – The Birds of Prey. We were swooped by vultures and sea eagles while falconers catapulted meat into the air for kites to catch and dive at. They truly have magnificent wing spans and terrifyingly impressive beaks. There was one resident comic King Vulture who went by the name of Gonzo. This guy was a real character. He had been hatched and bred in the Singapore Zoo and as a result was very familiar with all the falconers, so much so that he preferred to run instead of fly. There is a photo of him running with one of the falconers that we’ll put up in a second.

After a long and tiresome day we made our way home in another limocab that Christo had spotted, this time a Chrysler 300C. You could feel the testosterone coming from that vehicle…and the woman who was driving it! Rest was in order and after a few hours we made our way back to the malls to grab some dinner and do a little shopping, as a result my legs do not want to get up this morning.

These photos run from bottom to top in chronological order.

Day one

Day One: New Years at 40’000 feet.

Malaysian Airlines is so much better than Air Mauritius. Our flights were almost… Pleasant? They went by fast enough! The Singaporean airport was miles and miles and miles better than the Malaysian one, it was incredibly well organized – we were out in about ten minutes. The first ever Singaporean shop I saw was…. Gloria Jeans! Bit of a let down. Then family picked us up and we were taken to our temporary flat, its very noisy. We went to a local mall, the shopping here is crazy, the ‘local mall’ was really 3 different malls, each with 6 stories, one of which is a dedicated food court. What an awesome country.

Ah, to be one of the privileged few who are able to sleep on planes. Such bliss. The flight went well, although most hours were spent with my with my mouth wide open in a comatose state. The most amusing thing however was seeing Christo’s face when we landed in Singapore. I chuckled inwardly at my vast prior knowledge of the country which, as a result, caused me to remain indifferent and superior when I replied with “Oh…haven’t you seen that before?”.

We settled in. We didn’t do much. At night we were treated to a scrumptious homecooked Indian meal of chicken briyani and a selection of curries at our hosts’ place. Afterwards we were taken on a tour from one end of the city to the other (only 45 minutes!) during which a mini tour of the infamous (to all credit card holders) street of Orchard Road. The Christmas lights are indeed brilliant this year (cue more jaw agape on Christo’s behalf) with the gigantic malls practically being a large and imposing tv screen that seemed to only advertise Avatar and English football. At 11 o’clock, it was time to hit the sack – and we hit it hard.

Day Two: The Quest For Immortality.

Today was Audrey’s turn to spend a few hours with her jaw dragging across the floor. We went to an exhibition on Ancient Egypt at the National Singapore Museum, a truly beautiful building! The exhibition was seriously awesome, many of the statues were over 4’500 years old, and my respect for the Egyptians has grown considerably! I went through the exhibition in about an hour, Audrey took considerably longer. She managed to take photos of every single exhibit, along with its accompanying description. Then we went to the rather opulent Raffles hotel, a hotel that is so excessive its able to sustain its own set of ultra-lux shops, like “Harry Winston” and “What are you, a student? Your type isn’t allowed in here”. I’m pretty sure nothing had a price tag, and they were all called “pieces”. Singapore Slings are pretty tasty though!
Then we went to ‘Orchard Road’, at night, during Christmas sales, with late night shopping specials. The sheer concentration of wealth really does shine. Orchard Road is quite long, and packed with similar ultra-lux shops, Gucci, Burberry, Cartier etc. But they are neatly packaged in more malls. And there are lots of these malls, and for some reason they all have the same shops in them. It really hammers home the difference when Perth can sustain one Burberry shop, but a single road in Singapore can sustain one every twenty meters. This is ever present in Singapore, apparently Singaporeans despise walking above all else. I swear, in a single block of shops, there was a McDonalds on each corner, not 100m away from each other. And they are ALL packed, ALL THE TIME! Its crazy talk!
We had delicious food, went home, and promptly passed out.

And here I was thinking I could not be a more avid Ancient Egyptian history fan. Well, this exihibtion certainly proved me wrong! Fortunately I had managed to distract/smack Christo into not taking photos of me almost hyperventilating when we entered the exhibit. It was truly a masterpiece to behold – although the child in me was definitely more interested in the mummified cats and children than the pottery.

The illustrious Raffles Hotel was next on the agenda, with its colonial white architecture and oppressive, yet beautiful décor. The British sure knew how to party (and dominate a country)! For those who want a little bit of history (and me paraphrasing from my Lonely Planet travel book), Raffles Hotel started off as a modest 10-room bungalow for some ridiculously rich brothers built in 1887. Of course a visit to this historical and elegant piece of 19^th century finery was not complete without the signature cocktail the Singapore Sling and so, at the early hour of 4pm we had one each to commemorate our second day in this tiny, bustling city. After much giggling and pretending we were actually millionaires, the both of us made our way to Orchard Road where I did not so much as faint (like the Museum) but salivate all over the boardwalk. It was probably about now that I wished Christo was a qualified doctor already. Suffice to say, it was that night which I made my large and luxurious purchase (one of which I did not tell my mother about until the guilt threatened to choke me). I’m not sure how we managed to spend four hours on that street (and that street alone!) but at 11pm we dragged our sore feet back home (yes that’s right folks, the shops close at 11pm on Saturdays! I’m not sure where you come from, but in real cities people are encouraged to spend their money until outrageous times in the night!).

Day Three almost done, but as we’ve been on our feet since 8:30 (its now 11) sleeeep!

Shipping out to Singapore!

Well Audrey and I are off to Singapore and Malaysia for 20 days, they have free WiFi country wide, so hopefully we'll be posting some updates here as we go along!

Here's a map of what we are planning to go, where are are planning to eat and stay:

View our awesome holiday plan in a larger map

We'll be there between Jan 1st and 20th!

Stay Classy,

Christo

A and C 21st Birthday

Some pictures of the "Zombie" 21st, for Christo and Audrey - most people made a really good effort!




















Ash...













hmmm










I never realised that Zombies had more than 2 hands!


































Presents!



























Callum

Port Doublas - Final

OK we have been back for a few days and I have been trying to get some time to complete this.

The council(?) of Port Douglas has banned all fast food outlets. In my opinion this makes meals an event rather than a necessity. So consequently people and places spend a lot of time and effort on meals. The restaurants are superb and not ridiculously expensive.




This is a "bowl" of the best coffee I have ever tastes at ReHab

















Enjoying a lunch at the marina























This is the bait they use to get some "friendly" grouper to show themselves.

The said grouper were feeling lethagic that day - so we only saw swirls of ricidulously fish
















Nick really does know most people in PD...









Thats all

Monday Night

Well yesterday seemed to be moving slowly from one place of vast food and drink consumption to the next and today was much the same except for a short trip to the Daintree Rainforest.

Sunday Dinner was at Zinc (Clint and Rob are the chefs) the best steak ever. Today lunch at Salsa (Barney is the chef) and dinner at The Shack. Gorgeous pizza place with sand on the floor and just so relaxed and nice etc etc.

One of the main advantages with having a child working for the resort is that you hear things like "Hey Dad - I got Gazza to organise you the private spa above your room".





Of course your child gets most of the enjoyment..










The private spa with Kim, Jen and Nick.


















View of the pool in front of our room from the spa












We passed some Suger equipment - for Dad

I get the feeling that he missed the train with this one - but I could be wrong.

























The ferry














The Daintree Rainforest
















Solving the worlds problems..














Really well done walkways etc

















The ferry on the way back












See I was right - harvest time - the sight of the cane fire brought back plenty of memories and half way through the rendition of Lion coming out of the cane fire in Sucoma I got a tired "we have heard this before" simultaneously from Nick and Jen - so the memories were quickly dulled...

Port Douglas Holiday - Nick

Port Douglas Holiday.

As Nick is working for the Sea Temple resort, in Port Douglas, we can get insanely cheap stays, and with frequent flyer flights (book early) - this was an opportunity we could not miss.

So after a hectic week (nearing end of financial year rush) we had a wonderful meal with the Verrans and met Jim and Pixie (although Jim and I agreed gravy would have been nice) we got on the plane and took off at 11pm. The flight was well uneventful - and a flight... Arrived at 5:30am




This is the bus that took us on a fairly extreme trip to Nicks House - no bus stop - they just drop you off at the house









Shows the sun coming up on the drive













A lot of Sugar Cane - must be close for harvesting as we think it gave Jen fairly serious hay fever











We got dropped off at Nicks House. Then went into town by taxi - and had an awesome breakfast and possibly the best coffee ever at Re-hab.









Our room with a view











Another angle.
The first day was a bit of a blur as Jen and I did not sleep a great deal on Friday night.

The evening meal was at the restaurant and Jen had an Atlantic Salmon - that was another "best ever".








A green ant!














No sooner had we arrived in the room and the fridge was being cleaned out, and Jens purse was lighter!

Slept like the dead.