MALAYSIA & SINGAPORE Continued
Singapore, Feb 16-19
We did as the locals did, and instead of paying a high price to fly into Singapore from Kuching, we flew into Johor Bahru, Malaysia, only a few km north of the Singaporean boarder. At the JB airport, we then hopped on a bus to downtown Singapore, or so we thought. Turns out, what we thought would be a simple 1-2 hour bus trip took us all day long. We were very disapointed and very tired of traveling around. We were just counting down the days until Paris. Driving through the boarder was very interesting though. Thousands of people cross it back and forth constantly, so there's even an express drive through window for motorcycles only.
Singapore is very pretty, very green, and very well manicured. We hadn't seen trimmed, shaped trees since we had left the States. It somehow didn't quite feel like Asia. There were beautiful schools all over the place, and the houses and gardens of the residents were fantastic. Again, it just didn't feel like Asia to us from what we had seen on our other travels. For example, we hopped in a cab and asked him to bring us to a hotel that someone we had met along the way recomended. Well, it had been converted to apartments, so we asked the driver for a hotel recomendation. Get this, he didn't have one! That was so amazing to us! Every cab driver in almost every city we had been in was either promoting the hotels he knew about, or trying to talk us out of our hotel choice (none to delicately) because if he would get some baksheesh if he took us to his hotel. So we fumbled around in our Lonely Planet, tried to find something reasonable (its a very expensive place) and ended up in a main downtown section along Orchard Road. We checked in, found a restaurant along the road and ended up having the worst meal and worst service of the trip. Needless to say, this was a bad travel day and we were glad when it was over.
The next day we did picked up our tickets to Paris & ended up chatting with the very friendly travel agent for a bit. Abdul Razak Ismail was his name and his email address is "airpower@singnet.com.sg" if you need a Singapore travel agent. He told us about being Singaporean and showed us a fantastic local restaurant. When Aaron joked, "Singapore is a fine city...they fine you for spitting, they fine you for this, they fine you for that, Abdul said, "Sure, the government is heavy-handed, but you are safe here. If you walk home at midnight from the MRT, you will be safe. Can you say the same thing about New York?" Good point. After our conversation with the travel agent, we then did some sightseeing. We went to the world's largest water fountain (my choice) in the middle of an office complex, but once we found it we realized it was closed down. No water! Oh well, we had some final shopping to do before we reached the land of high taxes (Europe) so we made our way to the IT Mall. That was lots of fun. It was like what if Fry's Electronics bought the Valley Fair Shopping Mall? We hadn't been in a Fry's for a while, and as Silicon Valley people, we were going through withdrawal. At the IT mall we picked up various supplies we'd need for France, like portable speakers for our laptop, CDR's now that we had a CD Burner, and a tripod for our camera. And what miraculous sight did we see at the IT Mall, but a TACO BELL! Now those of you non-USA Westerners won't know what we're talking about, but we missed Mexican food BIG TIME! There is NO Mexican food in Asia, and if you do happen to find a restaurant, its really, really bad. We knew it would also be the same situation in Paris, so we felt very very lucky to find some. Yes, I know its not the best quality, but Aaron loves Taco Bell and I have to say, once I started to eat I was very pleased we had found it. We had come across many MacDonalds but no Taco Bells. It was very interesting. In order to educate customers on their products, the Taco Bell had a video touch screen computer just outside the restaruant to show people what tacos, burritos and enchiladas were, how to pronounce their names, and how to eat them. Wild!
The 18th was our last full day in Asia, we went to the world famous Zoological Garden's, complete with komodo dragons and orang-utans. It is world famous & a world class zoo and we could easily see why. It was so well laid out, no fences in sight and the habitat for the animals was unparalleled. We had to spend a full day there in order to see everything. There were so many animals shows and wonderful exhibits to watch animal behavior in action, we had a wonderful day. We then hung around for the Night Safari, right next to the zoo. It's a park laid out so you can see all the nocturnal animals under special lighting so it doesn't disturb them, again, truly unforgettable. And our new tripod sure came in handy for the night pictures (no flash pictures). We got really lucky with the weather as well that evening. It started to pour, and I mean pour, the last hour the zoo was open. We had to wait until 7:30 for the Night Safari to open and the rain continued during our whole wait. If the rain kept up, the chances of seeing any wildlife was pretty small and we would have had to skip it. However, it stopped at about 7:45 so we were able to visit the park. If you are ever in Singapore, you must visit the Night Safari and Zoo!!!
On the 19th, we did some final shopping (Singapore - land of shopping malls) and left 4 hours early for the ultramodern Changi airport. We had heard it was amazing and we've become quite the connoisseurs of airports, so we wanted to leave enough time to tour it before our flight. Yes, tour the airport. This is Singapore after all. It has everything you'd ever have wanted in an airport. There were huge lounges everywhere and plenty of room to sprawl out. There was a free movie theatre which just played various movies every two hours. There was a huge sports TV section, with different TV's playing different sporting events. All I could think about was how the Kundmuellers (my mother's side of the family) would love this because they LOVE watching sports. There was an orchid garden (my favorite) and free video game stalls. There was also a huge game and video game arcade as well as the free game stalls, and a driving game that Aaron had to try out. The restaurant sampling was great, and reasonably priced! We ate a mixture of Italian and Japanese sushi; we were ready for something different.
At 8pm, on February 19, we were on our Malaysian Air flight to KL to change planes and then on to Paris. It was 7 months to the day since we left the States.
Aaron paying homage at his favorite temple of all times. Yes we found a genuine Taco Bell in Asia!
Laura on the trail at the Night Safari
A sports watching section at the Singapore Changi airport.
