Singapore: A Fine City

Whenever I thought of Singapore I am imagined old pirates, capital punishment, and many rules. When I was planning my trip I ended up having to fly to Singapore because it is very cheap to fly in and out from. For example I flew to Kuala Lumpur for only 30 USD. I decided that if I was going to the airport, I was going to see the city. I was so surprised with all that happened there. The city of course was very clean and ran very efficiently. The public transportation is amazing. Navigating it was so simple and the transfers were so well planned out. To get from the airport to my hostel only took 40 minutes despite having two transfers. And it only cost $1.50. The hostel was very clean and relaxing. It was in an area of town known as Little India. There were many Hindu and Buddhist temples around. The riverfront was really nicely developed, restaurants didn't hold all space and there was a nice trail running along it. The only bad part about biking it is that you have dismount your bike every time you go through a tunnel or risk a $1000 fine. I was surprised that despite being a small island/city-state, there were many green spaces. It did not really have the claustrophobic city feel that places like Seoul, Hong Kong, and Hanoi have. The city area was a set of dense towers on one part of the island and the rest was divided into very localized neighborhoods. There were even some rural areas of Singapore. I went to one island called Palau Ubin off the northern coast. It was wonderful, and so easy to. It only takes about an hour to get there and then you are alone. Now, when I think of Singapore it will be more than canings and hangings.




Fines that you could get while riding on the public transport.


There is no biking through the pedestrian underpasses, please.



Some graffiti. I didn't see much.




Medicine horns.


Some of the medicines bugs.



This is the Singapore skyline. It's actually quite tiny compared to the rest of the city.




Clark Quay. There were lots of bars and restaurants along the river. The river is salt water, but I heard that there is a plan to build a desalination plant and make the river into a reservoir since Singapore has no fresh water resources of it's own. Right now all of the water is coming from Malaysia, but the contract runs out soon, so Singapore needs to figure out another way to get water.


A street in Chinatown very early in the morning.


The MIC Building.


The durian shaped opera house in Singapore.


This is going to be the Sands Casino, but it is like 3 years behind schedule.



I went and got drinks from one of the local houses. There was not water, only soda. It was not very cold.


This is a lizard I saw at the jetty. I saw some huge lizards, but they ran across the road too quickly.







This was part of the bike trail that went through a palm filled area. It was so nice to get on a bike someplace clean and beautiful. City biking just doesn't compare with a leisurely ride through areas where you smell clean water and plants...


Some house on the island.


My bike for the day. I rented the cheapest one possible. It was just my luck that it came in orange.


That's right, things fall.


Downtown Ubin.





This was a lake I biked passed in the center of the island.



This tree looked so creepy.





The monkey was crawling on the bike racks. There were so many monkeys, i wasn't expecting to see any wild animals in Singapore. I was just biking along when I stopped to have a look at the map. I heard some noise behind me and there were dozens of monkeys crawling down from the trees and into the bike parking area. When I moved in closer, and most of the monkeys scurried away. Only one stayed and made a show. The wild boar wasn't very scared either.



This was the wild boar. It was sniffing the ground something fierce, so it was difficult to get a good photo.


Thanks for visiting Singapore! Is something wrong here?

Kuala Lumpur

I took a two day trip from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. It was just a city. I love East Malaysia. Borneo is the best. KL was just full of fancy stores and dirty streets. The transportation was the most confusing I have encountered so far. I went to the Petronus Towers and walked around some of the markets. My favorite thing about Malaysia is shopping in the markets. They have the best knock offs and bargaining is so much fun. I have not had a more enjoyable experience haggling anywhere other than Malaysia. It rained one day so I popped into a massage parlor, for $30 I got an hour of reflexology, an hour full body, and 20 min of Dr. Fish. It was great.



I saw this girl in gold heels from the airport bus.




The road my hostel was on had about 50 stamp shops. They all make stamps in less than 30 minutes. I didn't know there was such a rush for stamps...


The Petronus Towers.




Some graffiti, but I couldn't figure out how to get down there. Everyone I asked said you couldn't and I wasn't about to jump.


Joy Juice. Not good.




This man was friendly. He sold noodles in a bag.

Here are the noodles.



Even drinks come in a bag. You can't drink from cans or bottles on the streets in Malaysia, but you can drink them in a bag. These are juices and milks teas.


This man was grinding up some green veggies in an alleyway. I am sure they will be tasty later.





Do not caarry drugs anywhere in Southeast Asia.


Mosque

Hong Kong and Macau

Hong Kong has been one of the places I have been longing to see for quite some time. Victoria Harbor always looked beautiful and the food always sounds amazing. Well, the food always sounded interesting. Some of the food eaten in Hong Kong includes bird's nest soup. The birds nests are actually made from spit. The nests come from caves in Borneo. It used to be very dangerous to harvest, but now they keep birds in barn-like structures to make nest harvesting more easy. There is a food called thousand year old eggs. The eggs are fermented for like a year and turn black and smell terrible.


The buildings in the harbor front have a light show every night. Apparently is costs a million HKD to keep the buildings lit up every night. That seems like a lot. The power they used is traditional coal, a fact the city seems pretty proud of.



The scaffolding used in construction is bamboo.


The is the Mirador Mansion where I stayed. It was an interesting and scary place at times. It was filled with so many people and different things.


A view of Victoria Harbor on a clear night. The China Bank building is the one with the triangle designs. Apparently it causes bad energy to the buildings around it.



I'm not sure if this is just because pollution is very bad in Hong Kong, or if there was a bit of Yellow Dust. The was the same weekend that Taiwan, China, and Korea were all hit with really bad Yellow Dust storms. I saw photos of Beijing and it looked horrible. People were wearing gogles and everything looked orange. Anyways, it was difficult just looking across the harbor that night.


Again, very smoggy and dirty.



A view from the Peak. The Peak is on Hong Kong Island. This is where all of the naking takes places. When you walk the streets in Central, you feel like you are in London. It was just white people with British accents and European stores. There is a lot of money on this side of Hong Kong. The peak is covered with mansions. This green area is actually someones yard. I snuck the photo through a fence.


This the the ferry that connects Hong Kong Island to the Kowloon peninsula. It only takes 7 minutes to cross.


There are some tram lines that run east and west across Hong Kong Island.


I rode the tram to Causeway Bay where I was watching some films for the Hong Kong International Film Festival.


This is one of the films I saw:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XnQndw478U

There was a really funny short film about a rice cooker being lonely because his owner never used him, just cooked things in the microwave.

I also watched Echoes of a Rainbow. It was sad. It was called a Hong Kong weepy. When a film is described as weepy, expect to cry.

There are many films I missed that I want to see, Crossing Hennessy and Love in a Puff. Those two are also Hong Kong films.

Of course while I was in Hong Kong I ate lots of dim sum. It was Delicious.

Macau is one of those places that feels very in between. The was a distinctively Portuguese feel and many people spoke Portuguese and there were delicious little bakeries everywhere. I can't even describe how amazing the peanut cookies tasted. It was also Asian in a way. There was also an American feel with all of the Vegas type casinos. It was a beautiful city. I made the mistake of going on a Sunday, so it was extremely crowded.

Macau is very easy to reach from Hong Kong. The ferry is about $20 and takes an hour. Ferries leave about ever 15 minutes 24 hours a day.






It almost felt like I was in Europe. I feel horrible making observations like that sometimes. Especially at a restaurant and the food is really good. Then saying how it's almost like eating in France or the U.S. Why in a country like Macau that is such a mixture of cultures is it necessary to assume the western influence is the better part. I guess it's something I need to keep in mind. Those ethnocentric thoughts will sneak up on even people with the broadest minds.



I had the chance to see a dragon dance. There were two dancers in the costume.




The main Plaza.



I loved the patterns on the sidewalks.



The old St. Sebastian Church. Macau is the Catholic diocese that overseas pretty much all other Asian countries except maybe the Philippines. I remember that Korea is under the Macao diocese.



Loooking down from the Church.



The Lisbona Hotel and Casino.



The ferry to Macau. There is also a slow ferry that takes about 2 hours.