Equarius Hotel Sentosa Island

... amp; Gabbana; Georgio Armani; Louis Vuitton; Miu Miu; Prada; YSL to name just a few. A bit beyond us this place so we wandered on to the Orchard Rd Shopping Complex where H got enthralled with the many camera shops and I wandered around aimlessly waiting for him! I was able to tear him away for a little while to eat at the food court there, great selection at a very reasonable price.
Eventually separated H from the camera gear (with the exception of one new super ...

... if you so much as eat or bring a Durian on the MRT; the cleanliness; the MRT; the buzz of Orchard Road; the fact that instead of a row of shops, you have a row of shopping malls; the Sun and heat; the disgusting smell of Durians; the brilliant and fantastic food as well as the Hawker centres; Singlish and trying to interpret it. It is a vibrant and buzzing place that I am determined to return to. I'll try and perfect Mandarin a bit more first though...

Home soon, but not yet.

... journey we had mapped out took us beside the canal for a bit, through the Thieves Market and into Little India. This is slightly off the regular tourist pathways and showed that Singapore is not 100% clean, tidy and manicured. The canal showed evidence that Singaporeans also dump rubbish at times and the Thieves’ Market revealed a healthy turnover of what can only be described as tat, including the usual electrical stuff which may or may not work and anyway the remotes ...

... public and private healthcare kind of like the class system on a boat. The government provides a substantial amount of money but patients are expected to fork out some of the bill themselves. Furthermore, they can pay more for better services. A class C ward would have 8 beds and would be powered by a fan whereas a class B ward would have 6 beds and aircon (the doctor did say class C would be stifling in the heat). It was more American than NHS in that sense.

We also had ...

... therapeutic value". I don’t know what “therapeutic value” means but I don’t plan on testing the limits either. I’ll keep my Double Bubble to myself. In Singapore it is also mandatory that you were a seatbelt . .at ALL times regardless of your seat’s location. Paul isn’t very good about wearing his seatbelt and I’m constantly on his case about it; however, as we boarded the airport shuttle the ...

... day understoof the no meat request (well, one of the grad students helped me tell her) then she went to put anchovies into the bowl and I screamed 'NOOOOO' at her, she dumped in the anchovies anyway, the looked at me, and I was like, "I didn't want those, but you put them in, so it's ok", so she went and scooped more anchovies and dumped more in. Therefore, me shouting no at the noodle lady lead ...

... than anything, taking only 40 minutes and leaving every hour. Even shorter than an LA to SF flight and meant for businessmen. So, you don't really get the feeling that it's really an international flight. I was more than fine, making it with plenty of time even to spare. I was sad at the airport, not wanting to leave. I loved the people I met, the hostel I stayed at, and the warmth I got from the city, even if it was such a sterile place. I really didn't want to board the plane to Kuala ...

... was over and we could move to a cooler spot. By the time we headed back to the hostel it was dark out and had been a very long day. When we walked into the room we looked as though it had been hit by a tornado! The UK Frat boys were gearing up to go out and it looked as though they had tried on every piece of clothing they owned, discarding the ones that weren't chosen to somewhere on the floor...Sungchi asked me if all teenageres were this way and I had to ...

... Vuitton chopsticks, I just haven't looked closely enough. If only they knew that there is actually a world out there. That said, the food's been a big eye-opener and a great introduction to what's in store for the next leg of the journey. I've been chowing down all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff, including carrot cake (nothing to do with carrots), bak kut teh (pork rib tea), sambal ...

... finally opened- which costs about $30 per person. The safari was actually much better than I ever could have expected and lived up to all of the hype from the guidebooks. While you are in a zoo on a tram, they built this safari on actual jungle land which was preserved by the government and so they have kept the animals in their natural habitat. The way they have set this up is so that although there are actually deep moats between you and the animals, the moats are ...