Maxims Tower Sentosa Island

... be full of people chatting away, having a good time. I've been to a few, and ordered things I've never heard of before. I'm not convinced all of it is actually meant to be food. In one place, I was asked if I'd like a barley, which sounded great. When it came, it was a jug of milky water with rice floating in it. It seemed to not drink it, so I had some and tried to smile as bits of rice made me gag.

... il est impossible d’en apporter dans ses bagages et d’en acheter dans la ville. Il y a des messages et des reconstitutions d’attentats qui passent en boucle sur les ecrans dans les wagons et vous incitent fortement a signaler toute personne d’allure suspecte! Bref, nous avons vecu un petit choc culturel.

Le premier repas fut une vraie aventure, nous n’avions aucune idée de ce que nous ...

... colonial building. We headed to the famous "Long Bar" and it was like stepping into 19th century exotica (I don't even know if that's a viable word, but I'm going to stick with it!). Wicker chairs and tables dotted the place where the Singaporean bartenders wore white jackets, and the waiters wore old-style attire. It looked quite odd as the men were wearing loose fitting white shirts with something that looked like a skirt. I know it was probably meant to look authenically ...

... after my experience in Rotorua, I had to engage in the luge once more. We took a scenic chairlift to the start of the track and then descended. I was feeling slightly more daring than last time and decided to try my luck and build up speed. After nearly tilting 180 degrees and avoiding the crazily slow people on the track I made it back to the bottom and it was the end of an exhausting day.

We returned to La Prasat for dinner before heading off back to Geylang.

... came to this place knowing absolutely nothing of what my friends and I would be doing it barely occurred to me other students would be here doing proper electives so it was quite a surprise to see 10 other students all from British institutions (but mostly of South East Asian origin) more qualified than us going to their respective departments. The meeting began and we were met by our co-ordinator Pushpa who was a frank woman who told us all the info we needed to know. Before long ...

... but it was 1:00 am. stayed awake to chat, and have a
drink and then all wnet to bed to try and get on Singapore time. Great
condo in comple, stinking hot here and it is now 7:44 am, birds are
chirping, and I think probably already 32 degrees. Mark's neice and
nephew arrive today from Toronto - this am and then we are off to
sightsee.Bye for now.June 29, 2009 - I think,We hope you all recieve this and am sorry if getting again - we are ...

... although we paid $32 Singapore dollars for it, it was worth hundreds really. ($32 Singapore dollars is around $22 US dollars). And my new friend paid for it, I was in charge of getting us a beer. By this time, I had finally learned his name: Ben or Benjamin. He learned mine as well during our lunch so I didn't feel too bad for not knowing him. But after sharing this crab with him, we had to know each other's names finally. If anyone likes seafood, they must go to Singapore. I can't even ...

... beaches there but they weren't fantastic. The sand was imported from Dubai I think (quite nice) and there are some man made islands and coconut plantations making it quite pretty...but once you look past this you see Singapore's second biggest industry, shipping. No joke there must have been 200+ cargo ships all lined up near oil refineries waiting to get into the harbor...didn;t fancy swimming in that sea! We went ...

... back and they had me break open a durian on the living room floor and eat it all up. If you've ever eaten durian you'll know exactly what contortions my face went through before I swallowed that first mouthful. Some people compare the smell to that of dead festering rats, others to that of last month's kitchen waste. Chewing through that stale 'old-cheese' creaminess and swallowing it ...

... 15 SD round trip per person) to Sentosa Island (plus $2 admission to island each). The ride was awesome, albeit short. Chris held on with sweaty palms and I captured it on video. (We learned later that there was an accident 15 years ago when a really tall cruise ship clipped the cable and several people plummeted to their deaths!!) When we arrived on Sentosa we took the free island bus to one of several beaches on the island- Siloso beach. The equator sun was quite hot ...