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Singapore!
Entry 24 of 69 | show all | print this entry |
Today Whitney and I made our way to the bus station at 6 a.m. to catch the 7 a.m. bus to Singapore. After getting into KL last night at midnight, waking up at 5:30 wasn't that fun, but it was worth it in the end. We caught the bus with no problems at all. It was a pretty nice bus with seats that reclined. The trip was 5 1/2 hours, but I slept most of the way. Immigration was also pretty easy. With nothing to declare, you can move through fairly quickly.
Once we got to Singapore we went off to find a place to sleep for the night. We had our Lonely Planet guidebook that recommended a couple of places in Little India, so we started there. We didn't really know where we were going though so we asked some guys on the street to point us in the right direction. They were so nice and actually walked us there! What is so funny that when we were asking people in the bus station where Little India was, they all told us that it is really far and we would need to take a taxi. Apparently, no one in this city walks at all because "really far" means a 15-20 minute walk.
Little India is really cool. There are tons of shops selling everything from henna tattoos to huge Hindu statues. We found a bunch of hostels in the area that looked fun, but unfortunately everything was sold out. Even though it was a Saturday night, we thought that because we were getting there at around 1 p.m. we would have enough time to find a place. But every place we tried was completely packed. We had to leave Little India in search of other hostels so we wandered toward the Buggis district.
The good thing about us wandering around was that we really got to see a ton of the city. And, thankfully, we didn't have our huge packs on us. We only had small day packs so it was pretty bearable. Nothing was available in the Buggis district either though so we went to Arab street. This street is really cool. It reminds me a lot of Malaysia because it is the Muslim part of town. Here vendors sell batiks and rugs and all sorts of other things. It is really crowded with people everywhere. One street over from Arab street was a hostel called Sleepy Sam's. Luckily, they had two beds for us! This place was so awesome. It was on this really amazing street that is pedestrian only and it is right outside the huge mosque in town. The hostel itself was so clean and friendly. They had free Internet and breakfast in the morning. I was really impressed with this place. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, and that is definitely true in this case.
After we dumped our stuff in the dorm we headed back out to the streets. We walked some more over toward the colonial district. When we saw the Raffles Hotel, we knew we had to stop in for a Singapore Sling. Raffles, the man who basically founded Singapore, invented the Singapore Sling at this hotel. Although the drink was almost as much as our bed for the night, it was a fun thing to do.
After our one shared drink we stumbled upon a part of the Singapore food festival. All through July Singapore has little booths set up with a variety of food samplings. I saw a Russian booth selling Bellini. They asked me if I wanted one and I asked where the ikra was (salmon caviar). They laughed and said I really knew my Russian foods.
We were starting to get hungry so we wandered further and found a really cute part of town. It was called Marina Bay and it had a bunch of restaurants that were almost certainly catered toward the ex-pat community. As part of a compromise, we ate Mexican food tonight with a promise of having sushi tomorrow. I am so ready for some sushi! I haven't had any since I've been here and I am craving it big time! The Mexican wasn't bad. I had some portabello mushroom fajitas that were good. I have been eating Asian food almost exclusively for the last three weeks, so it was nice to have something different.
Someone had told us about a night safari at the zoo that is supposed to be really cool, so we decided to go there after dinner. The zoo doesn't close until midnight, so we thought that getting there around 9 should give us plenty of time. Apparently the last tram ride at the zoo was at 7:30 though, but there was still a night show and we could walk around, we were told. So we decided to go anyway. The zoo is about 45 minutes out of the city, and it was pretty expensive, but it was totally worth it! I loved it! The concept is so great to me. You get to see all of the animals moving around because they are nocturnal. So at regular zoos they are just sleeping, but here you get to see them in action. And, the Singapore zoo is an "open zoo" so the animals are really close to you. I loved it.
After a full day of touring, I was more than ready for bed.
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