Blogs from Chinatown, Singapore, Asia

I’ve always been intrigued by chops, or personal seals. These are the square or rectangular red stamps often used by an Asian artist to sign his work. Personal and corporate chops can play a big role in some parts of Asia; I just think they are kind of cool. In my one rather futile attempt to learn Cantonese (I learned how to say “rice,” “beer,” “thank you,” and “credit card,”) I found that the character for “long“ comes from a pictogram of long hair held back in a clasp. Hmm…I have long hair, and it’s one of the nicer descriptors people use for me. In Hong Kong I saw lots of vendors willing to carve a chop for tourists. Most advertised how fast they could do it, and most showed samples with names in English. That ... read more

Hey sorry it has taken me a while to update this! We had such a good time in Singapore it was so nice and clean compared to everywhere else is Asia!! but it had the craziest laws just some of the things you could get fined for were jay walking, we could only cross where there was a zebra or pelican crossing. Chewing gum was illegal, no eating or drinking on tubes or in the stations and the list goes on. It was so funny because in shopping centres and other places they had machines where people went and paid all their fines. Firstly we checked into a hostel called 'beary good hostel' which was really cute because they had teddy bears all over the place. We walked around the main part of singapore to see ... read more

Wyspa jakby zagniewana tym, ze już wyjezdzamy, pozegnala nas deszczem. Mielismy zamiar wczorajszy dzien spedzic na snorklingu, podziwiajac najladniejszy kawalek rafy w okolicy. Niestety pogoda była zupelnie nie rownikowa. Caly dzien rowno lalo. Nie jak z cebra, typowo dla tutejszej strefy. Po prostu dość mocno, nie ulewnie, caly dzien z nieba lala się woda. Nie były to warunki stworzone do plywania lodzia motorowa a potem nurkowania na powierzchni. Więc odpuscilismy zadowalajac się wczorajszym seansem, który notabene i tak był wystarczajaco piekny. Dziś rano natomiast zly nastroj wyspy wrecz eksplodowal. Gdy wyruszylismy z plecakami na prom musielismy przejsc 500 m do przystani w deszczu tak rzesistym jakiego jeszcze tutaj nie widzielismy. Jak się okazalo wieczorem, pieczolowicie przez dwa dni prane i suszone ubrania nabraly wilgoci... (tak mamo, nie zdziw s... read more

So after our tour of chinatown we felt thoroughly cultured. So we decided to go up a garden tower and get some good pics of the views. We found a sky garden 50 floors up, it was pretty cool, I had a nap there for a bit. Quick dinner, then out on the town again! Unfortunately Amey couldn't make it. He was working far too hard as usual. After a few predrinks with Pete's friend Arun we went to a place called Orchard Road to carry the night on. This place unknowlingly to me (this is Andy writing this) was also nicknamed "4 floors of whores". You can imagine our mutual disgust as we arrived and discovered this! Seriously, after only 5 rounds and 10 games of pool we were out of there straight away! Had ... read more

Singapore – Possibly the most relaxed, easiest going and quietest city I’ve been to – Only one way to ensure I get to see the cities dark side I guess, that’s right I booked my accommodation slap bang in the middle of the most bizarre red light district I’ve ever stumbled across. As you will have hopefully seen from my last blog I had a very quick stay on arrival in Singapore before I went back to Malaysia, after Malaysia I headed back to Singapore for four days before my flight to Australia. Whilst in Singapore I stayed in a couple of hostels and a hotel and it was the first signs that things are starting to get more expensive, It’s fair to say everything here is in the region of two to three times more ... read more