Weird Drinks, Ads and Malls.

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Singapore is basically a massive massive mall with small enclosed places where people can live, work or basically do anything else. Its effectively the reverse of the shopping centre in the UK. In the UK, you specifically go to a shopping centre, in Singapore if you aren't explicitly in a house, a zoo or museum, or possibly on Sentosa Island you are either IN a mall or between two big malls (i.e. crossing a road).

Whilst that sounds like to hell to some, bear in mind that during the day its so hot and humid that its rather pleasant to escape into the cool.

One thing that we've noticed about Singapore are the literny of interesting drinks... (i.e. outside of the range of Global American Soft Drinks) all of which are entertainingly weird and some nice, some rather ... unpalatable. Just thinking about them give me the shivers...

Cold Drinks... Hmmm. Anyways...

The best of the bunch is so far Super Shark - a sort of RedBull alternative that tastes even more like cough mixture.

Also indulged in a drink called Jelly Grass Soya Milk. It was probably a 7 out of 10 on the "reeks of evil" scale. Its cold, sort of tastes a bit like porridge with the consistency of water with eels in it... the Jelly is actually leech shaped - which becomes apparent when you stop sucking through the straw and a bit nestles over the end. Part of you expected the Jelly to creep over the end and make a route for your skin..... hmmm... human flesh! Yes. Its a really pleasant drink. Its the kind of drink that should by rights appear in one of those terrible Hollywood 'action-horror' film - you know - the kind where an ancient artifact that can cause untold evil should it fall into the wrong hands type... Drink from the Cup of Jollibean and become all-powerful!

I got about half way through it and then had to bale out. Aristi started to turn green after the first sip.

Nice. Anyway - I sense I am becoming rather overfocussed on a minor aspect of the Singaporean Beverage Industry... I shall move on sharpish.

We ad another vaccination today - nice. Another Rabies one. Its turning out rather expensive because the vaccination (Rabipur) is 'new' in asia and so isn't quite as cheap as expected. Oh well. We've also just moved to a new hostel - BetelBox Backpackers. Further out from the centre, but many more facilities, near the beach, free gym. Nice.... (it actually is nice).

Anyways - another 6 days (marrooned here) and then we can actually get underway... 😉
In the meantime, we're going back to see a couple of the best sites we've seen before, bit of time on the beach and a couple of things we missed. Oh yeah - and some more time in the malls. Whilst we are at it we are trying to work a route through Malaysia that will get us into Thailand without any of the issues associated with the terrorism in the every southern Thai states. Its a pain, and its looking like flying is the default option, firmly filed in the 'better safe than sorry' box.

One thing we have seen (which I suspect will continue in various guises along our route) were some highly amusing Ad's (or at least amusing if you are us). We'll try and show why in a later blog...

Cheerio.

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Photos

Shark...... Extra
Theres only so much shark you can take, but someone always wants more.

Jollibean
Evilbean more like.

BetelBox Backpackers
Its Super, Smashing, Great.

Comments

[Lucie Turner]

South American soft drinks
Sounds like you're having a fabulous time!?! If you're into your weird soft drinks watch out for Inca Cola in South America - it's yellow...but strangly nice! I lined my rucksack with it on the way home! Yum!