Singapore '07

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June 18: Our flight to singapore from bali left June 18th, our room was quite the mess from being there for like 38 days straight, so it took us a little while to straighten things up and get ready to go. We arranged transport to the airport with greasy hair (one of the drivers that lurks outside of our hotel). pretty boring flight and stuff, we arrived in singapore just after dark and after geting our bearings and calling a couple hostels found one in an area of town called raffle. After some figuring we found that we could jump on the local mass transit the MRT, which basically covers the whole city, and the map of it looks quite confusing at first, kind of like the tube in london. We had to travel on that for about a 1/2 hour ride, and it's very similar to the skytrain, and from an elevated position,we quickly noticed that singapore was quite a bit more advanced than we had thought. We expected it to be better off than indonesia and basically whenever we had talked to anyone about it all we heard was it's such a clean city. In reality I would say singapore is alot like Vancouver, similar architecture, clean, lots of asian people, and other stuff too. We arrived at our station on Bugis street and right off the train I noticed these crazy rainbow rail things on the side of the sidewalk, this was a good start to the skatability of this city. We walked a couple blocks and after walking by it around 3 times we finally found the hostel, "the Cozy Corner" which is a doorway between 2 resteraunts that takes you upstairs. After checking in they told us the only beds they ha left were on the roof, we were fine with that, we grabbed 2 cots and set them up and dropped off our bags, kinda picked a corner of the roof to leave all of or stuff in. After being relieved of our bags we wanted to go check out the area and find some food. We walked a couple blocks away and found a mall, very nice to get out of the heat into air conditioning. After getting sufficiently lost in the mall we found an exit and walked by quite a few amazing skate spots, banks, ledges... this place looks fun! We made our way back to the hostel and checked out the menu at one of the eatery's below where a portly fellow was calling us in and ranting about the lemon chicken, we noticed 2 english guys at a table eating it so we asked them how it was, and they both agreed that it's worth the S$3 (roughly S$1=CA$1.55) we joined these two guys for dinner and found out they were from England. Simon and Andy were there names, really nice guys, ended up they were also staying at cozy corner. After finishing our dinner which was very good, these guys invited us to join them for a game of poker with a couple other people at the hostel. We went up to the roof and got set up with some chips and stuff (no money involved) and met Ross and Amy who were going to play with us. We played for about an hour and a bit probably, and if you've ever played poker with me (not many have, it's a rarity) you know I'm not exactly professional. I ended up winning though, I'm gonna go with it was by pure luck, because there was more than one hand where I had a hand I wasn't aware of.

June 19
We woke up around 9:30 and grabbed some breakfast which was included with the hostel, breakfast consisted of toast and marmelade, it was free, so I would eat about 10 peices every morning. after breakfast we talked to Simon and Andy who were heading to an Island just off of singapore called Sentosa, it's a man-made island. We packed up a bag for the beach and headed down to the MRT station, after a couple transfers we arrived at harborfront station and took a bus to setosa, which we found out has a bridge to it, and only costs S$3 to get to, we were expecting something not quite as... advanced (still in indo mode I guess) you have a choice of a tram that goes there, a bus or a train, bus was cheapest so we took it. quick little air conditioned bus ride and we wereon the island, we got off at a stop near the beach, walked past the mer lion, which is a like 10 story tall ummm half fish half lion thing. kinda cool. We made our way to the beach and quickly stripped down to bathing suits and hit the water, the sun was out in full effect, and singapore gets hotter than indo. We swam around for a bit, then walked to a smaller island accross a bridge, which is the southernmost (attached by bridges) point of asia, they had a kind of viewing deck that you could look out on the island or the ocean from, the island is huge, we figured it would be a small little man-made island with a beach, but it's huge, with like a zoo, aquarium, multiple 7-11's (mmmm slushes), a huge foodcourt area, and a couple resorts. After that we just spent some time on the beach under an umbrella, and playing in the water. After some time, the other guys we came with had to get goin, Andy had just left to find a washroom, so I said we'd probably catch up with them. After about an hour waiting around I figured Andy was pretty lost, with just board shorts, no money, no shirt (you need one to ride the MRT I think) I laughed at how screwed he would be if I left. I walked around looking for him for about another hour, and finally found him back where we were sitting on the beach, apparently he had decided after the washroom to just get distracted by anything that caught his fancy for the last 2 hours. We made our way back to the hostel. After getting there and having some lemon chicken for dinner again we decided to go try out skating around the area we were in. Holy crap! within about 3 blocks from our hostel we found like 5 amazing spots and after skating arond for like 2 hours we found so many amazing spots no skater would believe. After getting profusly sweaty we headed back and enjoyed a nice cooooold shower. bedtime.

June 20
We slept in a little and woke up just in time for breakfast.... mmmmm toast. After some sitting around reading and stuff we decided to go check out what was playing at the theatre in the mall accross the street (there was a mall on all sides of us, prolly around 10 seperate within 5 minute walk). We went and saw the new fantastic 4 which was a good one to see in theatres and not on DVD back in kuta. After that we didn't have too much planned so we walked around malls for a bit just to stay out of the heat, had some dinner a bit later and onced it was dark we went skating in another direction, not as many spots, but still some gooders. After returning I emailed this guy I had talked to over email, Zeeshaun, who runs www.skateboarding.sg and told him I was in town and was looking foreward to an event he was planning for go skateboarding day (june 23rd while it's actually the 21st, but he wanted to do it on the weekend).

June 21
We went to this other island we had been told about that's not as touiristy called Palau Ubin. It took an MRT, bus and ferry ride to get there, which wasn't too bad. Once there we rented some pedal bikes, both of us hadn't ridden bikes in a quite a few years (lots of "like riding a bike" jokes insued) but the island is pretty big, so we walking around wasn't really an option. Not the most exciting place, we rode from one end to the other and stopped at a little resort for a drink and looked at the water for swimming, but it looked pretty scary (yuck). We also checked out this buddhist temple we passed, One guy liked my tattoos and told mehe does tattoos, I politle declined. We rode back and returned the bikes and caught the ferry/bus/MRT back. On the way back I noticed a little skateshop in this one building near our hostel (about a block away). Andy headed back to the hostel and I wen to check it out, I was in desperate need of some wax, cause apparently candles are nowhere to be found in singapore. The shop was super small, but pretty rad, good selection, the guy working was really friendly, we talked about the local scene for a little whle, he asked where I was from and then introduced himself, weird he was Zeeshaun, the guy I had been corresponding with for a couple weeks about go skateboarding day. We laughed about the coincidence and after a little more chatting I said we'd come by again soon,prolly the next day or something. It was pretty early still, hadn't quite gotten dark yet, so we headed out skating cause I wanted to head to this bank spot under a bridge that I wanted to get some pics on before losing daylight. On the way we stopped at this flatbar spot and met up with a bunch of skater kids there, it was pretty fun to just skate around with them for a while after a little while we headed to the bank spot we planned on hitting and skated there for a couple hours, I tried a heelflip to fakie for a long time and got close but never got it, did some frontside ollies that were fun, and Andy had a good time just doin big carves alonng the bank. After that we headed back past the flatbar spot and met up with the kids again and skated a ledge near there that they showed us, just a super mellow marble ledge (this is proly getting realy boring if yo don't skate, huh?) got a nice bs nosegrind on it and almost a crook. then headed bac as it got dark and showered off and then headed out to find somewhere to eat. We decided to go ask Zeeshaun where the best place to eat is, we figured him being local he'd know where to go. We chatted with him for a while and then he said he was about to close, so he invited us to come with him for dinner. He took us a couple blocks away to a middle-eastern part of town and we ate at this awesome little resteraunt with pillows on the floor and they bring out hooka pipes after your meal. We had some excellent kebabs for dinner and a really interestesting mint tea. Afterwards we smoked the hooka with these guys and that was cool, never tried it, but it's really tasty and smooth. After a while of sitting around talking about skateboarding and canada and singapore and stuff we headed out. Zeeshaun's brother met up with him and drove us back to our hostel, great night.

June 22

After breakfast we MRT'd to china town to check that out cause we had heard it was worth it. We got there and checked out alot of the electronics/camera stores which are all packed into one mall area, neither of us really needed anything, but we had some time to kill and nothin else to do. We walked around outside of the mall to some of the side streets, mostly just electronic stores and tailors, nothing too interesting. We walked by some temple that was just letting out some kind of gathering, Andy wanted to check that out, so he went in and I just walked around the area. China town didn't seem to have too much to offer since we wern't shopping or anything, so we headed back to the hostel. We packed up the latop and went to see if we could find somewhere to watch DVD's in A/C, cause it was wayy to friggin hot in the hostel to just sit around inside or on the roof. We ended up in the library near our place for a while, we found a plug in and just hung out there and watched some scrubs. after some time there we moved to the mall and found another place to watch, exciting, huh? Once it started getting darker it cooled off a little so we headed back to the hostel, we planned to go out to clarke quay tonight to check out that area where there's supposed to be alot of cool bars and clubs and stuff. Well we were getting ready some girls showed upon the roof and started settling in, Andy noticed one of them (Nadinne) had a canadian flag on her backpack, so we started chatting with them, they introduced themselves, Nadinne and Britany. Ended up they're from victoria, which was cool, they had just gotten into Singapore from Korea. We invited them to join us to clarke quay that night and they came along after we all finished getting ready. We MRT'd there in pretty much the most complicated way possible, i think we switched trains like 3 times, haha, we eventually made it there and found the river which all the bars are on the side of. There were alot of bars to choose from, we settled on this one that had boats you could sit on, but then were told that you had to order food not just drinks to sit on the boat, LAME. We sat on they're patio and ordered a pitcher of Tiger (local singapore beer) beer for the 4 of us, and quickly polished that off, apparently Britany had drank tiger before and they were planning on checking out the brewery the next day. After that place we walked around for a while trying to decide on the next bar to hit up. We found a little middle eastern place that looked really cool, we got a cool table that had a swingset which was pretty cool. We each ordered a pint of beer (no pitchers) and we each got a girly drink too. After we got part way through our drinks we ordered a hooka pipe with peach tobacco, it was pretty good. so we sat there and talked for a while and talked about various stuff, alot about what we missed about canada and stuff. After a while of that we moved out of there and onto a little cuban bar where we ordered another pitcher. After finishing that one a while later we were all a little wobbly and were informed by the waiter that MRT had stopped running. We found some dudes that had pedal rickshaws and they took us back to our hostel. It wasn't as far as we thought, and our drivers raced which was kinda funny. Once back we were all pretty tired and turned in for the night.

June 23

We woke up around 9:30 when it got too hot to sleep and decided to go to Mcdonalds for breakfast. It was a pretty big deal because in Indo Mcdonalds doesn't have breakfast, sowe had hotcakes which of course were amazing with the hangover. After we met up with Nadinne and Britany who invited us to join them to the Tiger brewery, we were pretty stoked to check that out. We went down by MRT of course, it ended up being at harbour front station right by sentosa. The brewery was pretty cool, we went on a tour which was hilarious, there was like a history of the bottle shape and then like a 3D movie (yes with glasses) and at the end we got to pour our own glass of beer from the tap, and they had this "super cold tap" that basically made the beer really cold and good. it was a fun tour, and didn't take too long. I had told Zeeshaun I would meet him at 3:00 for go skateboarding day, when we finished the tour it was 1:00 and the girls were gonna go check out sentosa, and a swim sounded really awesome. We took the train over which ended up being the same price as the bus, S$3 and took us right to the beach, so we had a quick swim and then raced back to the train to get back and meet Zeeshaun. The train took a little longer than we guessed, so got back just after 3:00 and Zeeshaun had already left,but we got ahold of him and said we'd meet him at the skatepark. We changed quickly and headed there. The event was pretty cool, about 75 kids showed up and they had some fun events, tic tac races, manual distance competitions, and ended with a big game of skate tournament. Singapore seems to have a really good skate scene starting out, it was really cool to experience that. Zeeshaun even introduced us as guest skaters from Canada, which was kinda funny and he got me to judge the game of skate and some other stuff, it was alot of fun, at the end some of the local rippers threw down on a street rail that was on the outside of the pak, very impressive, one guy backlipped the rail fist try, and another back 5-0'd it among other stuff. Zeeshaun invited me to hrow something down it, I sized it up for a frontboard, but declined thinking about how I'd be surfing in the next 3 days and didn;t need to hurt anything. As the event wound up we headed back to the hostel. Took it easy tonight, we were both pretty tired from skating in the daytime, it was a little bit cooler as it got darkso we just watched some stuff (anchorman... hilarious of course) on the laptop and had an early night.

June 24

We walked down to the olympus dealer cause Brittney had gotten some paperwork together for Andy's camera warranty. Bummer, i mean it's only a couple blocks away, but it was closed (sunday) so we didn't know what to do, when we got back to the hostel we talked to Britany and Nadinne and out of lack of stuff to do we decided to go check out Little india which apparently wasn't too far away. We took the MRT there and afterwards realized it was only like 2 stops away, and we probably could have just walked it, but ahh whatever. Not much to see, but we just walked around, found a foodcourt area and grabbed some fruit and drinks and just sat for a while. Afterwards we checked out a little market area we spotted, which ended up being not far at all from our hostel, once we figured out where we were in relation. The market was pretty hectic, there were some touristy buddhist (i think) temples, which seemed to interest Andy and Britany alot more than it interested Nadinne and Myself, they went in one and lit incence and stuff. Nadinne and I walked around the market for a while and checked out a couple street performers, but all the ones we watched seemed tojust be talking alotand we couldn't understand what was goin on. Eventually we met up with Andy and Britany again. We headed back and got some food outside of the Hostel. After sitting around the hstel for a little and just roasting on the roof we all decided to go check out this fountain we had seen skateboarding one night. It was pretty close , like a 2 minute walk away, it was pretty cool. Apparently the biggest fountain in the world, It sprays water like 100 feet in the air, and is probably just as wide. It looks very cool at night, it's lit by blue light and it sprays up a flat "screen" of water which it projects words or simple pictures on, I tried to take photos, but none really turned out right. We walked back through a couple malls, there's one that links alot of the streets together underground so we took that as far as we could, a little disorientating, but nice and cool in the A/C. After that we made it back to the hostel and just sat up, played some cards and then turned in for the night, had to get up early so that Andy could try to make it in to pull camera schemes before our flght.

June 25

Andy and I did the same thing after breakfast, headed to the olympus dealer and I sat and waited when he went in, fingers crossed that they would replace his camera. They told him to come back in an hour and they'd have an answer for him, I wasn't sure, that sounded like something I would tell someone if I wasn't going to do anything for them, haha. We took a quick walk around and came back after an hour. Andy came out after a couple minutes, new camera in hand, stoked! We went back to the hostel and packed all our stuff up, we had made quite the mess in our little corner of the roof, but we got all packed with plenty of time, but decided it would be better to get to the airport with lotsa time then sit around and get sweaty on the roof. So we headed to the airport, which is super easy with the MRT. Got into kuta after dark and grabbed a cab to Aquarius, great to be back, we got a new room too, it's like a seperate little villa thing, so no stairs, and way cooler cause we're not on an upper floor. So good to be back, the next day we surfed Kuta and it was just awesome to be back.

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