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Published: March 5th 2011
Merlion at Sentosa
Whenever I see this I know I am back in SingaporeHi guys. Sorry for the delay in blogging but the internet has been ellusive since I left Singapore. Right, let's start from where I last left off.
My flight back to Singapore on the 20th of Feb was early, so it meant that I was up at 5am, having breakfast all on my lonesome at 5.30am and then on a tuk-tuk to the airport by 6am. The flight itself was like all the others I have had, not particularly eventful. Vignesh and his girlfriend were waiting at the airport to pick me up when I arrived. After dumping my stuff at Jasmin's and picking Jasmin up on the way, it was off for some brunch/lunch.
Vig took us to some of his favourite places and so commenced my day of trying new foods and drinks. For starters it was Prata. This, apparently, is a dish created by the Indian Singaporeans, and it involves flour and water (and whatever else you might fancy in it) deep fried into a sort of savoury pancake (though it tastes nothing like pancake) which you then dip in various curry sauces. Very tasty.
Then it was off in search of Bubble tea. Bubble
Black-napped Oriole
The little golden blob you can see sitting on the branch is the oriole. I didn't have anything to crop the picture with....and it is a little blurred as the bird wouldn't sit still long enough for me to get a decent picture. tea is milky tea which chewy starch balls, they call them pearls, in it. It is kind of odd but again very tasty. My only issue was that there were too many 'pearls' for my liking, as you end up chewing for ages even after the tiniest of sips. Not a great drink if you are thirsty, and I can imagine you would choke if you tried to drink it too quickly.
Kaya toast was next. This involves a spread made from coconut milk and sugar spread on toast with a huge knob of butter in the middle of it. To eat it, you fold the toast in half to start melting the butter and then bite. It can get very messy, with butter going everywhere, but it is pretty damn delicious if not actually good for you. While I was enjoying this, Jasmin and Vignesh's girlfriend were digging into half -boiled eggs with gusto. They are exactly what they sound like, eggs that have only been half cooked. I am ashamed to say that I turned down trying this dish, as I am not the biggest fan of 'snotty' eggs at the best of times, let alone raw
Asian Koel or Drongo???
Not really sure what this bird is, but boy is it noisy. Every morning at 6am it starts calling. Far more annoying that a cockerel. egg white. Singaporeans seem to love the stuff and eat it for breakfast with abandon. I was told by Jasmin that it is a traditional dish for breakfast in Singapore. Jasmin likes hers with lots and lots of duck sauce in it, turning it purply-brown as she mushes it all together......yum...... Maybe next time I stumble across this dish I will be brave enough to try it.
That evening Jasmin and I joined her family in going out for a meal. We went out for Peranakan food which is a mix of Chinese, Malay and Indonesian food. I LOVED it. It is the best new type of food I have tried in a very, very long time, though the puddings are odd. I tried a pudding that consisted of sweet potato and yam in hot coconut milk, nice but not what I really consider pudding food. I also tried another dessert dish that involved green jelly bits (not at all like jelly at home), sugar and red beans in a cold coconut milk....I was definitely not a big fan of the beans. My tummy was fit to burst when we left for home, and I was just glad I
would have time to sleep off my tummy.
The next day was very chilled. I got up late and then ventured out to a shopping centre to try and find a nice dress for Jasmin's birthday party. On the way to the shopping centre, I saw a black-napped oriole, a brahminy kite (least I think that was what it was) and what I believe to be a male asian Koel (if it wasn't that it was a drongo but none of the pictures seemed to quite fit).
I looked in three shopping centres before I found something I liked, which ironically was from Dorothy Perkins!! Then I went to meet up with an old University friend who is Singaporean born and bred. I was friends with her in my first and second year before I disappeared off to Rome for a year. I hadn't seen her in a year and a half, so it was so good to catch up with everything that had happened, and talk about all the people we both know and what's happened to them. I had to leave sooner than I would have liked to head to a dive centre to go for
my dive theory class (in preparation for a diving trip to malaysia at the weekend). The theory lesson lasted for 4-5 hours and was followed by a test (which thankfully i passed) meaning that I could go for my pool session the next day. Jasmin and I rushed off for a quick dinner (at midnight) before falling into bed.
Tuesday was another relaxing day, at least to begin with. I went with Jasmin's parents to East Coast resort, which reminded me a lot of Centre Parcs back in the UK. They have units that people rent out, each with it's own bbq pit, a cool communial swimming pool and some water slides. I was introduced to Chicken Rice for the first time, which is literally chicken with rice, that you then add chilli, ginger and soy sauce to. The Singaporeans go wild for it, and you can get it everywhere. I can't say I was too fussed with the chicken but the rice was nice with all the sauces.
I then left Jasmin's parents as they were going to the cinema and my knowledge of Manderin was not going to give me much of a chance of understanding
what the movie was about. I headed back to Jasmin's place where I relaxed and read my book until it was time for me to go to my diving pool session.
I gave myself an hour and a half to get there on public transport with a bit of walking as well. Bad plan. I managed to use the MRT (their version of the tube) and get to the right station, but from then onwards, things went wrong. I was armed with directions from Jasmin (although they included no road names) and I had googled where I had to go before leaving. However, I still managed to get hopelessly lost, going the wrong way as soon as I left he MRT station. After asking 10 people for directions (3 who didn't speak english, 1 tourist who was as lost as me, and 3 people who had no idea where it was) I managed to slowly make my way there. I turned up half an hour late.... I had to quickly get changed and catch up with the rest of the class and get into the pool with my scuba gear. All in all I was in the pool for
about 5 hours, which meant another very late dinner in which I was almost too tired to eat.
Wednesday the 23rd was the day of Jasmin's birthday party and I woke up with a horrendously sore throat and a cold, which didn't bode well for that evening. To try and get myself as well as possible for the party I spent the whole day sleeping and dosed up with medicine. By the time Jasmin came home from work, I was showered and ready to go, feeling almost human.
Jasmin's party was held at Zouks, a club that has lot of different sections to cater for all ages and wallet sizes.
Vig, Elaine (Jasmin's sister) and Kelly (Jasmin's best friend) had gone all out for Jasmin's birthday. We had our own section and the tables were ladened with alcohol. I was an awesome night, which everyone enjoyed, though I don't quite remember how I got from the taxi to the flat and into my PJs. I woke up the next day in the right bed with my PJs on the right way round so some how I managed it.
The 24th was Jasmin's actual birthday and we
devoted it to recovering from the night before. I only got changed out of my PJs when it was time to go out for Jasmin's birthday dinner. We went for chilli crab. You get a giant crab cooked in chilli sauce. We also ordered a black pepper crab, which was equally big and in a deep, black sauce. To enjoy the sauce to the full, Jasmin's parents ordered these buns that you dip in to mop up as much sauce as possible. The crab was tasty but very hard to eat. You had to just put whole bits of crab in your mouth and then just crunch/suck the crab meat out. Rather challenging and messy on the whole. We then went home and watched a movie to wrap up the evening.
The friday evening was when we were leaving for our diving trip to Malaysia, so I had a few chores I had to get out of the way before I would be ready to go, as it was my last full-ish day in Singapore. I had to go change some money into Baht so that I would have some money when I arrived in Thailand. I also had
Tioman Island in Malaysia
Where I was diving. Isn't it beautiful?!?!?! a package of gifts and souvenirs that I needed to send home.
After I had sorted all my bit, Jasmin and I went to Sentosa once more to go to the Butterfly Garden there. This one was much better than the one in Cambodia, with butterflies in all shapes, sizes and colours. There was also an aviary and an area full of insects in tanks (much to Jasmin's horror!) to look at.
We then went to meet Vig and his girlfriend for coffee and then went on for some pimms by the bay, to wile away some time before Jasmin and I had to go grab our stuff and go to Sunny Cove (the dive shop) and get on the mini bus to Malaysia.
The trip to Malaysia was all through the night and invloved getting on a ferry at 5am that I swear was on the verge of capsizing numerous times during the crossing. We arrived at Tioman Island at 8am, where we were told to meet back at the jetty at 10am for our first dive.
I was really nervous juat before my first dive and was paranoid that I had forgotten everything I
had learnt in my pool session and theory lesson. I was also worried that i wouldn't be able to equalize once I was under the water.....
It was quite hard to begin with as even though you are holding on to a rope at the bottom of the sea, you find yourself swaying everywhere and losing your balance due to the current. As I was trying to get certified as a PADI Open Water Diver, my first few dives involved showing that I could do the skills I had learnt at my pool session in the sea. This meant that we didn't see loads of things to begin with but I managed to see some clown fish (nemo!!!) and there was this little pink suicidal fish that kept attacking anyone that got close to it's territory. It was pretty hilarious to watch it attack my instructor and have him trying to chase it away.
The day comprised of 3 dives in total, 1 before lunch and 2 after. By the end of the day I was one dive away from being certified and I was also very burnt have washed all my suncream off while diving.
That
Beware of falling coconuts
You know you are somewhere foreign when you see signs like this! evening I had the pleasure of trying sting ray for the first time. It is a very tender fish and not at all fishy. We then all fell into bed, knackered from a full day, with the knowledge that we had to be at the jetty at 8am the next morning.
It was painful to wake up the next morning, and I wasn't all that enthused on doing more diving, as I was burnt, and I didn't want to be going through more diving skills. Thankfully the dives were nothing like I was expecting. David, my instructor, told us we were going to do the last few skills at the very end of that dive and that we would spend the first part of the dive looking around for interesting marine life. I could already see the difference between our confidence that morning and what it had been the day before. Gone (just about), were the hopeless divers, floating where ever the sea pushed them, legs flailing like a frog's when it has been plucked out of the water by a human hand. We were confident (ish!) and I was really starting to get the hang of controlling my
Me, Jasmin and Qin Lei at Tioman
And look! I am wearing my aladdin pants!!! bouyancy purely by using my breathing and the amount of oxygen I was holding in my lungs.
The last dive was my absolute favourite as I was now a certified diver and thus the whole dive was about leisure. We saw a giant pufferfish, a turtle (!!!!!!!), a jelly-fish, a blue-spotted ray and lots and lots of other fish that I can't name.
After the last dive it was back on dry land for a quick shower and lunch before we had to catch the boat and start heading back to Singapore. We only had 30mins, and as there was only one shower between four of us it was very challenging to be at the jetty on time (nearly impossible). We arrived back in Singapore at 8pm, and then went to meet Vignesh for a late supper. It was nice to chill and forget that I was leaving for Thailand the next day. I had got so comfortable with Singapore that it had begun to feel like a second home and I was really intimidated about going off to Thailand on my own.
The 28th of Feb was they day I left for Thailand. I arrived at
the airport with Jasmin only to find out when I checked in that my flight was going to be at least 3 hours delayed. Thankfully, I had both Jasmin and Vignesh to keep me company and we went for dim sum for lunch and ate so much! I was uncomfortably stuffed. They then took me on a tour of Changi's three terminals and god are they different from what I am used to. Terminal 2 has a slide that takes you from the third floor the the ground floor. Every time you spend 10SGD you get a token for the slide. We used the receipt from our lunch to get our tokens and then proceeded to see who could make it down in the fastest time.
Vignesh won 😞.
Terminal 3 has a floral wall, literally made of vines and greenery, and a decorative giant fan that looks like a flower. I left Vig and Jasmin slightly early so that I could go through departures and have enough time to check out the butterfly garden in the airport!!! Yes, the airport has a butterfly garden, a cactus garden, a rainforest lounge, numerous massage places and lots of stylish shops
and pretty places to sit with free internet.
After puttering around for half an hour or so it was time to get on my flight to Thailand and commence the next part of my travel. Dum Dum Dum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is all I have time for now I am afraid. I am in Southern Thailand atm with my tour and I need to go meet the rest of my group for dinner. I've added some picture but they aren't terribly exciting. Pictures from Jasmin's birthday party are on facebook if you want to check them out.
Miss you all!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Abang
non-member comment
Hot !
I mean the weather is hot in Malaysia ..but its getting hotter because u girls are here... yeah I know ..bad pickup lines..