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Published: August 4th 2006
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Actually I'm already back in Malaysia, up at the highest hill station in the country, but I
was in Singapore for two days. Being there, especially after the rest of SE Asia, is like stepping into Blade Runner. Everything is shiny and smooth in a very futuristic Asian sort of way. Every where you go, there is a smooth female voice giving some sort of directions. You buy yourself a little plastic card, and then hop on and off any bus/subway you want. And you don't even slide the card at any point. The city just knows. Even Malaysia seems dirty now. It's a great place to visit for a day or two, but quickly gets boring. Everyone speaks English. It's impossible to get truly lost. It's a little too easy. The public transportation system there put's Denver to shame. I would get on the subway and put on head phones and get off randomly, but no matter where I walked, I would always end up at another subway station withing 15 minutes. The 'backpacker hostel' that I stayed in had secure glass doors, elevators, and flat screen TV's. The Taxi that I took around was a new Mercedes. The bus
that I took out of the country was a Mercedes also, but I'll get to the bus in a minute. I stayed in Little India, which was cleaner than any part of any other country I've been to, but when you tell people from Singapore that you're staying there, they say it's so dirty and dangerous. The first night I was there, I sat down to eat at the nearest restaraunt, and quickly realized that I had never before in my life eaten Indian food. I didn't know what in the hell any of it was, so I just pointed to something on the menue. I was presented with some towering teepee of bread surrounded by chicken and two mystery substances. There was a big green leafy thing. I thought maybe I was supposed to make some sort of wrap out of it, so that's what I did, and I received enough stares to realize that I had made a terrible mistake. What else, what else... oh there was a huuuge street market with so much stuff to buy, that even a non-shopper such as myself begins to get abnormally excited. I bought two t-shirts that turned out to be
Unique building
The name of which I can't remember way to small for me, but I'm wearing one right now. I'm hoping they will stretch out eventually. I mean this shirt is so small that maybe people just assume that I'm a homosexual, which may explain a strange experience I had today, but that's another story for another time. So I spent my two nights in Singapore and took that nice taxi to the bus station I got there at 9:27, and took the next bus to Kuala Lumpuer (9:30). It was not nearly the cheapest option, but with combination of the timing, the luxury that was described, and my budget surplus, I decided to spend $35 on this bus, when I could have waited and hour and got a normal folk bus for about $7. My bus was huge, about as big as they get, and there were only 9 seats on it. Each seat was a leather monstrosity with built in massage and power recline/swivel; I had a big flat screen TV to myself, along with a huge library of movies, and just about every playstation game ever made. I was served two meals and countless drinks on the 5 hour drive (which, by the way, takes
8 hours in a normal bus). By far the best part was that every passenger on the bus was a mean looking Chinese business man. They were all so rude to the attractive attendent, that I received more than my share of attention. Over all, a good trip. I stayed another night in Kuala Lumpur, and caught a bus this morning up to the "Cameron Highlands." The drive up here was great, as we were skirting the oldest rainforest on earth (yes older than the Amazon and whatever else you're thinking). I'll save the description of this place for my next entry. I'm as high up in the mountains as you can get, and this computer can't handle pictures. It can barely handle word processing. ***Just added some pictures from a different computer***
I'm in day 4 of a progressively worse soar throat, following the common pattern that last winter burdened me for a month. In a couple days I'm going to retreat back to the islands- a good place to be sick. No sspeell checkere hear.
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genie47
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The Durians
That unique building(s) are the Esplanade Theatres. The locals like me nicknamed it "durians" because they resemble the fruit.