Goodbye Asia, Hello New Zealand

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Here I am in Singapore, my final destination in Asia before heading off to New Zealand. I guess Singapore has been a very kind of in-between stage, very Westernized, with an abundance of fast-food joints and nice 5-star air-conditioned hotels (along with 5-star westernised prices!) but still very Asian in terms of the mix of people, the back street cheap eating joints, and the lack of hot showers - aargh! That is something I certainly won't miss!

I think I last wrote from Ko Tao... Since then, we went to Ko Phan Gan for the infamous full-moon party, then to Ko Samui, then over to Krabi, which was beautiful.

From Thailand we did an overnight mammoth trip to Kuala Lumpur for a few days before arriving in Singapore. I am glad we spent a bit of time here as, for a city, it is really nice. We walked all over the city to almost every region - China Town, Little India, the Financial District (boring!) and the Colonial District, where we got refused admission to Raffles Hotel for not wearing the right attire - who wants to pay $10 for a beer anyway?!

Scott left on his flight to New Zealand yesterday, so I spent the day in true girlie-fashion - shopping! "When in Rome..." as the saying goes. It was actually a camera I was looking for as mine broke in Vietnam, so Singapore seemed to be the best place to buy it. I got my photos developed yesterday too and a lot of them haven't turned out - Grrr!

Tonight I am flying out to meet Scott in Auckland. I hope the flight is OK. When I called to confirm, they had no record of me at all, but they thought Helen and Ursula were getting the flight instead! Very unnerving! They assure me it is fine though.

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