Blogs from Singapore, Asia - page 360

- FOOD: EXCELLENT plane food; cheap noodles at one of the MANY roadside cafes; huge grapefruit type fruit; a tea brewing ceremony; egg brewed in tea for 8 hours; mooncakes; hot chicken curry; sweet, bright pink cakes made from almond, cashew and coconut; Gulam Jamun - a ball of cream cheese in a pot of syrup. - PEOPLE: Polite and friendly. The whole population eating on the roadside. Nepalese man at a temple giving me orchids for good luck. - AREA: So smart and clean. High rise, modern tower blocks with greenery surrounding them; space age CBD; wide lanes of traffic; narrow streets of Chinatown; Little India; temples and mosques galore; Chinese Heritage Centre. Easy to use train system. Lovely, clinical feel hostel. Safe feel. - WEATHER: Some grey sky but oh my god, how very ... read more

Well, I've made it! Currently sitting in a wonderfully cool (air-conditioning is a god-send) internet cafe attached to my guesthouse in Bangkok, Shanti Lodge, rightfully called an "oasis" in Bangkok... but I'm getting ahead of myself. I arrived bleary-eyed in Singapore after a long day in transit, and was ushered from the airport to the free hotel, which, although not the nicest I've been in, was definately the last bit of luxury I'll have for a while (I had a whole double bed to myself! A shower! A sit-down toilet!). Singapore itself was at once exactly what I expected (modern, almost Western) and the opposite (it really wasn't all that clean - maybe Canada's forever skewed my sense of cleanliness - it was impossible to find a public wastebasket). I spent the day wandering around, having ... read more

We got our internet access last week and our shipment from the US arrived on Friday which means that we have our computer so we can update the blog! So much has happened in the past two weeks. I will try to break it up into a couple postings. Our first day in Singapore (Wednesday) was pretty mellow since we were still adjusting to the time change. Phil’s mom took us to a local mall to show us what we might expect to see in Penang. Asian malls are not totally different from US malls in the kinds of shops they have, but their largest store is usually a supermarket instead of a department store. Some of the bigger ones have both. The particular grocery store we visited was Cold Storage. I was surprised and pleased ... read more

On arrival at Singapore Airport, we were greeted by the cutest baby you have ever seen (we may be a bit biased - but she is gorgeous). Gill finally got to meet her niece Chloe face to face. We were staying with Jenny and Simon whilst were waiting for our Vietnamese visas to be processed. Our first stop was back to their appartment and then off to the pub to catch up with Simon (who was in dire need of Gill's physio services as he had slipped a disc!!!). The next day all the girls went shopping on Orchard Road - including a stop at Marks and Spencer! Jenny had organised for us to have breakfast at Singapore Zoo - which involved sitting down with the orangutangs, whilst they too enjoyed a fruit buffet. Gill decided ... read more

I had planned for a ten-hour lay-over in Singapore on my way to Capetown from Taipei. It was my second time in Singapore, having been there once in 1999, though it was with a tour group. First off, I hate tour groups. They control your time, and you always have to wait for the slowest in the group to get ready. And the Chinese ones at least, they always take you to eat at the Chinese restaurant no matter what country you’re in. I think I could get a more cultural experience from watching a foreign film than by traveling with a tour group. That’s enough of my tirade. Singapore is a smorgasbord of cultures. You start with your native Malays, then pour on some Chinese, dabble on some South Asians, and finally sprinkle some English ... read more