Advertisement
Published: February 2nd 2006
Edit Blog Post
We admit it. We've been very bad about posting lately. Sorry to all that may have worried. You now get a longer than usual edition for your reading enjoyment.
The good news is that even though we arrived in Asia the day after the Lunar New Year (January 28), the celebration continued through this week. The bad news is that everything has been closed for the public holidays (we've had a real habit of hitting public holidays). This has made finding Internet a challenge. Chris also spent about 4 days trying to find an open medical clinic that could do her monthly blood test for her medication. After being turned away from 4 hospitals because of the public holiday, she found one this morning. She feels a great sense of accomplishment and got to know Singapore and Kuala Lumpur a bit better due to the experience.
After our great Australia Day celebration, we took the tram into Melbourne the next day. Simon joined Justin for a visit to the
Australian Centre for the Moving Image to take in the special exhibit on Stanley Kubrick. Meanwhile, Chris walked across Federation Square to get her museum fix at the Ian Potter Art Centre and then met
up with the guys for lunch. Simon went back to work, and we basically spent the afternoon walking in a big loop around the city - from the tennis grounds where the Australian Open semi-finals were about to be played, along the river, along Collins Street, north past with the Melbourne Museum, and then back down to catch the tram. The heat in the morning was intense before the clouds broke in the afternoon for our daily Australian rain shower.
That evening we headed with Simon to the Holmes a Court farm in Daylesford for some of the most relaxing time we've had on this trip. The kids love the farm, and we did too.
Simon and Katrina have a herd of sheep and a donkey, and until very recently they also had a mule (we were sorry to hear about his run-in with a bolt of lighting). We met the donkey (surviving just fine), enjoyed the stars, and relaxed in the country environment. As if that wasn't enough, Simon and Katrina fed us really well at several great restaurants in the area. The King's Arms sounds British, but the food was some of the best Mediterranean we've had.
Katrina and Chris even snuck off at one of Daylesford's spas for a massage, before we headed off to the airport for Singapore.
Our arrival into Singapore couldn't have been more startling as we made our way with our packs through a bustling Little India at 11pm. When we got to our hostel, we fell asleep immediately. Throughout our 2 days in Singapore, we were continually surprised by this city best known to us before as a place with a large police presence and strict penalties (remember the guy caned for chewing gum). Actually, we rarely saw police and no one was walking around looking intimidated - plenty of jaywalking and stuff like that.
We managed our now customary walking tour of the city, taking in Little India, Chinatown, the Colonial District, and the River area, and caught an evening bumboat cruise out to the harbour to see the Lunar New Year fireworks. This was really great, but it caused us to hurry dinner. The river area is full of really touristy restaurants, and we ran into the closest. You know that a place called Brewerkz isn't going to feature regional specialities. As we thoroughly enjoyed our hot
wings (actually an amazing rendition of Buffalo Wings considering there is no Frank's Red Hot in Singapore) and fried calamari, we tried not to think about the fact that this meal cost more than our hostel. After the boat trip, we walked through a New Year's festival on the river, and ended up with a drink at the Raffles Hotel, an old landmark hotel in Singapore.
In addition to the fireworks and festivals, we found that our timing with New Year's offered another perk. Two days a year, the President opens up his estate to the public. So we lined up with hundreds of other people and walked into the Istana estate for a peak not too dissimilar from a visit to the White House (but Istana has a 9 hole golf course for a lawn).
We took the overnight train to Kuala Lumpur. This interesting experience (28 beds per sleeper car) was made a lot better by the bottle of wine that Simon and Katrina gave us. For two days now we've been on what seems like an endless tour of shopping malls in KL. It's either too hot or pouring rain, so this seems to be
the favorite local pass time.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.154s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 7; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0857s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
Z
non-member comment
Not the tallest towers anymore
You'll be happy to know that the Petronas towers aren't the tallest in the world anymore. Taipei 101 is now the tallest, and no spires are involved.