Before we get started I do feel like I need to issue a disclaimer about the trip: it wasn't that crazy. If you were hoping to hear stories about my run-ins with prostitutes (Philippines), getting stuck in a monstrous national park after dark/closing time (Taiwan), getting hit on by dudes at a club (Japan), or watching old men try and kiss your female travel companion (Korea....ohhh Korea), well you are out of luck. No crazy people, no epic planning or decision-making fails by yours truly, no nothing. I'm gonna attribute that to avoiding liquor in all forms and avoiding liquor imbibing individuals. Sorry folks. You have been warned.
The trip started early, early, early. A 10am flight from Incheon - arriving 2 hours prior to departure to leave time for immigration - 1.5 hours to get to the airport - 1 hour for shower, breakfast and prep = 5:30am wake up. Uggg. But its a 9hr flight span (with layover) to Singapore, so there was no choice but to be an early riser. But outside of the early start, the was smooooooooooth. No epic flooding in Seoul on the way to the airport, no making it to the terminal just in time for last call. Got there with plenty of time to spare and was through immigration even faster than usual, thanks to a change in immigration policy that doesn't force me to buy a re-entry visa permit everytime I leave the country. 30 bucks and 30min-1hour at the airport office saved. What's not to like?
The flights themselves weren't crazy either. 3 hours for Korea to Hong Kong, then 3 hours for Hong Kong to Singapore. I was a little annoyed at first at being given seats by the emergency exit doors and the extra responsibility that goes along with said seats, but then I realized it was a compliment. When I arrived at the ticket counter, the people working there must have thought, "Wow, this guy is far and away the most physically fit, the strongest, the most able and most virile person on the flight" and thus rightfully saddled me with the responsibility of opening the heavy door during an emergency. So, thanks Cathay Pacific. And the job was certainly mine alone, as the two folks sitting on either side slept for the entirety of the flight. And I mean it. They only stirred when physically poked by the stewardess about their meals and about putting away their tray tables during departure and arrival. This hibernation of sorts would be unusual in any other country. But I live in a country where a heavy majority of students would list "sleeping" as their favorite hobby/interest, so its simply par for the course. They like to sleep here.
I was seated near children for both flights and they never fail to entertain. On the first flight, we had a girl that wouldn't stop crying for 20 minutes or so, yet the heavy sleepers on both sides of me did not stir (had they not roused when poked, I would have thought they were dead). Descent was interesting as the parents chose not to strap the infant into the seat belt, despite the pleas of the flight attendants, and instead held them in their arms. During descent. You know, that time when the plane slows down violently at times, jerks up and down, and generally moves unexpectedly. And you are choosing to hold the child in your arms. Wow. So much wrong with that. You talk about how valuable children are....Act like it.
On the second flight, we had a young infant who was vomiting randomly. The parents claimed that the boy was just fine and that he just started throwing up all of a sudden once he got on the plane. Ohhhh good, some mysterious super bug hits the flight and I'll have to spend the whole trip in quarantine in Singapore.
However, nobody ended up getting sick (that I know of) and we arrived in Singapore with zero complications. Now we got to take the subway to downtown. Gotta buy my subway ticket first. 4 Singapore dollars...okay, I'll just break out my Singapore money. Ohhh, the exchange lady only gave me 100 dollar bills. I'm sure the machine will break hundreds. No? It only breaks 10 dollar bills? Thats just...incredibly logical. Damn. Well, looks like I could really use a frozen yogurt from the yogurt stand. The yogurt costs 4 dollars? Well, here's a hundred for you my good man. Those stink eyes are completely uncalled for though, I'm sure people pay for ice cream and happy meals with hundreds all the time.
After some subway traveling and transferring, I found myself in the Little India district. And it was awesome. Except for that whole not having rooms to sleep in. Guess everybody else thought it was super awesome too. That and I arrived at 10pm on a Saturday. So after finding that all the hostels in the area are fully booked (all 4), I was directed to a hotel that did have rooms. Except they were 60 dollars. The currency exchange is currently 1$ = 1.3 Singapore dollars. So when we do the math, 60 singapore dollars = way too much money for a dumpy hotel room. Not to say it was that bad, as I've stayed in much worse. But for that much money? I could have probably bought a hotel in the Philippines for that price. Moral of the story: Singapore is really expensive. Like America expensive. Booooo.
Sunday the 16th was my first full day in Singapore, so what did I do? I got the hell out. I'm just kidding Singapore, although I did leave the country. The plan was originally to go to the airport, fly to Kuala Lumpur, then fly or bus to the resort island, then quickly commence with vegging on the beach. I had done at least 3 or 4 minutes of planning and thinking about this, so nothing could possibly go wrong. I was prepared.
I woke up relatively early, in order to get moving on my way in good time, and hopped into the awesome shower in my awesome hotel room to find that there was no hot water, which was amazing given that if they just took the water outside and let it sit in the sun for 10 minutes, they would have hot water. Its that warm outside. Here's a pic of my awesome bathroom/shower.
You can't see it from the pic, but there is a light socket in the shower, so you don't have to shower in the dark. It was sans light bulb. Super glad I paid 60 bucks for that room. Ouch.
But because I was in Little India and surrounded by wonderful food, i didn't stay grumpy for very long. While I was a little internally conflicted by eating breakfast at a vegetarian restaurant, it was delicious enough to make me forget momentarily that no creature died to make this meal.
Sadly, I can't tell you the name of the meal, but thats not my job. I just eat it. And I'm good at what I do. Crispy bread with several sauces is a good enough name for me.
With breakfast finished, it was time to head to the airport to catch a flight to Malaysia. So back on the subway we went. By this point with a little bit of traveling under my belt, I was realizing just what I liked so much about Singapore: Variety. Now, my friends back home will scoff and say "Well, duh. People dress differently. They look differently, act differently, speak differently, etc." Not everywhere they don't. Remember, in Korea the name of the game is not variety, its oneness/unity. And that isn't that hard to accomplish when 90% or so of the population has the same racial identity, the same cultural upbringing, the same religion (well, there's 2 in Korea), the same language, etc, etc I could go on. Which leaves Korea feeling (and I know this is harsh but) bland sometimes. Variety is the spice of life, they say. And Singapore has got some spice. With a population that's 65% Chinese descent, 20% Malay descent, and 10ish% Indian, you already have some variety. But then because its a large business hub you get folks for everywhere else. The neat thing was that everybody knows English and understood English, but on the subway and in public, nobody was speaking it, as it was basically their second language. Mandarin, Cantonese, Malay, and all the various Indian languages? It was wonderful. Now I know this will upset some American purists who want Americans to speak only American and no other language, so help them God, but I would love if America became like this in the future, where everybody can speak English but it may not be their first language or even primary language for everyday use.
The only problem? There were almost no white people anywhere. Hahah, just kidding. I don't give a shit about that. The subways were full of "minorities" and I seemed to be the only white guy. Although obviously the "minority" label doesn't make any sense because they are very much in the majority and I'm the minority. Which kept reminding me of a South Park episode I saw a few days before the trip where Cartman is freaking out about all the minorities at the waterpark and Kyle explains to him that if there are more of them than him, then they aren't minorities, Cartman is. Which then lead to this humorous song. Enjoy.
Yeah, I might have been singing that song to myself on the subway. Love you South Park. Super rascist song, but damn its catchy. But could the Singaporeans in turn have been singing that song about me getting the hell out of their "waterpark"?....head explodes. I did see a few people watching it on their cell phones, so maybe.
Anyways, I arrived at the ticket counter at the airport, all set to jet out, only to find that they were all out of tickets. For the entire day. Damnit, my 3-4 minutes of intense planning didn't take into account the possibility of tickets being sold out. So back into town I traveled to catch a bus, which, as it turned out, could be picked up from the station just down the street from where my hotel was. Total time wasted on subway: 1.5 hours. Stupid, stupid, stupid. As it was now lunch time, on my way to the bus terminal I stopped for lunch at a little cafeteria. Little did I know they were selling....dun dun dun....Korean food! Yes, I didn't realize until I got my food that it was Korean food or was supposed to be. Damn you!!!
The food was average but the whole thing amused me, as it was a perfect example of how nutty a hodgepodge of cultures and stuff Singapore is. I was eating a Korean-ish dish, with kimchi, that also featured Japanese miso soup, served to me by a woman at the counter who spoke no English and only Chinese, the customers were all Chinese descent, and across the street was the edge of the cities Muslim district/region. Yeah. Think about it.
Well, things didn't go exactly as planned at the bus terminal either, as I arrived around 12:30pm and the soonest buses left at....3:00pm. Crap again. So I wandered over to the nearby park to relax, lay in the grass, enjoy the weather and of course, to creep on the other people there.
Honestly, I thought the photo came out pretty well with the couple in it. And if I'm not going to take pictures of myself, I should at least take pictures of some humans, right?
Soon enough the time came and I caught my bus. Now, I've ridden on some pretty lousy buses while on vacation and stuff is expensive in Singapore, so I didn't expect my $35 to go very far, but boy was I wrong. Check out this ride:
We even had comfy seats and personal TVs. I've been spoiled.
The ride itself wasn't long and way too slow. We got held up at immigration when crossing from Singapore to Malaysia (fyi Singapore is an island and thus connected to Malaysia via bridge) for over an hour, then our drivers stopped a bunch of times. The view was really good as it was mostly palm tree plantations and forest for the entire way. And the highways were wonderful. Quality wide highways the whole way. I can easily say that the highways were much nicer than America's big highways (but that's not saying much is it?).
We did get to stop at a rest stop and I chowed down on some food that approximated quesadillas in that it featured chicken grilled inside some bread, but in this case they used Indian breads.
We even found another Robot in disguise. This Autobot chose a little bit more wisely than the Mitsubishi delivery truck in Taipei. This guy chose a monster tour bus.
After 6 hours, we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And again my .2 seconds of planning in my travel book failed me again. I had assumed I was coming into the primary bus terminal and figured my directions from there, but apparently that terminal was closed. So i ended up on the other side of town and had no idea where i was. Man, am I good at this traveling thing or what? So I wandered aimlessly for a while until i came to some fancy hotels, restaurants and the monorail. Now, I certainly should be able to find where I am on my map. Only I couldn't. So I walked through nicer and nicer areas, but apparently they were so brand new that they weren't listed on the map. Finally I found the Hilton and that f'n had to be listed. And it was. Victory at long last.
So I backtracked to an area that had some hostels and hotels and wandered a bit, cuz I'm dumb and can't just pick a place, until I finally ended up a pretty nice place. At this point I was tired enough to take almost anything. And this room was a bit better than that. Hooray, a nice bed. And it didn't cost me $60 bucks either. Even better.
With the hotel booked it was time to wander around the area to see what everybody was up to. Turns out they were all sitting in the restaurants and bars and watching English Premier League football. Awesome, I'll just sit down to watch.....ohhh, its just Liverpool playing. I don't know, maybe I'll just go watch those two rats wrestling in the alley. Or that plastic bag drifting around the sidewalk. Or maybe I'll watch the paint dry on one of the hostels. Tough choice it was, but in the end I settled on the Liverpool game as the bartenders offered to give me free beer to just sit down and watch the game. And as luck would have it, a real football club was playing immediately after Liverpool's game. So I got to see Man United play as well as Liverpool "play", if you can call it that. I did find out that beers are mighty pricey in Malaysia too. Not really expensive in dollars (roughly $4 American dollars per), but certainly pricey in relation to prices for other items in Malaysia. A quality meal with more than enough food for me: around 10 ringgits. One beer: 12 ringgits. Yeah, ouch. When the beer is more than the entire meal, you have a problem. When the game finished it was off to bed, as I had a busy day ahead of me.
Pics: see Singapore and Malaysia photo album 1
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