6 months later

I have been utterly useless at keeping up with my "blog", I realised that daily/weekly updates were very dull, so I have left some significant time to build up some good stories and hope to entertain and dazzle you with my latest adventures.

Singapore can sometimes feel like a lonely, isolated place, if you don't leave at least once a month you have a tendency to feel like you're in a huge bubble time warp! Feeling particularly brave one day I decided to do the shameful task of looking for friends "online"-Initially I signed up for expat dating - shortly after I was bombarded with "winks" and "daily matches"..... promptly realisng I was in the wrong place!
Even being skeptical of making friends in cyber-space and the negative connotations it can have, I was lucky enough to come across a post from a Brit (my natural homing instincts drew me in) and a thread of people all just like me, lonely in Singapore, looking for friends. So, I got together for a drink with 4 ladies from the forum - Well actually, I showed up late after heading to wrong bar across town (this is relative to how small Singapore is, suddenly 5 minutes down the road feels like hours, in London i wouldn't think twice about a half hour tube journey). I asked a young local man who worked there for directions of where to go....so he offered to take me on his scooter to the right bar. Anywhere else this could have been a very bad idea......but Singapore Nat had other ideas. He hands me a helmet and off I go on the back of his scooter. I did show up alive thankfully (sorry mum/dad) and was delighted to discover, these ladies were not scary hunchback, hair covered monsters who pray on girls on forums, but were perfectly lovely...and normal!

I have not looked back since, many lunches/ drinks/ art gallery hobnobbing later I find myself established with a great group of wonderful people who fully occupy my time. They are a mix of Brits/ Americans/ Aussie and New Zealanders but the majority being American. We have had a couple of Thanksgivings and I have never laughed so hard since I arrived. I can't even describe what a huge difference it can make to have people to call up on when you're bored/ lonely/ whatever. It's encouraging to know, you are not alone here, and people will quickly form a tight nit support group

In other news, believe it or not, I have been working! I started work for Spectrum who run sports events around Singapore, my main project being Cycle Singapore. Having work has thrown me into normality; a fellow Brit expat in my office told me that she didn't feel like she belonged, or was truly herself until she started working. I have routine, and people to talk to and a purpose.

This Christmas should have been my homecoming, but instead I headed to Sydney for Christmas and New Year with Hayley and Brian. Loved Sydney, was a beautiful place and it was real nice to be back in western culture again - I do love Singapore very much, but it was nice to blend back into the crowd. Also went to visit my Aunty in North of Sydney who I hadn't seen in about 15 years!!! It's amazing what these last 6 months have brought already and I can't wait to see what the next 6 bring, off to Hong Kong for Chinese NY in Feb, and most importantly LONDON in april :)!!! Happy New Year Everybody!

Mount Rinjani.....making it to the top

Bali

We arrived at Kuta, Bali at midnight and find ourselves combing the streets for somewhere to sleep. The great thing about Asia is 9 times out of 10 there's no need to book accommodation in advance. You can just pick up some random man on the street who you think you might trust and he'll take you to the dodgiest room he can find. Thankfully, we only had 5 hours sleep before we were up at 5.30am to make our way to Lombok.

Lombok

We took a ferry ride over to Lombok to reach our hotel in Sengigi where we met up with Chris (our friend from the UK office) and his girlfriend Kate.

Mount Rinjani

Day 1 -

We were up once again at 6am to begin our next 3 day volcano adventure. Our hike started at 601 meters (nearly 2000 feet) at the National Park Entrance where Abdul (our wonderful guide) registered our hike for 3 days. The first part of the walking started off easy, hot and uphil and carrying our backpacks for 3 days worth of clothes. We huffed and puffed up the hill whilst gently being over taken by our 4 porters in flip flops carrying ALL our camping equipment and food as they flew effortlessly up the hill. Abdul told us one of the porters as actually 40 years old. Oh the shame.
We had a couple of rest stops up where the porters would literally whip up a gourmet noodle dish with eggs and vegetables by practically rubbing sticks together. They would find the wood in the jungle bring it back chop it up and then use it to cook our meal. That night we made it up to about 2000 meters (6500 feet) and our porters set up camp for us.

Day 2 -

We reach the craters edge, which is a HUGE crater right in the middle of the volcano which blew some hundred years ago. And left a much smaller"child volcano" which had actually blown just in May and was still smoking!!! Also within the crater was a beautiful blue lake and hot springs. We hiked our way down to the hot springs for a dip and take in the spectacular views. That night we made our way to the summit edge to camp and get ready for our 3am summit!!

Day 3 -

So up we get at 3am (!!!!!) to head out up the summit. Luckily we had to leave the tents and gear at back the camp so we werent weighed down with backpacks. It was pitch black and all you can see on the way up are lines of headlamps slowly hiking upwards. At camp we were at roughly 2700 meters, so we needed to go hike another 1000 meters to reach the top. The summit was nearly completely Volcanic sand which meant 2 steps up and 1 slide down....and its cold. really really cold. The coldest ive been in the 11 weeks ive been in Singapore. Sadly, we were not well equipped. Summer shorts and socks were a bad fashion choice that day.
I can't empahsise enough how hard that last summit really was. I cried once, and threatened to give up 1000 times. It was the most physically challenging thing I have ever done and when you throw the cold into it, you just want to give up. Thankfully our fantastic guide wouldnt allow me to just give up so pretty much dragged me by my hair to the top. I was the first girl to reach the top that day, and Kate and another girl followed. Once we reached the top i realised the reason we were there....Breathtaking, Absolutely incredible to see across all of Lombok at sunrise. I didn't regret any of it for a single second.
We slowly made our way down the mountain right back down to sea level (so basically we had to come down the whole 3746 metres down. It was the first time I actually felt old. My knees ached, my back ached and my feet were crippled. Luckily we had our helpful porters carrying mine and Kate's backpacks down (much to Chris and Brian's jealousy). We got back to our hotel that night barely being able to walk, but feeling pretty proud of ourselves and suitably exhausted.

The next day Brian and I headed back to Bali for our last night before heading back to Singapore. After our Kuta experience we decided to try somewhere new in Bali in the hope that we would experience the exotic beaches everyone had been talking about. We stayed in a sleepy town called Sanur and once again just wondered around to find a decent resort to sleep. Brian treated us to a lovely hotel with bungalow style rooms and a gorgeous pool where we could relax and swim.

Mount Rinjani for one, was absolutely breathtaking. And Lombok was pretty beautiful. Bali on the other hand was sadly disappointing. There were lots and lots of Aussie tourists, and you just find yourself harassed at every corner by "yes, taxi" and "you wan massage"....highly annoying. My overall impression of Indonesia is good food, and friendly locals...but avoid the tourist traps!!

Gambling, Girls and Gorillas - My first visitors

Ok so I am very very lazy and found the Gibbon experience too difficult to squeeze into one little blog. So here it is summarised....Muddy, Smelly, Hot, Beautiful, Leeches (blood), and Chickens. For a detailed and rather funny description of what we did on our trip see http://brisinga.blogspot.com/.

This time however I want to talk about rediscovering the tourist in me. I must admit I haven't been very constructive with my time off as I could have been. I've been here for coming up to 8 weeks and spend most the days shopping and eating. However last week I had Tracy and Clive over 4 short days on a stop over from their holiday in Perth!

On the first morning I treated my guests to their first ever Singaporean breakfast, Runny eggs, Toast with inch thick butter and Coconut jam and Kopi (coffee). Tracy decided against the runny eggs (probably a wise move) and had the other typical breakfast...Peanut butter on toast :)

I think it's safe to say Tracy and Clive were pretty unimpressed by my lack of preparation for their arrival. Unfortunately the weather wasnt really on our side, it rained pretty much everyday....and being the wonderfully prepared tour guide I am, on the first day we walked around the best part of the afternoon with the lonely planet map running down dodgy roads and just generally being lost around China town. When we felt we had wasted enough time we met Brian later that evening at one of Singapore's Top 10 rooftop bars in Chinatown where Brian came and met us for some drinks and dinner at Lau Pat Sa which is our favorite Hawker Center with a live cover band who play every night.

Rooftop bar in Chinatown

The next day we took a trip to Singapore Zoo!!!! Not the most easiest of places to get to from where I live so we had to travel a little out of the city. The nice part about going this way is the MRT, usually underground, comes out of the tunnel to show alot more of suburban Singapore. Which is typically pretty green and high rise buildings set a little further apart than where we live.

After a lovely day at the zoo we went to Raffles Hotel where I finally got to try the Singapore Sling. At a mere $25 dollars (?!?) we pretty much downed the famous cocktail in about 5 seconds. Although I'm pretty pleased that I have tried it, I may not feel the need to sell my kidney to have another....for those of you coming to visit me in the future, I can make you one in my kitchen for a quarter of the price. Later we then took a short taxi ride over to the Marina Bay Hotel. For those of you not in the know, the views from the top of this hotel are supposed to be pretty amazing. People can pay $20 to go up to the bar to pay for another $25 cocktail and not even a glimpse of the infamous infinity pool. However Rain prevented us from going up so we went straight to the Casino!!! The Casino was pretty huge, two floors infact. Tourists and foreigners can enter for free but Locals have to pay $100! Apparently the governments plan to cut "Gambling Addiction" for the locals, and make a ton of money off tourists. Brian really wanted to play the Blackjack, except the $25 minimum bet put him off a little. I pretty much stuck to the Slot machines where I somehow spent $20 dollars and won back none....this is when I decided gambling is not for me.
The final part of our evening involved a trip to the four floors of whores on the Orchard Road. This was probably the most surreal experience of my life. The building was set inside a shopping center with several bars which covered, literally, 4 floors. We were told that the quality of prostitute depended on the altitude, so 1st floor + Not so great and so on. We started on the 1st floor, where we had entertainment in way of dancing girls, who in my and tracy's opinion could have done a lot better. The room was dark with fluorescent grafetti and happy hour beers. Old men would walk in on their own in groups and instantly have a swarm of girls pouring over them. It was pretty horrible to watch. We then went up to the 4th floor of the building swarming with some questionable looking women, and when I say questionable I mean man...or woman....!

On my visitors last day. We decided to head down to China Town to People's Park for a massage. This is another shopping center in Sing where there is one floor filled with shops just for massages (not the creepy kind!) They all try and call you in as you walk by with "special prices" so we picked the one that looked least dodgy. The massage started off with tiny fish eating the skin off you're feet!!! Tracy and Clive were very brave...I decided my fear of fish was too great so pretty much chickened out!. This was followed by being taken to a breezy seated area where we had Foot Reflexology....in my opinion they must have been taking tips from the Thai massages because once again I went from having a chilled foot rub to be pounded on the legs with fists. You tend to come out somewhere between content and relaxed, to confused and bruised.

There are two things I have learned on my first Singapore guinea pigs..1) Preparation...we spent 80% wondering around aimlessly (In my defense I'm still technically a tourist) and 2) Westerners have delicate stomachs...so stay away from runny eggs and Jelly type substances!!! Overall it was great having them here and to rediscover Singapore as a tourist city, as you tend to start taking it for granted the more you settle into routine.

Our first Asian adventure - Chiang Mai

Our trip began at Singapore airport, we took a neat little flight over to Bangkok and a quick transfer up to Chiang Mai. We were to have an evening in CM and 3 nights in Laos for the Gibbon experience.

Thailand was my first experience of "real Asia". Singapore is described as Asia for beginners...now I can see how that's true. CM was noticeably different from anywhere I've ever been before. The culture seemed to just emanate and there were golden temples lining the streets and markets and general hustle and bustle. But what stood out the most was the difference in people (the locals) particularly in comparison to Singapore where people are generally pretty unfriendly. The people of CM were so lovely and willing to help and their English speaking skills were arguably better than people in Sing. Most of the time we would converse just for directions, but when we were looking for a particular clothes market the tuk tuk driver's sister came over and talked for about 20 minutes about better markets and tailors. In this case they were genuinely being helpful, but we quickly began to realize how and when we were bring taken for a ride. One thing to be weary of our the "Tourist prices"...always agree the price first!!!

Our first day in Chiang Mai was pretty much spent seeing every temple going. First of all I would like to say, they are incredible and do make you feel very humbled and wish to learn more about Buddhism. The second thing would be after you've seen one amazing temple, you've pretty much seen them all. We saw a lot of temples that day....

We left for Laos early the next morning which was a 6 hour coach ride to the border. Having heard nightmares about cramped rickety old buses we were pleasantly surprised to find a cool air conditioned bus with plenty of room and a waitress! She would stagger down the aisle on our mountainous bumpy road serving us Water and Crackers....sounds like prison food, but most people get nothing!! We arrived suitably refreshed at the Laos border to begin our next adventure (Laos blog to come).
After 3 days in the jungle we returned to the shores of Thailand. The amazing thing about Asia is 9 times out of 10 you don't need to book anything in advance. We still had a 6 hour bus back to CM and no way of getting there. We managed to find ourselves in a cheap minivan filled with only 6 other people to take us back to CM. This was slightly different from a spacious coach, but they got us back in under 5 hours arriving at around midnight! This was perfect as it meant we had a whole day in CM the next day. So we decided to go for a "half day tour" arranged by one of the many many tourist operators. The half day tour involved a private driver who would drive us to the Elephant Village and "Orchard farm" (Dull, I won't talk about this). we were also able to see tigers!!! The tigers were pretty scary...except for the fact they appeared to be very heavily drugged. We got 15 minutes inside the cage with the wild beasts who could barely lift their heads off the ground while the guys in charge would bash them over the head with sticks. After our big cat experience our driver whisked us off to the elephant village. This was probably the most surreal experience of my life. We discovered that elephants not only play football, but they can paint pictures and throw darts (?!).The next day we had a flight to catch, but not before squeezing in a quick Thai Massage....scrap massage...Thai Torture...it was like being pulled to death limb from limb by ye old stretching machine. Brian for some reason remained mellow and relaxed, but the minute I was lying face down on the pillow with my arms pulled back behind me being yanked up and down like a seal, I got caught sight of Brian's face and lost control, pure hysterics. I kinda felt sorry for the girl, but I think we were past appropriate when she had her foot practically in my groin. Needless to say, I ended up feeling like I had just been in a boxing match (literally, she punched me in the armpit) rather than relaxed and calm....I'll stick to a foot rub next time I think.

I would definitely visit Chiang Mai again, it was so green and mountainous and beautiful. The
locals are lovely and it felt strangely safe. Laos blog still to come...prepare yourselves for leeches!!!

Last July post

I can’t believe Ive been here for 3 weeks now coming up to 4. The homesickness has improved and I’m finally starting feel more at home and apart of daily life.

My most notable part of last week was that I got a job!!!! Never thought I’d say this but I literally cannot wait to start work. As much as I love to spend the days shopping and sight-seeing I NEED to work and find routine. Many people have remarked on how I got so lucky to find a job so quickly, and I must say that is partially true. Within one week of arriving I have an interview, and the following week I have the job. The only part I find lucky in this situation is that I didn’t have to worry for too long. Money has a habit of coming out pretty fast and not going in so quickly when you’re not working. And with my daily Starbucks coffee and muffin habit ($11) plus the “cheer myself up” items it’s clear I either need a millionaire husband…or I need to work.

Last weekend Brian and I took a boat ride to Pulua Ubin, which is just a short ferry ride to get to (ferry is a loose term, more like a rickety fishing boat). Ubin is just a little day trip place which is heavily forested and has wild boar and lizards roaming around. Considering its a get away island, it was very quiet and seemed a world away from the urban Singapore. You can hire bikes for as little as $5 and tour the whole island. We lasted around 5 hours with a few stops to take some nice pictures.We also visited an 80 year old temple there which had little shrines all over the place and you could hear chanting songs...it was really lovely.

Meet the Locals -They can be kinda rude!

This is known as "Singlish" which is basically English with weird grammar and the word "lah" thrown in at the end

So, I thought id mention a little more about the people here in Singapore. To say that Sing is a melting pot is an understatement. Not only do the expats have a clear prominence in certain parts of the city, but then there is the mix of Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese, and Indonesian etc. I still can’t pin point who are the true Singaporeans, but I can tell you a bit about their habits; I think I mentioned once before how SLOW everyone walks here. Young or old, they walk at 1 mile an hour and leave no room to get around. It is very frustrating, particularly as I walk pretty fast heat or no heat.

The nice thing about Singapore is not just that it is an English speaking country and that they use English plugs, but that everyone drives on the left (easy to remember when crossing the street). However, I’m pretty sure back home on the escalators we stand to the right and people walk on the left. In Sing people must stand on the left so people can pass on the right. In moments of confusion I’ve literally had people barge pass me on account of my standing on the wrong side. Which indecently brings me to the personal space issue…people really have no idea about personal space. I refer mainly to queues and the MRT but no matter where or how much room you have, someone will be breathing right down your neck. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a Londoner (no song reference here) or if that’s just me, but I like having some room!! Not only that but generally, and I can’t this for everyone, but for the most part people just don’t smile at you here. The theory “Smile and the world smiles with you” doesn’t seem to apply.

Raffles hotel - Come and meet a Brit

Feeling a de-motivated this week, I followed mum’s advice and decided to get myself out and about. I took the MRT down to Raffle’s Hotel “Long Bar”. The bar is primarily indoors, but you can sit outside. Considering the heat coupled with the fact raffles is on a busy high street, I decided to sit indoors.

The first thing I notice upon walking in is how many westerners there are, and strangely enough, I had more stares here than I do on the MRT being the only blonde white person there. It was packed even at 3pm on a Wednesday I could barely find a seat. When I did find a seat I ordered a $9 latte and gazed around the room only to see British families. All bright lobster from too much sun, ALL ordering Singapore Slings. This kinda took away the magic for me, originally being one of the top 10 things I wanted to experience, I realized that everyone does it, and it costs $25 for the privilege. All tables come with a big box of Monkey nuts to snack on which is when I noticed the second strange thing about Raffles. Once you’ve left the table the waitresses come by and swipe all the shells on to the floor, so the entire bar was crunching with shells. This results in dive bomb attacks from the many pigeons floating around inside. Much to say, I’m glad to say I have been and to know perhaps not to visit again.

Tomorrow we are off to Chiang Mai and Laos for a week so I look forward to telling you all about it.

Finding Routine

I have reached week 2 here in Singapore, and it’s gone strangely slow. I’ve crossed over from being in holiday mode to “now what”. It’s been very up and down since I arrived with Brian leaving Australia and the fact that I keep student sleeping hours (Going to bed at 1-2, waking up midday).

Last weekend we celebrated Brian’s 29+13months birthday. We arranged a little get together with Sushi and Blueberry Margaritas (Amazing…look into it!!). We also took a trip to “Sentosa”, a

man made island resort which is pretty easy to get to via train/monorail/bus. It’s almost like a mini Disneyland without Mickey and the high entry price. It’s free to access the island and beaches but you have to pay to get involved with activities like Segways/ luge rides/ Universal Studios and a “seaworld” experience. The highlight of this trip was a naturally the Dolphin show. You can pay to swim with them too….something I have mentally marked as my top thing to do while i'm here.

Other than the weekends, which are generally full of lots of activity, the week days can be somewhat dull. Overtime I’ve realized that my week is generally as good as I make it. I’ve started to spread out the easiest possible activities over several days at

once to justify having something to do. My most notable trip this week was to Carrefour. To our American counterparts this is a Walmart type thing, the UK doesn't seem to have an equivalent that I am aware of. But basically this is just a huge hyper market with everything you could ever want for your household but super cheap. This was the moment I realized how sad my life is when I got excited over my $7 shoe rack purchase (but now our shoes are so nice and tidy!!!) At the moment our 1600 square foot apartment echoes with very little furniture and just needs to be a little homier so I am slowly adding to the collection day by day. Another notable part of my week was installing our cable. This excitement died pretty much after I realized it was double episodes of American comedy and chat shows on repeats 4 times a day!!

I’ve also started to get a lot better at being in my own company. A lot of the time I actually really enjoy it, I can wander around wherever I want to. And I’ve started to get into the habit of spending afternoons at a coffee shop with a book, an ice coffee and a HUGE muffin. Because I’m “on holiday” I feel as though I have every excuse to go and eat a big piece of cake or muffin….it’s become my highlight. I would never do that at home so why I’ve decided that it’s ok to do that here is beyond me. Watching the locals since I’ve been here, it seems as though this is something Singaporeans love to do. You can turn a corner without finding a dessert shop, and very little in the way of sandwiches or savory food.

I think the most unusual part of my lifestyle is how easy and laidback things are. On an evening you can go for dinner for $3, or go for a dip on your rooftop pool (not that I’m braggingJ) It’s like being on holiday, but with a bit of work thrown in. We do have a very small pool, and it only goes about neck high deep, but I don’t care. It may not be the best pool in the world, but its right downstairs, it’s open top, and it’s available anytime.

Anyway, I am so enjoying my blog writing and I’m also pleased people read it! But the longer I’ve been here the more I lose sight of what I want to write about, especially as we’re now settling in to a routine. I am really very excited about Brian’s birthday trip to Laos next weekend. We will be travelling up to the northern part of the country via a day in Chiang Mai (for those of you who have no idea of this place, don’t feel bad...unless its just me, it’s not common knowledge, and yes Laos is a country). Thanks to my trusty Lonely Planet book we can follow all the typical touristy place. We’re going through rain season…so yeah…let’s see how that goes…

My favourite Seaworld Picture....

Food & Shopping

Today I am here to talk about Food and Shopping. This literally seems to be the two main Singaporean past times, at least this is what I have gathered.

SHOPPING
According to my research there are approximately 250 Shopping centers in Singapore. They are linked to every MRT station, and you will find one everywhere. They have shopping centers literally dedicated to specific needs, electronics, sports equipment etc. These shopping centers are pretty much what you would normally expect with your typical high street shops.

But seriously, even the Trafford centre is a tiny little spec compared to here. There are so many levels and different departments you can get completely, utterly lost. You can imagine my excitement when I turn a corner and find a Zara, or a Mango. But one strange thing I realized in my short experience are the security levels. I was walking IN to Zara and the security barriers beeped. Not having ever stepped into this shop before, it was unlikely that I have had the opportunity to take anything. But despite any common sense the lady pulled everything out of my bag right there in the doorway all over the floor. Once she discovered I had nothing (shocking!)…I was sent on my way. The changing rooms are also a little strange, they actually take all the items off the hanger before you go in, which seems to mean a lot of extra work for no reason.
But for the REAL shopping, the Olympics of shopping…..you want to venture down to a place called Orchard Road. This is very much like Oxford Street but with a really big budget. Its one

long strip with a few more shopping centers thrown in for good measure (I think there are about 9/10 along this road). The shopping centers are for the lighter wallet, Topshop, New Look, M&S. But the Orchard Road high street is dedicated to Dior, Chanel, YSL, Gucci, Fendi, and more. I avoided entering any of these places as it is quite obvious just by looking at me that I don’t belong there. But a girl can dream!

FOOD
Well, I really did want to talk about food, but it really is unavoidable. It’s fascinating really. I already mentioned the hawker stands (food courts) but you can actually have different types of hawker stands depending where you go. You have the popular quick lunch time/dinner turnover court and then you have the local courts. Chris and I took a wander down to our local hawker stand which on first glance, you would most likely cross the street to avoid. But we actually discovered these are quite delightful. The chefs are so willing to help, and they bring over your food and will let you pay from the comfort of your chair. We also discovered the joys of cheap beer (a large bottle was $5, compared to $20 bottle of wine).

But, as much as I do love all the Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian foods…it seems to be a little tough on the stomach. When I was out shopping all I really craved for lunch was a plain M&S sandwich, no thrills, just bread. Sadly, they don’t provide this service in Singapore M&S so I settled for spending $6 on a Starbucks sandwich. That was my best meal that day. It’s also nearly impossible (or at least I haven’t worked it out yet) to get your 5 a day. I’ve only been here one week and I’m craving a bit of broccoli, Spinach, Anything! I don’t think Pak Choi counts when it’s smothered in oil and fried.

The weirdest food I am yet to experience here are the “Porridges”. Chicken, frog, pork, you name it. During the week I also took a trip to Ikea (!!??) which was much like home, however instead of meatballs, you get a nice bowl of chicken porridge!!!