Days 16 and 17 - Singapore/Melacca
Friday, August 27, 2010
After my big day yesterday (and complete lack of sleep due to an aching heel), I didn't wake until about 9am, once both Amy and Owen had left for work. I put a load of washing on, had some of the cafe style toast with vegemite, and surfed the web for a while.
By about 10:30 I was ready to go, and MRTed it out to the HarbourFront, to catch a cable car. The cable car goes across to a mountain one way, and then to Sentosa Island in the other (where Universal Studios is). After a five minute stop on the mountain, I then crossed back to Sentosa Island and went for a walk across the island. It's like a huge 'attraction-world' - they'd created a huge Merlion replica; had numerous beaches; ziplines; biking etc. After trekking half the island I caught a monorail to the Universal Studios stop where I was given a freebie. It looked like a casino chip, however it turned out to be a tin of peppermints! An lunch of Toast Box (kaya French toast) followed, and then I decided to try to get tickets to the gymnastics at the Youth Olympic Games.
It took about 45 minutes, switching lines 3 times, to get out to the gymnastics venue, along with a walk in the scorching heat. When I arrived, I was told that the event was sold out but I was welcome to join the queue (in the sun!) for standby tickets. Um, no thanks, wasn't that interested. I was quite happy to return to Amy and Owens and spend the afternoon playing on the web, working out my travel plans for the next few days.
I had arranged to meet Amy and Owen at 6pm at the Bugis MRT. As it was my last night in Singapore, they were taking me to a highly recommended Mexican restaurant (I LOVE Mexican food). The restaurant was empty when we entered, although soon filled up. Rather than order my traditional vegetarian burrito, I went for a 'brandy snap-esque' potato pancake with frijoles and rice on the side, and we shared 'burnt' cheese with burritos as a starter. The food was absolutely beautiful! Apparently the cook was from Mexico, any everything was made from scratch. Everything was very light, as opposed to greasy and Westernised, with tantalising flavours.
Post dinner we went for a walk through Bugis, which is the Arab district of Singapore. There were markets, lots of offerings and incense burning for the 'Hungry Ghosts', and I managed to fit in an ice-cream sandwich. This is literally ice-cream in bread, although the bread is not quite the same as the bread we know, it's coloured and sugary. I remember they had a challenge on the Amazing Race to sell 25 ice-cream sandwiches, and it's no surprise that they were snapped up very quickly, especially at only $1 each!
Wednesday morning I had to say good-bye to Amy and Owen. I loved Singapore and could have stayed there for a lot longer, but there's more of Asia out there for me to see! I gave them a box of Cookie Museum cookies as a thank-you.
I taxi-ed it out to the Lavender Street Bus Terminal and unfortunately missed the bus to Melaka by about 2 minutes, so had to wait almost and hour and a half for the next one. The ride was fine, with the bus half empty, and we pulled into Melaka at about 3:45. Into a taxi to get to the guesthouse - at this stage I was absolutely starving as I'd had breakfast at 7am and nothing since! Of course, since I was starving, the taxi driver got lost. I ended up making him drop me in Jonker Street, the main street in Melaka, and finding it myself. The guesthouse was hidden, with no signs - only a doorbell to ring! When I'd been looking for accommodation in Melaka, all of the hostels looked to be quite dodgy, so I'd decided to pay a little extra for a nice place, single room to boot! The place, Number Twenty Guesthouse, was great. It was a large Dutch mansion with lots of exposed wood, and very minimalist furniture. It had a great book exchange too, where I was able to catch up on UK and Malaysian Cleos!!
After dropping my bags off, the first thing I had to do was eat. Of course, I turned the wrong way to find a restaurant and ended up in an older area, but I was that hungry that I stopped at an Indian hole in the wall and had a dosai (crepe) and iced milo. That was enough to sustain me for a walking tour of Melaka, although the heat didn't help. I don't think I've ever been that hot in my life - it was 5pm and felt like 50 degress with 99% humidity! I walked along the water-front, up a hill to an old fort, and through some picturesque parks before deciding the heat was too much. Once in the air-conditioned comfort of the guesthouse, I didn't want to leave so forfeited dinner for a couple of cold drinks. The heat and the issue with the taxi driver had put me against Melaka as soon as I'd arrived, so I decided I would head to KL first thing in the morning.
By about 10:30 I was ready to go, and MRTed it out to the HarbourFront, to catch a cable car. The cable car goes across to a mountain one way, and then to Sentosa Island in the other (where Universal Studios is). After a five minute stop on the mountain, I then crossed back to Sentosa Island and went for a walk across the island. It's like a huge 'attraction-world' - they'd created a huge Merlion replica; had numerous beaches; ziplines; biking etc. After trekking half the island I caught a monorail to the Universal Studios stop where I was given a freebie. It looked like a casino chip, however it turned out to be a tin of peppermints! An lunch of Toast Box (kaya French toast) followed, and then I decided to try to get tickets to the gymnastics at the Youth Olympic Games.
It took about 45 minutes, switching lines 3 times, to get out to the gymnastics venue, along with a walk in the scorching heat. When I arrived, I was told that the event was sold out but I was welcome to join the queue (in the sun!) for standby tickets. Um, no thanks, wasn't that interested. I was quite happy to return to Amy and Owens and spend the afternoon playing on the web, working out my travel plans for the next few days.
I had arranged to meet Amy and Owen at 6pm at the Bugis MRT. As it was my last night in Singapore, they were taking me to a highly recommended Mexican restaurant (I LOVE Mexican food). The restaurant was empty when we entered, although soon filled up. Rather than order my traditional vegetarian burrito, I went for a 'brandy snap-esque' potato pancake with frijoles and rice on the side, and we shared 'burnt' cheese with burritos as a starter. The food was absolutely beautiful! Apparently the cook was from Mexico, any everything was made from scratch. Everything was very light, as opposed to greasy and Westernised, with tantalising flavours.
Post dinner we went for a walk through Bugis, which is the Arab district of Singapore. There were markets, lots of offerings and incense burning for the 'Hungry Ghosts', and I managed to fit in an ice-cream sandwich. This is literally ice-cream in bread, although the bread is not quite the same as the bread we know, it's coloured and sugary. I remember they had a challenge on the Amazing Race to sell 25 ice-cream sandwiches, and it's no surprise that they were snapped up very quickly, especially at only $1 each!
Wednesday morning I had to say good-bye to Amy and Owen. I loved Singapore and could have stayed there for a lot longer, but there's more of Asia out there for me to see! I gave them a box of Cookie Museum cookies as a thank-you.
I taxi-ed it out to the Lavender Street Bus Terminal and unfortunately missed the bus to Melaka by about 2 minutes, so had to wait almost and hour and a half for the next one. The ride was fine, with the bus half empty, and we pulled into Melaka at about 3:45. Into a taxi to get to the guesthouse - at this stage I was absolutely starving as I'd had breakfast at 7am and nothing since! Of course, since I was starving, the taxi driver got lost. I ended up making him drop me in Jonker Street, the main street in Melaka, and finding it myself. The guesthouse was hidden, with no signs - only a doorbell to ring! When I'd been looking for accommodation in Melaka, all of the hostels looked to be quite dodgy, so I'd decided to pay a little extra for a nice place, single room to boot! The place, Number Twenty Guesthouse, was great. It was a large Dutch mansion with lots of exposed wood, and very minimalist furniture. It had a great book exchange too, where I was able to catch up on UK and Malaysian Cleos!!
After dropping my bags off, the first thing I had to do was eat. Of course, I turned the wrong way to find a restaurant and ended up in an older area, but I was that hungry that I stopped at an Indian hole in the wall and had a dosai (crepe) and iced milo. That was enough to sustain me for a walking tour of Melaka, although the heat didn't help. I don't think I've ever been that hot in my life - it was 5pm and felt like 50 degress with 99% humidity! I walked along the water-front, up a hill to an old fort, and through some picturesque parks before deciding the heat was too much. Once in the air-conditioned comfort of the guesthouse, I didn't want to leave so forfeited dinner for a couple of cold drinks. The heat and the issue with the taxi driver had put me against Melaka as soon as I'd arrived, so I decided I would head to KL first thing in the morning.
Post a Comment