Pit Stop in Singapore!

Brellowgirl
Apr 5, 2016
14 min read

So I can actually blame no wifi for not being able to post. Teehee. I'm out on the island of Borneo doing some jungle treks and cool stuff like that. I have some moments of wifi and wanted to catch you guys up! Even though I haven't been posting, I've still been writing so let's go back in time to March...

3.14.16

So yesterday after I watched David pitch I had to go out and help with some groups that had come in. It was raft-building day so the group was divided into two teams and they had to race to complete a raft in 45 minutes that could hold them all. Each team got four barrels, 10 bamboo poles and some string. I learned how to tie the poles together and then secure the barrels on, it was pretty fun. I was in charge of standing down the river a bit with a throw bag just in case the raft floated away when launched. While I was standing on the river bank I saw some really weird creatures. They were playing in the mud, about the size of a finger. They were gray and looked like a cross between a shrimp, lizard and frog. They were digging holes in the mud and jumping around but they also had long tails. They gave me the heebs. I found out they’re a kind of fish called mud skippers and that they’re tasty. BLEGH. I also saw a beautiful small crab that was half jet black and then half of a vibrant red color. Think Mickey Mouse colors.

In the evening I helped MC another campfire show. It was a big group and they needed to be coerced into getting up and dancing. Sigh, adults.

In the morning we had a sunrise hike to Banana Hill! I’m up at 4:30am to get some clothes on to go for a hike. I’ve been to Banana Hill once already but I was keen on seeing the sun rise at least once while here so I figured I’d use the opportunity to go. It was just me, tee and Jason who led the group so Jason and I stayed at the back while tee walked in the front. It was SO extremely dark out and there were some crazy noises coming from all sides while we walked through the palm plantations. At one point I thought it’s be cool to take a picture of the moon and the stars so I stopped and the rest of the group kept walking. It took so long to take the picture that they were barely in sight anymore and I was just standing in darkness. Not a good feeling. We made it to the top of the hill in time to see a beautiful sunrise and the group had a little worship session before going back down.

When we got back to Kulim Jason and I asked Dwayne if we could try the Escape the Room. It basically a team building game where you get put in a room and have to solve clues in order to get out. Usually there are teams of 20ish and they figure it out in about 45min. It was just me and Jason with some help from Dwayne and it took us an hour. I was hoping to figure it out quicker but I kind of gave up mid way through.

In the evening we had another fire show for the group and I got to be stage manager, making sure acts got out when they were supposed to, putting out their fires when they came back and taking pictures while they were preforming.

3.15.16

Today we had a day off so we could plan for leaving tomorrow. Me, Jason, Kenneth and Dwayne went to the mall to go walk around and see a movie. Jason found a yellow watermelon so we all tried some, it tasted like cantaloupe a bit just in the form of a watermelon. Jason and I went to the arcade in the mall to play some games while the other two did their own thing. We played on the most ghetto air hockey table lol. After the movie Dwayne took us to have Malaysian burgers from a road stall. It’s simple, you order beef, chicken or fish and how many patties you want. Then you can add egg or cheese. If you get egg, they wrap the patties in a thin egg omelet. I got fish with egg and it was a little interesting…

When we got back I wanted a group photo with all of my new friends so I had bought some sparklers a few days back. We all went outside and I got a few shots of my friends playing with them. I miss them already.

3.16.16

Jason and I leave in the late afternoon. Tee drove us to the JB Sentral station and Jason and I parted ways. I took a bus to the Malaysian border and then had to go through immigration at the Singaporean border. It didn’t take too long before I was on a bus to Singapore! I got into a station called Mt. Kranji and then had to take the MRT to Woodlands to purchase a tourist card. It’s like a 3-day unlimited card for MRT rides (subway) and buses. Then I hopped on the MRT to Yishun where my host was meeting me. Did I mention I’m trying out couch surfing?!?!?! I created a profile like a year or more ago wanting to try it out when I was in England but I never got around to it. Knowing that I was going to be in Singapore and that it was expensive (Singapore has been named the most expensive city in the world for three years in a row), I thought I’d try it out. I sent requests to about 10-15 hosts hoping to get a few places to choose from but in the end I only got a response from one guy named Mikhail. He met me at the train station and we walked back to his apartment down the street. His place was gorgeous! He decorated it himself and it looked like a barber shop turned recording studio in an industrial fashion house. It was awesome. He had two spare rooms so he gave me one and the other housed a piano, a handful of guitars and a collection of Marvel action figures. He also had a walk in closet fitted with a glass door where he showcased all his sneakers. A sneaker head! We talked for a few hours and then he asked what I wanted to see in Singapore so I showed him my list and he was like “get ready and let’s go!” He drove us downtown and showed me all the sights. We had dinner at a hawker center (kind of like a food court where there are lots of stalls set up and you can get yummy and cheap local food) I got chicken rice which is a popular dish in Malaysia and Singapore. After dinner we went to the hotel Marina Bay Sands and went to the roof on the mall side and saw part of the light show from there, the skyline from the top was pretty, walked through the mall where they have what looks like Venetian canals, we saw the Merlion statue, walked by Boat Quay, went to see the Gardens by the Bay and the Supertree Structures, went up in the highest Supertree to a bar and treated me to a drink, saw the big floating baby statue and then walked through the Helix Bridge before going back home.

3.17.16

Woke up and got out in search of food first thing. I wanted to go to Maxwell food center which is a very popular hawker center. However, I got off the MRT at Chinatown and was wandering around and found another hawker center and I saw a big line at one of the food stalls so I hopped on the line (as you do in Singapore). I asked the old man in front of me what I was in line for and he laughed at me and said that it was for yong tau foo and that it was quite good. He also said that the place would only open in another 20 minutes. I looked at the line and saw mostly elderly people and decided that it was probably worth the wait. After a lonnng, very sweaty wait we started moving. I was about 10th in line and there was a line of about 25+ people behind me. All was going well until I saw them bringing the food to the tables…steaming HOT bowls of soup. Hold the phone. Why in the heck are people drinking hot ass soup in literally 100 degree weather? Sigh. My turn came where all I had to tell them was that I wanted “1” bowl. Then you tell them where you’re sitting and they’ll find you with your food. I sat at a table close-by and a grandma came and joined me. I was already sweating buckets and by the time I finished the soup I was dying. The grandma probably saw my suffering and reached into her purse to give me a tissue haha.

Okay, so yong tau foo is a soup dish that’s comprised of a clear broth and whatever you want in it. You can have all kinds of mushrooms, greens, sprouts, tofu, fishballs, fish cakes, etc. You can also get noodles inside. This one was simple with just tofu and fishcake/balls. It came with some hot sauce and it was delicious. I finished up fast and headed to the MRT to meet up with my friend Wan.

Wan and I met on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand. He stayed a few nights at the hostel I was working at and we met up during the full moon party. He was the first traveler I met that was from Singapore so naturally I hit him up when I decided to visit. We met at the MacRitchie Reservoir where there’s a cool tree top canopy walk. Wan works at the Singapore zoo so it was really cool to walk around with him while we looked for animals. He explained some facts about the native wildlife and I got some good videos of him trying to show the monkeys who was boss. The trail took about 3.5 hrs and it was extremely hot out. The suspension bridge was really cool though, we could see the jungles below and tried our best to find snakes up in the trees. After the walk we headed into town to grab some food. We went to a hawker center near Arab St. on Beach Rd. where Wan treated me to my first milo Godzilla. A cold glass of milo with a scoop of milo powder on top, two scoops of vanilla ice cream and rainbow and chocolate sprinkles. AHHHHHH being on my own means I can have ice cream before dinner and NOBODY can tell me that I can’t!! (sorry mom). Wan also bought some banana fritters, called goreng pisang, from a popular vendor in the hawker. I was expecting them to be sweet but the fried batter wasn’t, only the banana inside was sweet. They were good nonetheless.

My couchsurfing host Mik and his friends joined us for dinner at the hawker and Wan told me I had to try this dish called Tulang so we got an order and split. It’s mutton bone marrow that’s cooked in a rich, heavily red dyed sauce. It’s served with bread so you can sop up the sauce but it looked so much like blood to me that I couldn’t get myself to have a lot of the sauce. There was hardly any meat on the bone but the point was the bone marrow. You have to tap the marrow out like you would tap the ketchup out of a Heinz bottle. There was red dye splashing everywhere and the guys thought it was hilarious that I tried to only get a few fingers saucy (I gave up trying with 4 fingers and ended up getting most dirty). When my method of tapping out the marrow didn’t work they told me that the locals use straws. I didn’t believe them but I tried anyways. I scooped out as much as I could with the straw and they had tons of fun laughing at me and taking videos. I didn’t know what was so funny until they said that I wasn’t supposed to scoop the marrow, I was supposed to just use the straw to suck it out. That to me was disgusting so I continued on with my way.

After dinner just me, Mik and Mik’s friend Zach went out. It was St. Patty’s day so there were bars that had promotions going on. We had shisha and beers at one place and then bar hopped until 5am. It was a very unexpected evening. In the process I lost the water bottle that David got me for Christmas two years ago. The one that travels around the world with me. Security made me leave it at a table outside the bar even though it was empty and I forgot to pick it up when we left =[ At alcohol being taxed at 300% it’s amazing that people still drink in Singapore. A 3liter beer tower cost $75 and 3 Guinness’s at one of the bars was $50 (on promotion). Ridiculous.

3.18.16

In the morning when I realized I had lost my water bottle I headed back to the place I had left it at but it was nowhere to be found. I headed over to China Town and had a quick bite at a hawker before roaming around some more. I tried Singaporean carrot cake which is a savoury dish and to my dismay did not have carrots in it at all… So weird. It’s almost like an omelet with boiled daikon (white radish) in it. Overall, not my favorite. I walked around China Town and found the two temples I wanted to see— Sri Mariamman and the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and then did some souvenir shopping.

I was meant to meet up with some friends for dinner so I headed south towards Marina Bay Sands and spent some time walking around the mall with the Venetian canal in it and sitting amongst the Supertrees in the Gardens By the Bay before taking the MRT over to an area called Bugis. There I met up with a girl named Bianca that I had befriended at the outdoors camp in Malaysia. She was staying at the camp with her school from Singapore so I met a bunch of them and she organized a big group to go for dinner and drinks. We had dinner at a Greek place on Arab St. and I was thrilled to see so many familiar faces. There were seven of them that came out so we had a nice group to share a meal with and then went to a café/bar afterwards that had a good band and chilled out there (I ordered a cappuccino like an old person).

3.19.16

Mik had to catch an early morning flight to Indonesia for work so he was nice enough to drive me to the city in the am. It was too early to check into any hostels so I walked over to a hawker center and had a kopi (Singaporean coffee). I had a bad experience with one of the hawker vendors who I ordered yong tau foo from and she gave me the wrong order. When I went to tell her she had a dirty attitude and told me I was wrong and that I had ordered the wrong thing so I sat down like a sad puppy and ate what I was given LOL. It gave me a stomach ache while walking to the hostel afterwards.

I’ve gotten to that stage of backpacking where I don’t book my hostels in advance. It kills Kirk and I know it would kill my momma if she knew I flew to countries without having secured a bed to sleep in for the night. It’s just easier sometimes though to have the freedom to stay wherever you choose based on what happens that day. So on this day I walked to a place called Green Kiwi Backpackers and inquired if they had a room. They had plenty of beds available and within 2 minutes of being in the hostel I made friends with a Brasilian guy named Manasses. I stored my stuff and Manasses, me and a lady named Doris who worked at the hostel went out to eat at a food court.

I don’t know if I explained previously but food courts are typically indoors and air conditioned (and a bit more pricey) whereas hawker centers are outdoors, and most likely your cheapest food option in Singapore.

Doris took us to a food court where I tried assam laksa Singaporean style. It’s a spicy noodle soup that is tamed down with some coconut milk. It was yummy but SO SPICY. I had to cool my mouth down so I ordered an ais (ice) kachang from one of the vendors. It’s a shaved ice dessert with flavored syrup and all kinds of toppings like corn, kidney beans (yes, a dessert), grass jelly, some kind of starchy noodle, etc. Really interesting…we all split it and I don’t think I’ll be ordering it again. LOL. Doris bought some kaya toast which I looove (kaya is a coconut spread. Think nutella but coconut lol. That was a bad analogy, sorry). Kaya toast is a toasted baguette with butter and kaya spread on it. It’s yummmmy.

We finished up and then Manasses invited us to hang out with him and his couch surfing host Khameel. Khameel was a super cool chick. She took us to this AWESOME art event that was going on under a bridge. There were local artists who were having a competition graffiti-ng under the bridge and the event was sponsored by Kwirk so there was unlimited free beer. Yes, FREE BEER. It was amaze. We hung out and listened to music, chilled, had some beers and watched some art take place, a perfect afternoon. While we were there we made friends with some German guys who had taken two cases of the beer so we went back to their apartment to chill on their rooftop. Eventually we left because they were going to a party on Sentosa, the island, and we went to Boat Quay to walk around.

Totally and completely off topic but I noticed that every time I get change back in Singapore the money is in mint condition. The bills are so crisp and fresh I feel like they are still radiating heat from the press (or maybe they’re hot from the 100 degree weather). The coins, similarly, are all so shiny new that I don’t want to use them, I just want to keep them all as souvenirs.

3.20.16

Up early for church cause I need to get out of Singapore! I walked over to the church, Our Lady of Loures for Palm Sunday mass and I was superrr excited because I saw this church on pinterest and thought it was so beautiful. I had to be up early because there are only certain times that mass is done in English. I popped over to have more yong tau foo from the same hawker I had gone to the other day. This time I had a great experience at a stall run by a younger guy and his father. You can pick out exactly what you want yourself and put it in a bowl and then they put your bowl in the queue. My wait was 35minutes-ish and it was so worth it. After that I started my journey back to Malaysia. A MRT to Woodlands, a bus to the Singaporean border, immigration, another bus to the Malaysian border, Malaysian immigration, a bus to Johor Bahru, another bus from JB to Larkin and then had the most horrible wait in the scorching heat (it was 100+ out) to get to Kuala Lumpur. Eventually my bus left 45 minutes late, I was already pissed and the ride was crap cause my bag came out of the holding area wet for some reason and the bus dropped me off at a station called Bersepadu and not Kuala Lumpur Sentral where Dwayne was supposed to pick me up. It was a mess getting Dwayne directions but once we figured it out I got picked up after a long day of traveling by not only Dwayne but Jason too!! We stayed the night at Dwayne’s dad’s house in KL and the next morning Dwayne took us to lunch and then we hit the road to Penang. The poor guys had to deal with 4 hours of me singing non-stop in the car. I had a blast. When we finally got into Penang island we stopped to see Dwayne’s grandmother. Her apartment was adorable and she reminded me of my Ba. The apartments are really interesting where there are heavy metal gates that slide in front of your door and you padlock it for security. Even Dwayne’s house has an automatic gate that locks shut at the end of his driveway PLUS a metal gate for his front and back door.

At Dwayne’s grandmother’s apartment we met his brother, Daniel and Jason and I joked because Dwayne looks nothing like him especially because we got so tanned working outside at the camp.

We headed to Dwayne’s house after that, about an hour away in a town called Batu Ferringi (also on the island). His house was beautiful! It felt so good to be in a house again. Jason and I had our own rooms and the shower was separate from the toilet YESSSSSSS.

Will be posting about Penang next!!!

Much love,

Cas