On Wednesday, my first morning in Singapore, I went sightseeing with a dutch girl I met in my hostel. We went to see the biggest fountain in the world, and were a bit disappointed… What was cooler was to actually see the tracks from the F1race the weekend before, and some of the huge stands for the audience that had been rigged up around the place. In the evening I went to Singapore zoo for the famous night safari. It was nice to see a zoo where the animals seemed to have a decent life!
The next day I had the most expensive cup of coffee of my life, in the City Space bar on the 71st floor of the Swissotel Stamford. The next point on my agenda was to have a Singapore Sling in the Raffles Hotel Long Bar, where the drink was first invented. I got there though, and it was filthy. You get free peanuts with your drinks, and there were peanut shells EVERYWHERE. It was crunching under my flipflops when I walked in, it crunched under my bum when I sat down, and the tables were so full of peanut shells that there was barely room for glasses and when the waiters were clearing the tables, they just shuffled it all down on the floor… It was not very nice, and the service was extremely slow, so I flung the whole idea of a Sling out the window.
In the evening, I went to dinner and drinks in Little India with a bunch of couchsurfers. After a late night at the Singapore couchsurfers’ usual hang out, I was talked into staying another day, and go clubbing with Nikki from Singapore, and we asked Glenn from Norway to join us. Hence, on Friday, instead of going to Kuala Lumpur, I went out and bought a pair of dress shoes for 10 S$, and was then ready for the clubs. The rest of the daylight hours I pent walking around Fort Canning Park, and learning about Singaporean history from the information boards along the historical paths.
In the afternoon I met Simin, a schoolmate from my Italian days, for dinner, and she came along clubbing as well. We went to a fancy club called “Attica” on Clarke’s Quay, where we (to Nikki’s disappointment, I think) dropped the dancing, and sat talking into the small hours of the morning, and shared a bottle of Moet, courtesy of Glenn. I had a great time!
The next morning it was time head out to Kuala Lumpur. After about three hours of sleep, I got up around nine, and took the subway to the border, and a bus across. The border crossing was intensely crowded and took forever, but I finally arrived at Larkin bus station in Johor Bahru on the Malaysian side, and immediately got on a bus for KL. I’d been texting Seth with regular intervals since that morning, but since I didn’t get any reply, I assumed I’d written down the wrong number. When I arrived in KL around 6pm, I sat down somewhere that had WiFi, and looked up the number, and it turned out Seth had given me wrong instructions as to what to do with the area code when adding the country code. When I got it sorted out, he gave me directions to his place, and I got in a cab and went over. The evening was relaxed but fun. We went over to Ali’s place, another diver I met in the Perhentians, and who lives in the same apartment complex as Seth, and played Rock Band on his PS3. To round up a good evening, we went around the block to one of the best night spots in KL for a couple of beers before bed.
Yesterday I bought some clothes, cuz the ones I had made in Nepal are getting worn out, and today I’ve had lunch in KL Tower. It was a bit costly, but worth it for the view, just like the coffee in Singapore. (and it was only about twice the price of the cup of coffee anyway, for an eat-till-you-drop buffet…) Today I’m hoping to meet with another friend from the Sunlight Divers for tea, but I don’t have his phone number, so it’s looking bleak…