Melissa & Stephen

Final Post

2005-07-06T21:08:14Z

Sorry this took so long...jet lag is a cruel mistress. We'd just like to thank everyone who read along with our adventures..hope it was interesting :)

I'll repost all the singapore picture links as well as the long awaited tokyo picture albums that you may peruse at your liking.

Singapore
Bird Park
Orchid Garden
Chinese Garden
Little India
China Town
City Pictures
Random Stuff

Tioman Island

Tokyo
Akasaka Palace
Akihabara
Studio Ghibli
Ginza
Hotel New Otani
Imperial Palace
Narita Airport (coming and going)
Omote Sando
Random Stuff
Roppongi Hills
Shibuya
Shrine and Temples
Yokohama

enjoy the flood of pictures, and thanks again for reading. feel free to email me or steve with any questions/comments/complaints about our trip :)

Day 21

2005-06-24T15:28:47Z

wow, what a day.

we got up pretty early and went down to the same coffee shop for breakfast. we headed off to tokyo station where we wandered over the the imperial palace. we walked around the outside a bit, but the gardens are closed on friday so we didn't get to do that today. it was pretty impressive anyway...lots of big impressive looking gates and trees everywhere in the midst of this huge city area. it was pretty hot so we stopped for some water and ice cream, then headed back to the hotel to get ready for ghibli.

we went downstairs and talked to the guest relations guy to figure out the best train route to get to where the ghibli bus picks you up. we had to take the JR, which we hadn't done yet..there's two kinds of lines, the metro which is subway, and the JR which is trains. the train ticket thing is a bit more intimidating than the metro tickets, mainly because everything's in kanji. after asking around a bit we figured it out and got on an express train. once we got to our stop we had to figure out where the infamous ghibli bus picks you up. i (in english) asked a guard where the ghibli bus was and he started rambling at me in japanese. i stumbled around a bit in broken japanese, both of us repeating and pointing a lot (i had the print out with instructions in japanese with me) and then a woman came over and said "ghibli?" and started talking to me in a mix of japanese and english about where the bus was. we went over in the direction she pointed and finally figured it out. just in time, the ghibli bus, a small yellow bus with white totoro-ish figures on it pulled up. after a short ride, we got to the museum where, soon after getting inside, we ended up meeting up with peter and jaqueline. the inside was amazing..unfortunately they don't let you take pictures. if you plan on going to the ghibli museum sometimes, you should skip the next paragraph and be surprised.

one of our favorite things was in the first room which featured a lot of zoetrope and frame related stuff...there was a strobe animation thing that was absolutely amazing. it was about a meter high and featured 6 sets of sequential figurines about 6" high on poles..it would spin around, the light would go down, and a strobe would flash and suddenly there's this huge animated scene in front of you..it's impossible to describe but it was absolutely amazing. we wandered around for quite a while..there was the giant catbus, but that seemed to be for little kids only, much to my and steve's dismay. we saw the giant laputa robot guy on top of the roof. we went to the gift shop where presents were bought (some for me, some not..).we were gonna go to the straw hat cafe but there was a line so we got hot dogs and ice cream instead. afterward we went to the theater and watched the short film, "Kujiratori" ("The Whale Hunt") which was very cute (and i actually understood about half of it). if you're not familiar with miyazaki and/or ghibli, you should go to www.nausicaa.net and educate yourself :) they even have some pictures from the museum.

afterward, we went with peter back to his place where we all hung out a bit since we were all pretty tired. we met his black lab, venus, who was very sweet. we watched a bit of the ghibli museum dvd (which was pretty cool), then peter showed us some scenes from 'you only live twice' (bond) which had exterior scenes shot at our hotel. after that he took us to shibuya to shop. at first glance it's incredibly amazing and intimidating. this it the picture of japan you always see. times square meets vegas meets, well, tokyo. there's a big intersection where all the cars stop and everyone crosses going every direction at the same time in this massive ocean of people. our first stop was a book store where i picked up a couple potter books with japanese text (one of my goals) and a couple other things. wandering around i came to the realization that this must be how illiterate people feel. i guess more so for steve than me, but it's very disorienting being surrounded by books you can't read. anyway, then we went to hmv which is apparently a british chain similar to virgin or tower records. i got a cd i wanted (Lucy by Maaya Sakamoto), then we went to another big cd/dvd/game/book store with a starbucks in it on the main corner, got some coffee, and sat and watched people. we saw the tower records, then went to the disney store for a few minutes (which was a pretty impressive store visually, not so much merchandise wise). we went and ate at a little hole in the wall indian buffet place which was very good and the people were very nice. then, exhausted we joined the sea of people, got on the train and came back to the hotel.

big long day..tired..must sleep now. oyasumi :)

Day 20

2005-06-23T14:59:50Z

happy birthday to stephen!!

we got up early today and headed down to a coffee shop in the hotel for breakfast. then we walked down to a different metro station which is about the same distance from the hotel, maybe closer, that's much bigger than the one we saw yesterday. after a quick examination, we figured out how to buy a ticket and headed off for our train. once you figure out the ticket machine, it's actually really easy. everything's very clearly marked and there's maps everywhere with the full list of stops on that line. also, once you're on the train there's japanese and english announcements of what the next stop is. in addition to that, there's a line over the door with all the stops on it and each one has a light that lights up when you're on the way and at that stop. the train wasn't quite as crowded as i was expecting, altho we did get there around 10. i think the hardest part about the train stations is figuring out where the exit is...

first we headed to ginza, which is the old big shopping district. the main pull there was the apple store which is basically right across from the train station. it's a four story store..three floors of stuff they sell and a theater where they teach you stuff about macs (often in both japanese and english). we walked around the area a bit, then got back on the train.

next stop was omote sando, which is the new big shopping district. when we got up to the street, we got out the map to try and figure out which way to go. a man came over trying to give us flyers and when we said no he offered to help us figure out where to go (in very good english). i asked where the toy store was (we talked about it with peter last night) and he told us the right way to go. we wandered down the street a bit, then came to kiddy land, a 5 floor toy store (but the top floor was under construction). we wandered around there for a very long time. the highest floor we could go had a ghibli section we spent a while in, preparing to price compare when we go to the ghibli museum tomorrow. the 3rd floor had a TON of disney stuff...would put disney stores to shame. we didn't buy anything there today, but we plan on going back later.

we walked down the street , looking around at all the different shops. at the end of the street there's a bit temple entrance thing in a huge wooded area. it's amazing..you step through this gateway and suddenly you're not in the city anymore. they have an iris garden, but we decided to come back when the weather was a bit better. we walked around the pathway, then came to the meiji jingu shrine. we got there right on the hour and heard a big drum from the main area. we watched a short prayer ceremony, then looked around. we wandered out the shrine back the way we came, then found a gift shop. we loaded up on some souveniers, then had lunch. we walked out of the shrine (where someone actually asked us for directions) and were going to go back toward the train, but spotted a snoopy store across the street. yes, a huge store devoted entirely to snoopy. it was awesome. after that we were pretty tired..we walked back to the train, stopping at a couple places on the way, then came back to the hotel.

we were pretty tired so we decided to take a short nap that turned out not to be so short. when we woke up all the hotel restaurants were closed and it seemed everything else was closing too, so we went to the convenience store in the hotel and ate in the room. oh well, guess we'll have to postpone stephen's big birthday dinner. ghibli museum tomorrow!

Day 19

2005-06-22T14:52:03Z

well unfortunately we got kind of a late start today, because i didnt feel great this morning. better now. once we got started, we walked up a hill to what we thought was the closest rail station here, and then down a major street. we passed a lot of restaurants, several small book stores, a couple arcades, and many convenience stores. i stopped at a cd store (a display inside for the incredibles on dvd caught my eye) where i got thoroughly intimidated and didn't buy anything (can't find anything..everything's in japanese :P). we stopped at a really big grocery store and picked up some bread, peanut butter and jelly along with some instant ramen. they know how to do instant ramen here. these are like buckets of soup. its enlightening walking around today...the area we are in could be equivalent to the size of downtown dallas, but this is more or less the suburbs of tokyo. i guess it takes a lot of room to fit 20 million+ people in one city. its really impressive. on the way back we investigated the outside of the rail station and stared at the mysterious ticket machine for a few seconds. we came back to the hotel to meet a friend of my dad's who lives here in Tokyo. he treated us to a very nice dinner in the hotel. we also met another girl who's been visiting tokyo that he's been helping out as well. we had a really nice time. we plan on going to do some shopping tomorrow, then the ghibli museum is on friday.

Day 17 - Last Day in Singapore

2005-06-20T15:16:58Z

today was a very good day.

first off, and this is for the anime fans (particularly jenny and liz): our first day out i saw an ad on a bus for the cable/internet company here advertising an anime network that featured a very large (the back half of a double decker bus) picture of Ed from Full Metal Alchemist. i saw the bus twice our first day here but didn't have my camera with me. i've spent every day here with my camera tucked in my bag, alertly watching double decker buses, trying to find it again. i finally saw it again today! three times!!

so anyway..that was singapore's farewell gift to me i guess. we (me, steve, and marilyn) went back to lucky plaza to try and find some souveniers. steve picked up one thing, then we decided to go to china town. before that, we met richard and went to mcdonalds for lunch. we needed a western food fix and wanted to try the stuff on the menu we'd never seen before. steve got the grilled chicken foldover and i got the savoury tempura chicken. the tempura chicken was small, but pretty good. basically fried chicken with some kind of asian-afied thousand island dressing type thing. the foldover was good too.

steve and i headed to china town where we wandered around for quite a while and got a fair number of souveniers. we stopped at a tiny 7-11 cuz i was thirsty. (i'm constantly amused by the fact that it'd be the easiest thing ever to get a slurpee in singapore, but i can't get one in savannah) i got a can of mangosteen juice (those who recal my first post here might remember we had some for breakfast and i really liked them) that was quite good. we took a taxi home and started packing.

for dinner we (all four of us) went to a place called marche (there's an accent on the e but i'm not sure how to do that..) that was really cool. it's pretty much all western style food but served in an interesting way. when you walk in you're given a card (that looks kind of like a single sheet brochure) that has a bar code on the back. there's stations for all the different types of food (drinks, steak, pasta, seafood, pizza, dessert..) and it has a very dangerous buffet feel to it. you can go to any station and pick out what you want in/on your food and how you want it cooked, then they scan your card and when you leave the restaurant they take your card and scan it to add up everything you got. so it's set up sort of like a buffet, but charges you like a normal restaurant.

after dinner we looked around at a few more stands out on the street. then, tempted by the sign, the four of us went up to toys r us. it was a toys r us express, which is really really tiny but it was still fun to look around. although they didn't really have much of anything you wouldn't find in a US store aside from some gundam and ultraman looking stuff. i did find and attack another capsule machine tho :D

came back and finished packing. our flight to tokyo leaves tomorrow morning at 7:20. bleh. we've both had an amazing time here in singapore and have become a bit acustomed to it. feels sort of weird to be leaving..

our hotel in tokyo charges you per 24 hrs of internet so we'll probably be getting online every other day or so. we'll continue to write entries and post them when we get online. in the mean time, i have some more photo albums up for you tmi enjoyment..

Little India
China Town
Random Stuff around Singapore that i thought was interesting or amusing for one reason or another..

Day 16 - Another Day Off

2005-06-19T15:12:10Z

nothing to report today...hung out around the house...went swimming for about an hour...

and i got more pictures up:

Tioman highlights (another crude webpage)

Full Tioman Island Album

random pictures from around the city, including the river walk and the merlion

i'll try and get the little india pictures up before we leave for tokyo at way too frickin early in the morning tuesday..

there's also a video i have up..but beware, it's rather large and scad's server is a bit slow sometimes..

monkey in tioman

i've got more but scad's server is being stubborn about letting me upload stuff...i'll post when it behaves..

Day 15

2005-06-18T14:43:58Z

Got up and went to Little India with steve and his parents. we started out in an area with a lot of hawker stands. we wandered around the food market area a bit but steve and i didn't last long from the smell. between those durians and all the meat..jeez.. anyway, steve's mom looked around at some spices for a bit, then all of us got some food. richard got some indian food and the rest of us went to a more generic stand. steve and i got chicken cuttlet with noodles (basically fried chicken with ramen-ish noodles in some kinda sauce) that was pretty good. i got that winter melon tea again. after we ate we went to different area. we went into a more traditional (but still kind of small) grocery store and gave in to the desire to buy some foreign cans. got a cool glass 7up bottle, a can of sprite ice and a can of "clear raspberry" 7up. for those who don't know, steve (and he got me into it too) collects foreign/rare/cool soda cans (mainly coke and pepsi related).

we went across the street and wandered through some more shops. there's some kind of dried fish or something that some of those shops sell that smells reaallly icky. we found our way to a big mosque in the middle of little india. we waited until visiting hours started, took our shoes off and went in. visitors aren't allowed in the main prayer area or on the second floor (it's only a two story building) and aren't allowed in at all between 1 and 2 or at all on fridays (women in general aren't allowed in the prayer area). they gave us big robe-y coat things to wear at the front and you can walk around the perimeter of the prayer hall. the outside of the building was very nice. the iniside was very simple. there were some people inside praying..it was very quiet other than outside noise. it was also very open. no glass on any windows, no actual doors. there wasn't much to do so we didn't stay there long.

it was pretty hot (read that the heat index today was 104) so we stopped at a cafe for some drinks. i tried sprite ice which i think is pretty good. not quite as minty as the 7up ice. we finished up and headed home. spent the rest of the day watching some tv and hanging out.

Day 14

2005-06-17T11:57:08Z

not much to report today.

went to see batman begins with steve and richard. it was AWESOME!!

the rest of the day was spent hanging out

Malaysia

2005-06-14T05:24:20Z

Currently on Tioman Island, Malaysia, and it's absolutely beautiful.

Just got back from some amazing snorkeling.

Internet here isn't free so we'll be doing some batch updating...

Enjoy your "jobs" and your "responsiblities"...we're gonna go sit on the beach some more.

More photos than you'll ever want to see...

2005-06-13T02:15:41Z

The bird park photo album is almost complete...i've got another 50 or so to upload but you'll have to make due with the 90 that are there now..:P they alternate between dsc and pict files..the dsc ones are my pictures and the pict ones are steve's so that's why there's some that are very similar. i've also got a few of my own pictures from the chinese garden (mainly of turtles) that i need to edit and deal with. but anyway...

Bird Park

Orchid Garden

Chinese Garden

the easiest thing to do is hit slideshow if you really want to see them.

getting ready to leave for Malaysia...

Day 8

2005-06-11T16:05:24Z

a quick side note before todays post...Happy Birthday to steve's mom! :)

Steve's dad got back from india this morning. We all slept in, then went out to the Chinese/Japanese Gardens.

Turns out the Japanese gardens are closed for something..couldn't understand what the guard guy was saying. The Chinese garden was...interesting...the trees and gardeny-ness was really nice but it seemed to be trying so hard to be touristy. We embraced the cheese, sometimes literally,

but some of it was just ackward. chinese soldier statues made of plastic with bad multicolored paint jobs...some weird dying panda things..chinese girls dressed up in super cheap fabric..and some weird animal that steve took a picture of because neither of us had any idea what it was supposed to be (apparenlty steve says it's a bear, but i'm not sure..picture soon and you can decide).

We went to the bonsai garden which, dispite the cheese, was quite nice. it's cool to think about a little two foot high tree being 200 years ol

d. We walked around some more and we saw a lizard walking around that looked like a 2 1/2 foot long mini komodo dragon or something.

we followed him around until he went and hid under a bridge. wandered around some more until we found the live turtle exibit. the gardens' pride and joy is a two headed, six legged turtle that's been there about 5 years. you pay your admission and go through a maze of turtle memerobilia (the point at which hobby crosses into obsession and insanity) and get to a covered open area full of fish tanks with turtles in them. there were a ton of different types, but it was kind of sad because the tanks were completely bare...some had a couple rocks for the turtles that don't swim all the time, but those things looked so bored and desperate to get out of there. there was a pond with more turtles than i've ever seen in one area before. we found our way to the back corner where there were some larger tortoises (maybe 2 ft long) in an open enclosure with a short wall around them (so you're not actually in with them, but you're very close). as soon as we walked up a couple started walking, surprisingly quickly, toward us which was somewhat unsettling. about thirty seconds later a man walks over with some lettuce asking if we wanted to feed them. lucky for us it was lunch time. as soon as he showed up every turtle in the enclosure rushed toward him. we got to hold stalks of lettuce and have the turtles litteraly climbing over each other trying to get a bite.

He then handed us huge cucumbers (at which point i noticed he was missing a finger) which confused me a bit..i wasn't sure if we were supposed to break them up or what. The man's only advice was "hold on tight". one of the turtles was eyeing me and my new cucumber, and when i held it out to him he tore a considerable chunk off. there were several instances where i had to play a serious game of tug of war with a turtle to keep hold of the cucumber. it was pretty intense. i got a video of the aftermath, with turtles climbing over each other and going crazy over the scraps that were left. (also coming soon). That experience alone was worth the price of admission. After the turtles, we fed a small pond of koi and giggled at their ravenous eating, then headed out of the gardens. after a little bit of work we got a taxi and headed home.

Everyone got cleaned up from the outing and we headed out for dinner. We went back to the river walk area but this time payed attention to the people stepping out and yelling at us. we found a place we liked, but they didn't have a table by the river. when steve's dad started to move on, the hostess went into salesman mode. she got on her radio and followed him as he started to walk and finally said we could sit at a different restaurant and still eat off the other place's menu. we found out that 4 of these restaurants in a row were owned by the same company and shared a kitchen. they also had pretty similar menus. now, when i say restaurant, it's a long row of canopies along the river with tables underneath them and it's often hard to see where one place's tables end and the next begin. anyway, we found a seat by the river. steve got some hot and sour soup for an appetizer and was thrilled to find it very similar to what he gets back in the states. richard and i ordered the mango chicken, which is like honey chicken with chunks of mangos on top. marilyn ordered pineapple fried rice (actually served in an empty pineapple skin), and steve order some Indian dish that consisted of noodles with a mild chili sauce (mild enough for steve's mom to enjoy it). we all ate family style and it was all very good. when the check came, steve's dad was very surprised at several items. they had charged us for some tea that they had been refilling throughout the night, and which nobody had asked for. they also charged us for refills on steve's mom's soda water which she also didnt ask for. the best though, was a charge for some packaged wet-naps that were placed on the table next to the plates even before we got there. the waitress was very nice about all these things when richard confronted her about them. she quickly removed all the questionable items without fuss. after dinner we walked around the river walk for a bit. steve and i stopped and split some strawberry ice cream for dessert, then we all took a taxi home.

Day 7 - A Day Off

2005-06-10T15:07:46Z

Got up late and decided to take the day off. Steve's feet have been kind of sore and we seem to be getting a bit ahead of ourselves on sightseeing. Spent a lot of time down by the pool which was nice. Between yesterday and today I got a bit more sun than i intended, but it's not too bad. Steve's mom picked up some food from some hawker stands that was really good. Fast food is really good and really cheap here. We had enough for two people to make two meals out of, for about the same price as getting one "value" meal at mcdonalds. i'm also increasingly amused by the fact that the tap water here is better than the water that comes out of my brita filter in savannah. We went out after dinner and found our way to some amazingly good raspberry cheescake at a coffee place (The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf).

anyway, not much news to report today. i'm working on getting complete and unabridged photo albums from the bird park and orchid gardens up..i'll post when they're ready.

Day 6

2005-06-09T14:27:03Z

Woke up to the usual sunny death...twas a perfect day to go to the botanical gardens; more specifically, the orchid garden. actually it turned out to be quite breezy and somewhat overcast, so it was much nicer than some previous days.

The orchid garden was quite large and full of beautiful orchids of all different colors/shapes/sizes etc. the garden was full of photo op areas which we took full advantage of. here's a photo of the three of us:

this doesn't really have anything to do with orchids, but they had some vending machines there and it was a good opportunity to take a picture of one and some of the stuff you can't get in the us. it was an evian vending machine but i cropped out all the bottles of water..

anyway, back to flowers. they make a lot of hybrids at this garden, so many so that they started naming them after famous people who have visited. my favorite of all the orchids was the margaret thatcher:

steve's favorite was named after the prime minister of mongolia's wife:

on our way out, we saw Singapore's official national flower, the Vanda Miss Joaquim:

we spent a little while in the gift shop which was very nice. steve bought me a very pretty necklace:

this company takes actual orchids, coats them in a layer of copper, then dips them in either 24 karat gold or silver. they're rather amazing. the photo doesn't do it justice.

afterwards we went back to plaza singapura for lunch and returned to the indonesian bbq place. this time i got a quick picture before it quickly disappeared. and trust me, it doesn't look very exciting, but it's sooo goooood :P

then while steve and his mom got some groceries downstairs i ran back to the store i went to yesterday ("Action City"). they were out of the plush sleeping eyeore, my favorite..but i ended up buying Ashley, the runaway pig. she can hold me cell phone for me!

PHOTOS!

2005-06-08T08:39:55Z

finally finally, some grossly made pages thrown together with some photos on them. i apologize to anyone on dial up...

the apartment

takashimaya mall

the bird park

the bird park's mcdonalds

plaza singapura

random photos

more to come as the trip goes on!

Day 5

2005-06-08T08:34:40Z

Woke up to thunder this morning...rained for most of the morning. it does that a lot here. we've been really lucky to having the disgustingly hot weather we've had so far. the up side is that the cloudiness makes it not so hot out. went out to several malls and shopping centers. started at lucky plaza which reminded me a bit of china town, only inside. found a seperate food court and after walking around and either being unimpressed or slightly frightened at the food, ended up at ajisen ramen again (different location). steve got some non-deadly hot ramen this time and i got some with pork ribs in it. went to a few other places,

then ended up back at plaza singapura where we saw the movie yesterday. went to a couple stores where i almost bought some things..but didn't. there was a puzzle store with some amazing stuff. there was a really cool kingdom hearts puzzle that made me think of liz and some gorgeous disney puzzles. i don't know what the difference in quality is, but they were all so bright and crisp looking. the walls were full of framed finished puzzles and they were all amazing. there was another store with lots of cute stuff in it. there were some amazingly adorable sleeping baby pooh plush things that i might go back and buy if i have the chance. there was a stitch clock that made me think of lindsey and some other random stuff. ashley the pig...a stuffed pink pig head that has a pouch on top to hold your cell phone. ended up not getting anything...saving suitcase room for japan, i think :) got a bit tired so we came back home. now we're watching phantom of the opera and eating popcorn. might go hang out at the pool later. takin it easy the rest of the day.

Day 4

2005-06-07T11:13:19Z

slept in a little bit..got up around 9. spent most of the morning doing research for our hotel in tokyo. left with steve's mom around noon and took the bus to plaza singapore, another really big mall.

total of 9 floors but most of the top floor is movie theater. we bought our movie tickets (monster-in-law) before we went down to lunch. movie theaters here have assigned seating, so when you buy your tickets you pick your seat.

anyway, went down to the food court (actually there's apparently two food courts in this mall, as well as a couple other places thru out) and went to an indonesian bbq place marilyn really likes. you get a big bbq chicken leg, a big scoop of rice with curry sauce, a small omelete egg thing, and a small bowl of miso soup for S$3.80 i think. everything was very good; the chicken was amazing and the miso was really good too. the food places don't have knives so you have to use your spoon to help tear the food. the places also don't sell drinks; there's a separate booth thing you have to go to for drinks. the food court was extremely crowded. we had to sit at an 8 person table with some other people (which is a normal thing here). i guess because it's so hard to deal with your food and get a seat, not many people have drinks with their meals. i used the miso to help wash things down, as well as the waterbottles we had with us. we always take 2 or 3 bottles of water (two are usually frozen) with us whenever we go out. one, because it's so hot out; two, because it's easier than having to get drinks elsewhere. another thing that stood out to me was that everything was so fresh. the bbq place had the chicken on cooking as you order. other stands had raw beef and chicken and refrigerators waiting to take orders. it's very much not what you think of when you say food court.

had some time to kill before the movie so we explored a bit. went to a comic store (manga, not american comics) and was once again amazed by that. they had a bunch of anime keychains and stuff i restrained myself from buying...it's kinda crazy to think about how much i paid for keychains and all that stuff in my anime craze days while here at the mall they're selling chobits keychains for S$1...

stopped to get a snack before the movie. tuesdays are ben and jerry's buy one get one free days, so me and steve both got a little thing of cherry garcia (the little ones with the spoon inside). the movie theater was relatively small compared to most us theaters. the tickets were S$7 ($4.20 US). the seats were completely plush, including the arm rests, altho not very soft. the cup holders were at the edge between the seats, not on the arm rests which was kind of nice. before the movie were commercials and trailers mixed together, altho there were only 3 trailers and many more commercials. the movie was subtitled in chinese. (it was cute, amusing..)

after the movie i couldn't help but notice the arcade right next to the theater. while steve's mom was on the phone, we went to go see what they had. i was sort of surprised to see ddr 3rd mix plus..i'd figure this close to tokyo they'd have a more recent one. lots of interactive games like ddr and that drum thing. a back section of tons of "classic" games. i got caught up at the capsule machine. they varied from S$1-4 or 5 for one capsule. i only had one dollar coin so i found a S$1 machine and got a toy story 2 toy (the binoculars guy).

then we went down and stopped in carrefore, apparently the second largest retailer next to walmart. two story hyper mart type place with everything you'd expect. they sell vcds everywhere here in addition to dvds. i've also noticed that they sell sushi differently here; in addition to the mixed boxes (which there is a much greater variety of here), they sell nigiri sushi (the long ones with the fish on the rice) wrapped individually. there's also some i've never heard of..corn and mayonnaise?

Singapore: Frequently Asked Questions...

2005-06-07T10:43:35Z

before i do my entry of the day, i thought i'd make a seperate section for just general info about singapore.

Language- Singapore has four official languages: Malay, Tamil, Mandarin Chinese, and English. English is dominant and everyone speaks atleast some. All of the street signs are in english, and all other signs are atleast in english, often english and chinese. important signs ("like 'danger' stuff for construction areas) are in all 4. every now and then you'll see things with japanese as well.

Currency- Singapore Dollar (S$); comes in 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 cent and $1 coins, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, and 10000 dollar notes. as of writing this, 1 singapore dollar = about 60 us cents.

Transportation- Buses and subway are pretty easy to use. the buses and subway are comparable to any you'd find in the us..all of them have ac and some of the buses have tvs in them. the fares seem pretty cheap, altho we use prepaid cards that you hold up to a sensor when you get on and off the bus (or in and out of the subway); taxis are everywhere and easily accessable. they're also relatively cheap. you can walk a bit too.

The People- All of the people i've encountered have been very nice. there's a big courtesy campaign here encouraging everyone to smile and be a nice person. shop owners are in no way shy; walking down the river walk, every single restaurant has people out trying to get your attention, strike up a conversation, and have menus in hand ready to seat you right off the street. same with china town only not quite as drastic. mainly the tailor shops work really hard to get your attention.

Laws/Safety- Singapore's well known for it's many fees and high penalties for breaking laws. Smoking in prohibited areas (which there are many) is S$1000. Littering is S$1000 for a first offence. There are also fines set for spitting, not flushing a public toilet, and urinating in a lift (i'm serious) among other things. Murder, armed robbery and drug dealing/trafficking have a mandatory death penalty. "unauthorized drug use" carries 10 years in jail, a S$20,000 fine or both. chewing gum used to be illegal. now it is allowed, but selling gum is illegal and has a S$2000 fine. there's a shirt you can buy here that says "singapore is a fine city" and has 9 crimes with their punishments on it. anyway, there's not a lot of crime here.

The Feel- It's kind of odd...cars drive on the left side of the road, drivers sit on the right side of the car...but it really doesn't feel like another country. you look at the stores in the shopping centers as you ride around on the bus and about 70% of them are ones you're very familiar with. there's english everywhere, and it's a very big city. i haven't really had any culture shock here. it's very user friendly.

Day 3

2005-06-06T08:44:21Z

Got up early again..had scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and (more) mango for breakfast. headed out with steve and his mom. we took the bus to the subway which we took aalll the way out to big hub of busses where we took one aaall the way to the Jurong Bird Park (atleast an hour total to get out there).

It was pretty nice. seems the pride and joy of the park are the macaws. first thing when you actually get into the park is a whole open area with all different colored macaws. there was a red one at the front yelling at some doves that were in it's food. it was pretty amusing. we went straight to the bird show first since we got there just in time. it was pretty cheesy but in a cute way. got a couple really good photos. the had flamingos, macaws, pelicans, hornbill, and a few others. there was one that would fly up, land on a persons arm, and take/leave something in their hand.

wandered around most of the park..saw some pretty cool stuff..there were neat aviary things you could go into and walk around. one had some really small hummingbird types with some tiny monkeys outfront. one was up on the grating stuff between us..we were laughing and talking about how cute it was..then it pushed itself up against the grate and tried to pee on us...we moved on..

the way the owl exhibit is set up is pretty cool. they're behind glass, but the entire thing is dark except for some colored light in the enclosure. since it's simulating night the owls are out and about. you don't get the best view, but atleast they're there to see. the penguins had their own indoor area. they were all glassed in, which sucks, but you could see under the water. watching them swim around was pretty entertaining..those things can swim really fast.

we had lunch afterwards at a mcdonalds attatched to the park. i wasn't too excited about that at first, but once we went in it was pretty cool. there was a number of things on the menu i hadn't seen before (took lots of pictures, soon to come, i promise) as well as what i assume were previous runs of happy meal toys displayed in the eating area (which i also took pictures of, ofcourse)including some disney stuff, snoopy, hello kitty (some serious, big hello kitty toys), and pokemon.

took the bus all the way back to a shopping area steve's mom needed to go to. we were going to go too but steve wasn't feeling well (dehydrated most likely) and i was pretty tired so we took a taxi home. i think we're going back out to the river walk for dinner..for now just hangin out at home.

Day 2

2005-06-05T10:25:31Z

Got up pretty early (somewhere around 730 or 8)...took our time..had a nice breakfast, then got our stuff together. steve's dad has to go to india for a week for business so while he was packing we ventured off on our own. took a bus to the big mall we went to yesterday and wandered around there for a few hours.

Takashimaya S.C. (shopping centre) is a huuuuge 7 story mall. most of the shops are clothing stores and lots of jewelry shops and really nice stores. realizing we didn't have one, we found the book store and picked up a guide for tokyo. i found my way to the back of the store that was full of japanese books. i stood in amazement staring at the enormous manga section and realized i was going to have a heart attack when i got to tokyo. after some more slow wandering my eyes finally settled on one of things i was going to look for in japan...japanese harry potter. the selection wasn't great (they didn't have book 5, which is the one i want) and i decided from comparing different price tags that it would be cheaper to get it in tokyo. i glanced at a section of japanese disney books which i might have been tempted to buy but, alas, no pictures inside. i just know when i get to tokyo i'm gonna want to spend an entire day just getting lost in a book store...

we went down to a restaurant that we'd seen yesterday and is why we went back today. we had lunch at "Ajisen Ramen" and it was soooo good. I had some sort of pork ramen with pork that had to be the most tender meat i've ever put in my mouth. also got a little sushi (also with melt in your mouth salmon) and iced green tea. steve got some kind of seafood ramen that was very much seasoned with lemon grass or something, and was also *extremely* spicy..and anyone that knows steve knows he likes his spicy food..gotta pay attention to those pepper icons over here. so after his slightly painful experience there we headed back to the gelato place.

came back here and sat around for a little bit, then went down to the pool for about an hour. nice pool, perfect temperature. we just had dinner and now we're going to go walk around a bit with steve's mom. tomorrow's plan is to get up early and go to the bird park which is supposed to be really nice. i took a bunch of pictures today but haven't messed with them yet. might do that tonight after we get back...stay tuned :)

Day 1

2005-06-04T10:40:26Z

slept amazingly well and have adjusted pretty easily to singapore time (it's 13 hours ahead of central time). we got up and had breakfast consisting of a bunch of really good fruit..two different kinds of mango, dragon fruit, rose apples, mangostine (not sure if that's spelled right but it's reeeallly good) and starfruit.

we all walked down to catch a bus and went to the china town area. wandered around there for several hours which was nice and interesting. so much of so many different things everywhere. we went to a sort of outdoor food court type thing for lunch where we bought a bunch of food we all shared. it was all very good..there was some curry chicken, some kind of soup, pork, duck, some other kind of really good chicken. had a can of 'winter melon tea' which was really good..it's a bit intimidating looking at all the signs and not knowing what half of it is..i'm glad steve's parents were there to guide us, although i figured out on my own to stay away from the sign for "pig organ soup" (which is apparently quite popular). we went down to what i think is called the wet market where all the food is sold. lots of fruit i've never seen before. tried not to pay too much attention to the meat section..the vegetable section was amazing..everything looked so fresh. no wilted leaves or spotted stuff. there was a lot of fresh seafood (dead fresh, not alive fresh), tons of whole shrimp. when we got to the crates of live frogs we decided it was time to go. we stopped by a massage place and steve and i got foot massages (nice in a painful sort of way..) and steve's dad got a thai massage which is apparently a cross between a standard massage and chiropractic stuff

took the subway to a very large, very crowded mall where we got gellato. apparently june is singapore's sale month where everyone has massive sales. also, randomly, we got to see how those wax hand mold things are made which is pretty amazing too. no pictures yet, but i'm sure i'll have more than anyone will ever want to see soon enough..