The End

So here we are.  We've reached the end.  Thank you all for coming along with us for the ride.  We've had a great time and couldn't have done it without you..... ok, that last part isn't true, but you know what I mean.

At the end of each trip I like to think about the new things I've learned along the way.  

Here is a list of my top ten.

1.  There is no need to panic.... things will work out and while they're busy doing just that, not panicking, so you may as well enjoy the adventure!

2. A map is a wonderful tool, but sometimes it's nice to put the map away and just explore.

3.  Shower caps are great for covering the bottom of your shoes when you're trying to pack them in with your clean clothes!

4. If you're interested in history, a good guide, who can tell you interesting, background stories about people and places and not just dates and boring facts are worth their weight in gold.... and it's a bonus if you get one who doesn't weigh that much!

5. Try to eat and drink local produce of the area you're travelling in to help you absorb more of the culture and the ambience of the place.  Also try to research the local specialities, like Kendal mint cake from the Lake District in the UK or escargot in France or dumplings in Singapore.

6. Always always aways show respect to the local people.... it may be your touristy holiday destination, but for the locals, they live there.  

7. Thongs (flip-flops) can be dressed up or down and go with absolutely any outfit that you have in your suitcase!

8. It is important to learn, remember and try to use the basic phrases in the language of the country you are in.  Even if the locals speak English, it won't kill you to try and speak theirs.

9. Pack light!  You think you'll run out of things to wear, but surprisingly, you don't.  We packed much lighter this time and it was so much easier.  It will also be easier to fit in those little prizes you purchase along the way.

10.  Remember to wear comfortable shoes and always pack bandaids and blister pads - just in case.

There you have it, Faithful Followers.

Until next time......

xxx

A Colourful History

Today was all about the culture.  We left out hotel and turned left - a direction we hadn't gone so far on this trip.  We passed this cool building, which is the Ministry of Communications and Information.  I love the coloured shutters!

Our cultural distinction for today was the Peranakan Museum.

There was a lot of information to take in at this museum, but I'm only going to give you the very short, Reader's Digest version of what we learned.

The Peranaken culture started way, way back.  Most Peranakans are of Hokkien ancestry, although a sizeable number are of Teochew or Cantonese descent.  Originally the Peranakan were mixed-race descendants, part Chinese and part Malay/Native Indonesian. 

The language of the Peranakans, Baba Malay is a creole dialect of the Malay language, which contains many Hokkien words.  It is unfortunately a dying language and its use is mainly limited to the older generation.  The language and some of the traditions are a bit lost on the younger generation, which I guess is the same in a lot of cultures as people evolve and things change.  I mean, I think I'm down with most of the kids, but sometimes I don't know what the hell they're talking about!

When we were there we spotted an older Peranakan lady.... cause we an spot them a mile away! who was there with her two grand daughters, showing them how things used to be.  It was great that she was passing all that information down to them and that they were interested. They were Australian and the Nyonya now lives in Canberra, but she comes back once a year to visit her 94 year old sister.

This was a hand woven rug which would have been made by one of the servants of a wealthy family.  How cool and now is the pattern.... fashions always come back around eventually!

One fashion that I'd love to see come back in is the hand made beaded shoe.  They are first beaded onto this frame.

How beautiful are they?

This is one hell of a complex culture to try and understand in an hour visit to a museum.  It is rich with traditions and rituals.  They have their own style of food, which to Westerners would seem the same as Malaysian or Indonesian, but to the Peranakans, they have their own style and their own way of doing things.

This sweet statue was out the front of the museum.  The plaque read:

"In memory of the cat that adopted this building and became the museum's mascot - 1998-1999"

Full of culture and still hungry for more, we jumped into a cab and headed over to Arab Street.  This is a street lined with restaurants and fabric shops.  There were 100s of them.  I just don't understand how they can stay afloat when they all sell EXACTLY the same thing.  It must all come down to how you lure your customers into your shop.  They all had a similar way of doing it.  Some would just say "Hello, You want some material?"  Others would thrust rolls of fabric in your direction blocking the narrow passage.  Then there would be the older characters who would sit on a low crate smoking and ignoring you as you passed by.  It's hard to choose which shop to go into based on these techniques.  However since we had no need for fabric - the point was irrelevant!

So, in a bid to get away from the shops, we crossed the street and spotted the top of market tents, which generally can only mean good things...

And outside a massive mosque was a long street lined with food stalls, all selling different types of food.  Some hot and ready to go, others were selling prepackaged food and some home made take away things.  I have to be honest and say that none of it looked appetising in the slightest. 

Turning left, we found Harji Street, which was a tiny, one way street lined with little, narrow shops and makeshift restaurants and bars.

This was the outside seating for one bar..... 

And this was the smoking area.

I do have to say on the subject of smoking that Singapore are well on their way to getting it completely right.  This has been the first country we've been to where we haven't noticed people smoking.  They are there, but they seem to move away from the crowds and out of walk ways.  There are some strict rules about it and the government have recently extended the list of places where smoking is banned.  There's a hefty fine if you don't comply, but it appears that most people are following the rules.

One man lit up on the footpath in front of me, and when I tried to blow the smoke out of the my way and waved my hands around - he apologised!

Let's take a leaf out of Singapore's book please rest of the world!

The Trees Are For The Birds!

Me and my Jenny caught a boat today to the Marina Bay so we could complete our tour of the Gardens on the Bay and watch the light show.

Every city you go to always looks very different from the water.

Our destination.

The little white building on the left is the Art and Science Museum building which has been built in the shape of a lotus flower.

And here's the famous Merlion.

The Merlion is the most famous image in the country.  It is an imaginary creature that represents Singapore's humble origins as a fishing village. "Mer" refers to the sea and lion translates as "singa" in sanskrit, while the fish tale symbolises the old city of Temasek.

There seems to be a bit of a theme going on here in Singas... They build things to look like other things.

The Merlion, the lotus flower building, the building that looks like a ship, and now the Helix bridge has been designed to look like DNA!  It's quite cool.

So, back in the garden and wandering around the bits we missed the other day and we came across this piece of art (?).  It seems to be a large, floating, white baby.  We couldn't get closer to see what the hell it was as they were doing a bit of maintenance on that exact spot, so it shall remain a mystery.

Another art instalment do you think?  Except this person was real and was really asleep.  It's the heat - it wipes you out.  And this just goes to show how low the crime rate is here.  The man's shoes are still there and he was holding his mobile phone in his hand as if handing it to someone to steal..... but nobody did.  Well done people.

 Again, we were taken in by the beautiful flowers and plants.

And funny little installations along the way.  I do so love a mushroom! 

After the wandering in the heat had taken its toll, we headed up to the roof top bar atop one of the super trees for a 360° view of Singapore.  There were about 50 cargo ships all bobbing away just off the island.  It just goes to show how big  and how important the port is here.

The plan was to have dinner up the tree, but their restaurant was booked out and anyway, after one drink up there, we were lucky to have enough for a taxi home!  Instead, we chose the Peach Garden Noodle House, which is part of the Supertree Dining area and let me tell you what a mistake that turned out to be.

We wanted to order dumplings, which were on the menu, but they were apparently only for the lunch menu. We ordered some white bait, which turned out to be a plate of hollow, deep fried bits of fish shaped batter which surprisingly still had the eyes.  They were promptly sent back and struck from the bill.  Then I ordered a chicken dish that they had run out of (this was at 6pm) and they suggested another dish that didn't look as good.... and it wasn't nearly as good... in fact, I'm going to go as far as to say that it was the worst tasting meal I've eaten in the 2 months we've been away.  Again - uneaten, taken away and struck from the bill.  We ordered a plate of broccoli, and from the pictures in the menu, it was meant to be Chinese broccoli, but a plate of normal "English" broccoli came out.  When we queried it and showed her what we wanted from the menu, so just pointed to the dish that looked nothing like the menu and nodded.  We ended up eating that though - we were starving!  Jenny did have a nice wanton soup and I had a lovely coconut juice straight from a coconut, so that was nice.

My recommendation on dining at the Gardens would be to go anywhere else but here.  They did take things off the bill without question though which was appreciated, but the lack of hesitation or want of more feedback did make me wonder if they have things sent back so often that they know it's terrible and don't need to ask?

Anyway..... as we walked out of the restaurant - this started to happen.

The trees started to light up and dinner, or the lack of was a distant memory.

It was quite magical and alien at the same time.

The people up on the skywalk got a great view of the lights and of the beautiful sunset.

There is so much to do and see in Singapore at night.  The tree light show being only one of them.  Another is the laser water show which is in the Marina bay on the other side of the Marina Bay hotel.  So we hightailed it back over the dragonfly bridge towards the lasers and as we got to the top of the walk over bridge, we turned and got to see the spectacular light show in the trees.

All set to beautiful music, the trees change colours as if they are dancing.

Then on the other side of the bay, we had to wait until the next show started so we took the time to sit and look at the city through the palms and watch the world go by... or jog by, as it were - there were A LOT of joggers!  Of course I was starving by then - due to the distant memory of having no dinner, so we ordered beers and nachos whilst we watched the people exercising.

Then we sat down with all the peeps while the next lot of laser/light magic happened.  It was crazy, there was water and fire and lasers and images and video projected up onto the spray of water and there were bubbles and there was music..... Apparently it took 100 experts 3 years to perfect this show.  It only goes for 15 minutes, but it's quite mesmerising.

Thank you for a great day/night Singapore.  You really know how to turn it on!

One Beautiful Chick

I've known this lady for about 15 years and I just love her.

She is a mother to two gorgeous kiddies, and the wife of a very lovely, handsome and successful chap.  She is a practitioner of Chinese medicine and has lived in Shanghai and now Singapore.  She speaks Mandarin and orders the best dumplings this side of the Great Wall of China!

But above all of those spectacularly inspiring traits...... she's simply a top chick who I am super glad I met and even more super glad that I stayed friends with, even after all this time and all that distance.

 

And today, Mrs Jodie Casson took me Jenny and me out to lunch to one of the best dumpling places in Singapore.

Singapore - A 'Fine' City!

Singapore!  Final leg.  Week 8 of our mammoth journey.  Only 4 more days and we'll be home on Aussie, golden soil, where there's wealth to toil.  A land that is girt by sea.  I like to use the word 'girt' in a sentence whenever possible.

So, welcome to Singapore..... aka The Little Red Dot.  The home of the Merlion and the Singapore Sling.  The City that gives out the most fines from jaywalking to possessing chewing gum to not flushing a public toilet to smoking in a public place.  As a result, Singapore is extremely clean and has a very low crime rate - maybe some other cities should take a leaf out of The Little Red Dot's book!

It is also the home of some of the beset gastronomical establishments in the world.  That's a big call, I know - but I mean, it's all about the dumplings people.... think about the dumplings!

And there is some of the biggest (and creepiest) seafood I've ever seen.....

In our search for "What's on in Singapore" - I came across an advertisement for a photographic exhibition by Annie Leibovitz 

at the Art and Science Museum.  

I love portrait photographers and she's one of the big ones. It was so interesting to see her life's work from her early days at Rolling Stone, to shooting covers for Vanity Fair and Vogue as well as her photojournalistic work in Sarajevo during the war in the 90s.

For this exhibition she also included many photos from her own personal life which added a nice, human touch to her work.

Next stop for us was to the Gardens By The Bay.  The last time Jenny and I were in Singas they were still building these gardens and Jenny has been itching to get back here ever since.

These trees are on the walkway from the Marina Sands Hotel to the gardens.... they looked a little droopy and Jenny said, "Look, hands up who likes me?"

Hilarious and an arbory tribute to the late Rik Mayall. R.I.P.

 The gardens are amazing, which is what you would expect from the Singaporeans.  

This is the view from the bridge that shows you two cool, domed conservatories which house the cloud forest and the flower dome.  Seeing as it was about 57℃ with 98% humidity today, that was our first port of call!

The Cloud Forest has a waterfall 

which some people were enjoying more than others.....

Lots of cool flowers and plants

and a great view back to the Marina Sands Hotel, with it's crazy surfboard platform bit at the top that has an infinity pool!

and over to the Supertree Grove which are the trees that light up at night.

Then, cause we're not silly, we went straight out of one air-conditioned dome and into the next to look at some more flowers..... but I think these were prettiest ones that we could find.... 

So it seems that we came all the way to Singapore, via Europe to see Australian plants!

But look how lovely they are.....

These are the colourful Persian gardens

A fantastic use of tiled mosaic plates and fruit!

There were heaps of kids there getting really involved in the garden and the flowers.  Lots were drawing what they saw and others were taking photos and finding out facts about the plants.  It was cool!

And airconditioned!  We'll be going back to do the rest in the evening, once it's cooled down and we can also see the light show - win! win!