Going South Part 4

I woke up in Singapore on Saturday morning, and it's time to go home.

The good news was my fever finally died down, though I still had the diarrhea, but at that point, the worst was over. Me and my family went downstairs for some breakfast, and I ate some bacon. We took some pics of our hotel outside before going back into our room to finish packing. It was then when I told my mum that there was a certain DVD that she would be interested in which I spotted at Vivo City the day before. She persuaded me to take her back there, with our luggage, to pick it up for her, and then head to the airport.

So off we went. I simply loved travelling on the MRT, because it was so convenient. We made it there, picked up the DVD and made it to the airport in time for the flight back home.

By the time we reached KL, it was sundown. It was Saturday, so getting transport was tough. We decided to take a bus, but waiting for it was hell, especially since a hundred other people were waiting for buses too, and the bus drivers in this city are real inefficient and stupid, taking up the road space and stalling so much, thereby causing a traffic jam. You don't get that in Singapore.

And at long last, I was home. Tired, partially sick but happy. I would be happier if I didn't get sick then, but hey, I'm alive ;) In hindsight, there were so many places I didn't go to and stuff I wished I could get my hands on, but that's for the future. My mum is in no hurry to go back there, since it's expensive and all. But I vow to return someday. I have to.

More pics:

Going South Part 3

Day 3 was a Friday. I woke up in the morning with that annoying fever still there.

The plan was to go to Sentosa Island. This place was Singapore's equivalent to Malaysia's Genting Highlands, where people could gamble and take theme park rides all day.

So off we went, taking the MRT to Vivo City, the shopping mall where we could board the monorail that will take us to the island. Once we got there, we started taking pictures of the place, but I was getting less and less enthusiastic. The fever sapped all my strength, and I just didn't have it in me to keep up with them. As a result, my sister couldn't go into Universal Studios as she didn't want to go in without me. The tickets were expensive and I didn't want to waste my money going in and then spending the time on a bench, so we decided not to go in at all. We got some souvenirs at a nice little gift shop, before I persuaded my family to let me take the train back to the mall so that I could find a place for lunch.

Once back there, I realized that I didn't have the appetite for anything, even though I was starving. God I hate it when I lose my ability to eat. So I decided to walk around a bit, and I found a DVD store ;) My one weakness. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the Fight Club DVD staring back at me as I browsed the shelves. I had been looking for this for years. I also found The Punisher and Steven Spielberg's Munich. Oh yeah, this is awesome. But I was still sick.

I found a Kim Gary restaurant to have lunch at. This happens to be a place I liked going to back in KL. However, the loss of appetite made it hard for me to finish my bowl of noodles. I tried my best though. After meeting up with my family again, I told them I wanted to go back to the hotel to rest.

So I got back, took some Panadol and slept for about 3-4 hours. It wasn't even a smooth nap, the fever kept waking me up. My mum was worried about me and wanted to take me to the clinic next door, but I told her it was closed at that hour. That night I could only eat some cakes for dinner, couldn't eat much else. And later that night, the diarrhea started. It got messy. Awful way to spend a vacation, but at this point it was almost over.

More pics here:

Going South Part 2

Okay, now for Day 2 of my trip to Singapore.


We decided to go to Marina Bay, since that's where all the unique architecture is. We wanted to take pictures of everything near the bay.

So we took a bus and stopped at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Just as I had seen it on TV, the hotel is damn tall. We wanted to go all the way up, but decided to walk down the bay instead, towards the Merlion and take pictures of whatever that looked good there. There was a bridge designed after a DNA helix, a stadium on water, an opera house that looked like a microphone and a sphere like building that I can't remember what it was called.

But disappointment hit us when we arrived at the Merlion. It was covered with construction! Apparently they're building a temporary hotel around it, and it won't be taken down till May. Temporary hotel??? I have no idea what that is, or why anyone would want that. So there goes my chance to take a picture of the Merlion, and we had to settle for the smaller version.

Oh, the walk all over the bay was damn tiring, made worse by the heat. On Ira's advice, I wore a cap the whole time, since umbrellas weren't allowed on the plane. It helped a bit. But then I got hit with a cold (which is odd since it was hot), so that took half my energy off.

After that, we walked to Suntec City Mall, which was nearby. There, we heard about this Duck ride, a boat that doubled as a road vehicle, which would take tourists around the city near the bay, and goes into the river too. So we went for it, and it was quite fun. The view of all the landmarks earlier was much better from the water, and it was worth the money since the entire ride took an hour.

Then we headed via MRT to Chinatown, where my mum and sister wanted to buy souvenirs (My mum loves souvenirs). I bought a pocketwatch and a mini Merlion table thermometer for myself while I was there. By now, the cold I was suffering from went into full mode, so I had to take a pill, and take a short nap at a McDonald's nearby.

The good news was, when I woke up, the cold was gone. But bad news: I got a fever! The air-conditioning in the place must have had something to do with that. Rats. So I was feeling more miserable now.

We headed home, and I had some noodles from the same food court near the hotel. My appetite was off, and I knew my condition was about to get much worse. More on that in my next post.

Here are some pics from day two.

Going South Part 1

I've been so busy in the last 3 weeks that I haven't had the chance to blog about my recent trip to Singapore.

The last time I was there was probably about twenty years ago, give or take. So yeah, it's been a long time. So I was understandably excited about this. To see what has changed, if any, and if there's anything worth writing home for.


It was a Wednesday morning when I flew there. Me, my sister and my mum. I never really enjoyed flying, but in this case I'll make an exception. We arrived at Changi airport just after noon, and the modernness and cleanliness of Singapore was evident the moment we stepped off the plane. It was just amazing to see.

At the airport, a kind old man gave us instructions on how to use the MRT train system to get to our hotel. Unfortunately for us, we got a bit lost and we walked quite a distance to reach the hotel. We had not realized that there was an MRT station right across the street from our hotel LOL, and we only discovered this a day later. Anyway, the hotel was only a 3 star, but it didn't matter.

With the morning gone already, we only had time to go to one place: Orchard Road. The shopping capital of the island. Now, I've seen big shopping malls in KL, but over here, it's fucking HUGE. You could walk into one and get lost in there. I kept walking and walking, and there was just no end to it. It took me quite some time to find a video store, because I wanted to look for film DVDs more than anything else, but I finally found one, and they definitely had more choice than the shops back home. I purchased four films: 28 Days Later, The Godfather, Let Me In and The Town. Damn pleased!

We took the bus home, and this is where we noticed how efficient their bus service was compared to KL. Basically, Singapore's transport system is close to perfect. It's so good that there is less traffic on the road compared to other cities, since no one really needs to own a car on this island.

There was a 24 hour food court opposite the hotel, so we ate there. Lots of variety, but the quality of the food was just so-so.

Here are a few pics from day one. I'll continue more about this later on. Enjoy.