January 1
I arrived in Singapore at about 1am on New Years Day. Went through customs with no problem and realized that in Singapore, you get your bags before you can leave the secured area. Taylor had sort of anticipated being able to see me for some length of time before we could actually be reunited, so he was hidden from view, but he could see me the entire time I was waiting for my bags, which seemed like FOREVER! I am sure it was only like 10 minutes, but knowing my love was about 10 yards away and I couldn't see him yet, after 5 months apart was excruciating.
FINALLY, my bag arrived and I hoisted it onto my bag and headed toward the green exit (meaning I had nothing to declare to customs). Our reunion was wonderful, completely happy with no tears (good job, Carissa!) and so exciting! We hopped in a cab and headed toward the hotel that I had booked for the first night in Singapore. I did a GREAT job. It was a really nice place (unlike some you'll hear about). We spent some time geting reacquainted, which was amazing and then headed out for our next adventure!
On January 1, we checked out of our hotel and headed to the Singapore bus station to buy a ticket to Kuala Lumpur. We had planned to get a 5pm bus, but actually were able to get tickets on a 3pm bus for about $25USD each. The bus turned out to be REALLY nice, too! Air conditioned, fairly empty, and only 3 seats across and each seat had a leg rest that popped up and reclined. Very nice. We did get yelled at by a fellow passenger for being too loud, but we actually suspect that our PDA was offending her and she just wanted to let us know she was paying attention. Oops. Here's us on the bus:
The ride to KL was uneventful. We stopped 3 times. Once at the exit from Singapore, again when we entered Malaysia and went through customs and finally at a rest stop where we couldn't buy anything because they didn't have an ATM and we hadn't acquired any Malaysian Ringgits yet.We arrived in KL at about 8pm and decided to try to walk to our hotel. I had booked it online and it looked pretty nice and centrally located, so we started asking around for the KL Plaza Suites. No one seemed particularly sure what were were talking about, but we managed to find our way to a place called KL Plaza which seemed promising. When we entered, we realized that KL Plaza is really just an almost-empty mall and KL Plaza suites is only visible on a small sign above a door about halfway down an empty hallway! Exhibit A:
We took an elevator to the 5th floor reception which looked a LITTLE more like a hotel.
Then we went to our room on the 19th floor which looked like a college dorm hallway or a hospital rather than a hotel. The room was really a suite, which was nice because we had lots of space but a little troubling because the TV only had Malaysian channels and the hot water didn't work (they had a hot water heater in the bathroom that you were supposed to turn on 30 minutes before you wanted to shower, no dice).
We called the hotel to come look at it and they came, realized it couldn't be fixed, and offere that we could move rooms. I had already unpacked so instead of moving, they said we could just use that shower if we wanted. We did so and then headed out for dinner! Unfortunately, it is rainy season in Southeast Asia and as it often will in our tale, the rain thwarted our plans and we ended up just dashing to the nearest restaurant we could find that was open at 11pm. Here's our dinner, mmmm fried!
After dinner we tried to find a live music place Taylor read about in Lonely Planet (also to feature frequently in subsequent pages) with no luck so we settled for checking our e-mail, letting the parents know we were alive, and watching end of ze world :)January 2
Today, we went to the Batu Caves outside KL. It's these caves with Hindu temples and lots of Monkeys. We got some good pictures, met a fellow American buleh from Virginia and watched in horror as a crazy man in crocs started a fight with a monkey. Some images:
Me in front of a HUGE statue outside the caves
Inside the cavesWe broke down and took a cab back that dropped us off in Chow Kit. The neighborhood has lots of markets and we went to a food market that had every kind of fish, plant, testicle you can imagine. We also bought Taylor a new duffle bag for $12 because his was moldy.
We headed back to our hotel and cleaned up before heading out to dinner in Chinatown at a nice nonya (Malay food) place. It was full of other bulehs (what Indonesians call white people) all with their Lonely Planets ready at hand. After dinner we walked all over KL including Merdeka Square, some private club that was the birthplace of the Hash House Harriers, Little India, some street with bumping clubs, and back to a place near our hotel for hookah (Taylor's first!) and a jug (about .75 pitcher) of beer.
January 3
Our last day in KL. We went to the bus station and bought tickets to our next destination, Melaka (Malacca), and then walked to the Petronas Towers (KL's most prominent skyline feature). The Petronas towers and accompanying mall were fun, but we were getting tired and had to make our bus by 4 or so, so we headed to the hotel, checked out, and went to our bus.
We arrived in Melaka at about 6pm and got a cab to the Seri Costa Hotel. We had heard that it might be like $45/night. Fat Chance. It was $285MR for the king room and $250MR for the standard room. I made the mistake of seeing the King room first and I fell in love. It was this homey little room with a big shower, tub, nice decorations and a great bed. I was sold, so we stayed there for the ridiculous rate of about $80/night. Our first night in Melaka, we walked into the main area of town and grabbed dinner at the Quayside Seafood Restaurant. It was cheap, delicious, outdoors, and had live music, the perfect dinner. After dinner we walked around and saw some old dutch buildings and made our way to a restaurant that we will always refer to as "Buddah Bacon Bistro" because I cannot remember the real name. We got a couple drinks and listened to the singer who was covering American songs. Everything was going really well until the singer started singing Faithfully by Journey and it got 10X better. Faithfully is our song and it was just the perfect moment for him to play it. We both cried, smiled and knew that our first dance would have to be to this song. Also Taylor told me that he has never heard faithfully in Asia...apparently Journey isn't very well known, guess it was fate.
January 4
We booked tickets for a bike tour the next day and then decided to go to an island off the cost of Malaysia about 10km south of Melaka called Pulau Besar (big island). It's actually a small island and kind of hard to get to. We took a bus and had to walk a ways through a marshy field. As we were walking I realized how remote it was and commented to Taylor that I wouldn't be surprised if a large animal just came out of nowhere. Wouldn't you know it at that moment a huge cow appeared to our right. Ah! We've since seen a million cows, but that was the most memorable. We got a ferry to Pulau Besar and spent about 3 hours just walking around, laying on the beach, eating the local food, and looking for a decent bathroom. After Pulau Besar, we had plans to go for Sate. Unfortunately, the Sate place we had in mind wasn't open on Sunday, so we ended up walking around a lot. We were pretty lost and asked a nice couple in a car for directions. They actually invited us into the car and ended up dropping us off near Chinatown. It turned out that the man was a minister and they were very nice! We grabbed cheap eats in Chinatown and walked around before heading to Buddha Bacon Bistro for some bad drinks and (sadly), no live music.
January 5
On Monday morning, we got up to meet our bike tour guide, hoping to talk him down from the $70MR price they had quoted. Taylor went to meet him to offer $50MR each ($100 total) and the man would not accept it and left. Sad, but also kind of weird since we were clearly the only business he had that day. Malaysians are very proud, I think and not really willing to negotiate for their prices. Instead, we just spent the morning relaxing. We went to Starbucks and McDonalds, I got a manicure, and we headed to the bus station to get a bus to Singapore.
We took an evening bus to Singapore that got us in at about 9pm. We stayed with Taylor's friend Wayne Ma who lives out by the airport. By the time we navigated there with the help of our taxi driver, Wayne's great directions, and NO cell phone, it was about 9pm and Wayne was waiting. His apartment was on the 22nd floor and you could see downtown Singapore from his balcony. We set our stuff down and met his roommate and then Wayne was kind enough to take us to get some dinner in the Clark Quay area. It's pretty much just a huge, developed area with lots of restaurants and bars (including one called Clinic where you can sit on hospital beds or in wheel chairs and drink alcohol out of IVs...yeah, weird). Wayne headed home after dinner and Taylor and I went to the Raffles Hotel, which is arguably the nicest hotel in Singapore for a drink. We walked around the hotel a little bit and ended up at the 2-story Long Bar. The band upstairs was on their last song, but we still ordered 2 Singapore Slings (what the bar is famous for) for $22 SD each (about 25USD) before heading home to bed.
January 6
On Tuesday, Taylor and I both called our parents and got kind of a late start. We headed to Orchard Road, which is the nice shopping district of Singapore. It was nice, but everything was expensive and we were hot from all the walking around so after grabbing a quick lunch, we headed up Orchard Road to the Singapore Botanical Gardens. The gardens are beautiful and I highly recommend the National Orchid Garden where you can see all kinds of amazing Orchids. We stayed there for a couple hours before heading to a neighborhood called Kampung Glam to see some more local sights and grab a beer. Here are a couple pictures:
We wrapped up the day with dinner with Wayne at a Mexican place in Holland Village and drinks at a rooftop bar in Chinatown with Wayne and a couple friends. Here's a picture of the view of Chinatown, Singapore:
January 7
Wednesday was our last day in Singapore and we went to meet Wayne for lunch at Pau La Sat, this old victorian market, a beautiful relic from the British days of Singapore. After that we went to the mall and to the Eplanade, which is basically this really gaudy building that looks like 2 hairy testicles or durian (a southeast Asian fruit). You be the judge:
After the Esplanade, we had to head back to Waynes to grab our stuff and get a cab to the airport. When we got in the cab and he asked where we were going, Taylor said, "Singapore Airport, International terminal." That's funny because, being a city-state and only 26km wide, all flights from Singapore are international. Nice!
We boarded the plane and I braced myself for my first time in Indonesia!!!
We arrive in Indonesia at about 7pm on January 7th and headed straight to the Hotel Novotel Surabaya. Taylor had been there once to see if they had Internet and he remembered it being really nice. Well, he remembered right! The hotel is more like a resort in the middle of a sprawling, dirty, hot, traffic-laden city. The rooms are nice, the lobby is beautiful, and the pool is amazing! It's this lagoon surrounded by trees with beautiful flowers. There's a water slide, great service, and stone monkeys spitting out water everywhere. It is truly a dream and only $60/night including breakfast! We checked in and spent the evening relaxing.
Me with no pants (I have a bathing suit on!)
Pool!
He loved the water slide!January 8
We checked out of the hotel thinking we would go to Taylor's village. However, we were waiting to hear back from Nelly about permission to book our tickets to Bali (which we would have to do in Surabaya), so we decided to stay another night at the hotel Novotel. We spent most of the day on Thursday hanging out at the mall. Then, after we re-checked in to the Novotel, we went out to dinner and then to a club called "Colors." When we got there, it was dead, but there was a live band playing so we stuck around. Taylor has become very accustomed to live music in Asia, so he quickly made some requests and even went up on stage to sing Munajat Chinta with the band. That crazy boy! After Taylor sang, the first band wrapped up and another band came on stage. Their first song was actually a Switchfoot song, which was crazy! They were good, but they played mostly Indonesian songs so we left around midnight.
