Friday, February 1, 2008

Secret squirrels go to Singapore

Yup sure did. Wasn't in the original plan but we had to decide if we should extend our Philippino visa the required 4 extra days (and pay for a whole month) or just change the flights. To be honest, we were totally over Filipino food and decided to go back to KL 4 days early and then we buggered off to Singapore for 2 days and got back to KL this morning :) I've been wanting to go to the S'pore botanic gardens since I whipped past it on a tourist bus when I was 17 and it was well worth the wait :) I won't bore you all with botanical details, let's just say I took over 90 photos and leave it there. Ahem. Oh and I got bitten by ants again but I guess that comes with the trade...
So since we came back to Malaysia (and Singapore) a week ago, we've played super-tourists and visited museums, zoos, night safaris, gardens, markets, temples... Heck, we even bought tourist bus passes in both KL and Singapore!
It's good to be back here, after I last wrote Dylan ate most of a Dodgy Chicken Sandwich (DCS) and I had a bite too and let's just say that the next day was thouraghly...unpleasant. I got off lightly, Dylan did not and I'm sure the day spent on a variety of buses and jeepneys making it back to Angeles in time for our flight will stay in his memory for a long time (a story to rival yours, Sam!). So anyway, after the DCS episode, the food in the Philippines went from memorably bad to downright poisonous. Being able to sit down in any cafe here and eat a dirt cheap, fabulous and trustworthy meal is bliss! I've said it before and I'll say it again, we get seriously ripped off with curries in Australia, they ain't got nothing on anything you can eat on any street corner here. Our favourite place to eat is called something like Zakir and Hameed's Gigantic Halal Eating Emporium...or something like that. If you are ever here in KL, it's the big tiled 24 hour place near Pasar Seni station, right by the central market. We are fascinated by the staff, they seem to come in only a couple of varieties. There are the tall, dodgy ones who float around a lot trying to look busy but never actually do anything, and then there are the little ones who run around like chickens with their heads cut off doing everything. One guy in particular is the splitting image of Snoop Dogg. Truely. Except he's about 5 foot tall.
It's coming up to Chinese New year and so the city is positively abuzz with energy, flowers, lights and lanterns, I'm sorry that we'll miss the real thing in a week, Adelaide's just not quite the same.
Anyway, speaking of curries I'm off for a naan and something delicious, then we'll go rescue our bags from the guesthouse (we just took one pack down to Singapore, a little nerve wracking to know that half of what you own right now is in another country and you don't live in that one either), have a shower and then head out to the airport to begin yet another long journey. There have been a lot of them this trip, not much time to rest but it's been good all the same. Might write a highlights/reflection thing for you all soon that I'll put a little more thought into.
Anyway, see some of you soon, some of you later, keep well and Happy New Year :)
Katie