Whoa, I have a blog?!

Ooops, I totally forgot about doing this... it's been a busy few months, I guess!

We went to Indonesia (Bukit Lawang) to see some orangutangs at the beginning of October. It was amazing, and I got to see my first great apes (orangs), as well as lots of other monkeys. Slept in the jungle (after racing a river down hill to make sure we could get across it before it was unfordable to get to campsite), walked up a lot of hills without complaining and watched a macaque steal our Immodium (poor monkey was in for a rough time...).

I actually took this photo with my actual camera. I was this close (and closer) to this Orangutan Mum and Baby,

We went to Bhutan for a week in the middle of October. My first time in the Himalayas (properly in them, Darjeeling was only Himalayan FOOTHILLS). Bhutan is a beautiful country, and we feel lucky to have been able to visit at this early point in their tourism development - everything is still fairly unaffected by tourism, and we got to see the people and the land fairly unspoilt. I think that this is the first country I've ever been to without a McDonalds (or any foreign brands that I could see). Walked up a mountain (2800m to 4100m in a day! Phew), and then got lost again on the way down the Bumdra trek. Saw Tiger's Nest Monastery after nearly losing hope (getting lost), and being rescued by the instructions of a yak herder to put us on the secret monk's trail. Saw Bee Stung Moose, at ema datse (chilli cheese) and fell in love with a river (Paro-chhu, I'll never forget you).

Have had a quieter few weeks in Singapore with Eoin being required three times a week to train the Singapore National handball team (because he's awesome), but have managed to fit in a fair bit of eating (found fantastic buffalo wings!), and a trip to Universal Studios! No trips currently planned until Christmas trip back to Australia, but that doesn't mean we won't go on one! But expect some more food-based (and cheaper) adventures in the next few months.

Oops - missed a bit of stuff

Sorry, it's been a busy few months, and I have gotten really behind!

Here's a short version of what we've been up to:

Jodie visited for a day!

Bukit Timah Monkey Walk

Met up in Paris for a weekend, went to visit E's parents in Herepian, and had a brilliant time

Went to Sibu Island for Singapore National Day (Singapore's 49th birthday) long weekend

Aaron and Corey visit

Fletch visit

Singapore Night festival

Lots of food

Jeremy visit

Mid autumn festival

Just Singapore things

There are a lot of amusing things about living in Singapore, and Eoin and I have been trying to think of a few of the more amusing ones.

First, differences between Singaporeans and people in other cultures I have dealt with that I find amusing most of the time (although sometimes I do have to close my eyes, take a deep breath and work hard to convince myself that they are amusing and not incredibly frustrating). 

1. Walking incredibly slowly, but having desperate need to be in doors first - probably the two most frustrating things about getting around - Singaporeans (particularly ladies) are incredibly slow walkers! I mean noticeably incredibly slow. The kind of slow you can't even adjust your pace down low enough to walk behind comfortably. This report makes me laugh hugely, because it's so blatantly wrong! Obviously this doesn't mean I'm faster than all Singaporeans, but I can't recall walking anywhere where I've encountered other people that I haven't had to pull up short or overtake. The second part... people will go to great lengths to make sure that they are first in/out of the train, bus, elevator or almost anywhere there's a door, pushing in front of the frail and elderly, wheelchairs, stepping on toes and trying to walk straight into you. So they can be the first to walk at snail pace to the stairs, shops or office. Sigh.
2. Not walking more than physically required - this one I can understand - it's HOT here. But as a huge generalisation, most Singaporeans will wait 15 mins for a bus to avoid a 5 minute walk.
3. Being skinny despite eating lots - See, in Japan, I could understand why everyone was skinnier than me. They ate less. I got it. Here, there are tiny women routinely tucking into bowls of oily soup that should double their BMI from the volumes they are slurping up alone, and consuming plates of noodles thicker than their arms. They love food here (and I love them for it), but I cannot for the life of me understand where they put it. Dudes too - how can your national diet consist of so much delicious, sweet, fried, carby food while you have an average body weight of 58 kg?
4. Unnecessarily heavy clothes- every mall has a shop or two selling parkas. No worries, people travel, kind of makes sense... until you are standing on the train next to the dude with the fur-collared, quilted canvas jacket. Or the lady over there with her fleece on. Or the teenage dude sweating away in his leather jacket. It's not like there's a winter here to prepare for - it's 25-31 all year round! Why even bother to sell track pants?!
5. Doing stuff at same time as everyone else - OK, I'll admit that this isn't really specific to Singapore, but it is a big thing here. People like to have lunch exactly at lunchtime. People like to catch the train at exactly train catch time. There are huge tides of people all moving the same ways/places simultaneously, and if you are happy to just move out of sync with the majority slightly, life can be a lot easier and less crowded (seats at restaurants, less sardine-tin trains, no waits on water slides).
6. Buck passing - this is a work one, and very much based on my personal experiences. As far as possible, most people I've encountered will avoid doing their job until they're really backed into a corner with no one else to point you at. This can involve walking around in a lot of circles. I've found this across many departments, types of job, ethnicities, and levels of employment (although higher seems to be worse). People will only help you if there's really no choice left and you're crying.
7. Singlish - It's a unique experience to have people speaking 80-90% English while you manage to understand 10-20% of whats going on. The sprinkling of Hokkien, teochew, cantonese, mandarin, and malay combined withYoda-ish grammar mean that I often have to repeat things in my head several times to be able to effectively eavesdrop. Mostly, Singaporeans turn off their Singlish when talking to foreigners, and I haven't had the chance to actually talk to a Singaporean about Singlish yet, but I'm keen to learn a few more words than "Shiok" (awesome/cool), "lah" (this is the end of my sentence, please agree with me), "mah" (this is the end of my sentence, and I actually asked you something), "kiasu" (pushy anxious person who's rude or arrogant because they are scared of missing out on something. See: my description of trying to get on/off a train above). I want to learn the good swears!
8. Going out clothes to work or uni - Some young ladies dress significantly better than most people would dress to go out to a fancy dinner to come to work and stay in a lab all day. There are people in evening-dress-ish dresses running all over campus and it confuses the hell out of me. The lady two desks down from me wears floaty maxi dresses or little black dresses to work every day. I'm not sure if this is a "trying to find a rich husband" thing (Singapore would definitely be a great place to be a trophy wife!), if these people just like dressing up, or if it's just normal to look like you are doing a daily walk of shame.
9. Customer service - This doesn't exist in Singapore. I'll tell you when I find some... This isn't actually true - there are some places where customer service is great. Its just that it can also be HILARIOUSLY bad - there is a shop I've been into probably 10 times, and the lady behind the counter is yet to make eye contact with me, or even look at me when I approach the counter. There are also quite a few impatient aunties who enjoy a good eye roll at the stupid foreigner who should know the (unlisted) prices of every item on the (non-existent) menu at hawker markets, bakeries or pretty much any place that deals mostly in cash.
10. Carrying food - More than any other country I've been in, takeaway culture is big here. Food and drinks are lugged all over the place, and I've regularly caught public transport with people who carry unopened Starbucks coffees for more than 30 mins to NTU (where there is a Starbucks). I guess Singaporeans can put up with cold coffee and cheeseburgers to be seen with the slightly-status-raising items? The packaging here is pretty cool, and there are some clever techniques that even hawkers use to let you bring your dinner somewhere else.

Next on the list, some of the observations of Singapore life itself , and differences to what we've previously encountered in Australia, Ireland, Japan or Germany:

1. Alcohol Prices - Whoa, what? $18 for a beer? OK, it's probably a pint of some imported German brew, but alcohol here is ridiculously expensive - I have had a sum total of three beers since I arrived 3 months ago, and only when we've had visitors (Nike paid for one of those for me - thanks Bridget!). Jarring difference to the rest of south-east asia, and although there are some slightly cheaper alternatives if you know your way around, most Singaporeans will just go to Malaysia or Indonesia with their friends for a weekend to have a bender (and end up with much fuller pockets)
2. Jobs for all - A lovely taxi driver told me that the one of the basic goals of the Singapore government is to try to make sure there's jobs for everyone, which helps to stabilise society. It means you see a lot of older people working at McDonalds or cleaning plates in cafeterias where you'd normally see teenagers working in Australia. The fact that there's no social security here probably contributes to this as well...
3. Chicken Chop - "Western Food" here is an amusingly Asian take on all Western cuisines combined. Probably the same amusement that people from Asian countries get when they come to Australian Asian Takeaways to see made-up asian dishes (lemon chicken) with mixed Chinese greens and Japanese-style rice. Aside from the amusing spaghetti with fish and chip meals, there is a uniquely Singaporean dish called chicken chop, which Singaporean people think is western. It's a de-boned chicken thigh hammered out to flat and then fried like a steak, and I have to admit I haven't actually tried it yet.
4. Singapore-d food - Heaps of food here is amazing. Amazing! But if you are hankering after a specific thing that isn't Singaporean/Malaysia/Chinese/Indian (e.g. bacon and eggs for breakfast), you might have a bad time. We discovered this the other weekend when we tried to go out for breakfast - Eoin ordered pancakes, and I ordered Eggs Benedict with bacon. The man asked Eoin if he wanted crispy or fluffy, and he asked for crispy (thinking crepes) rather than big American style-fluffy ones. What he didn't expect was pancake cooked to waffle-cone broken up with a plate full of dry nuts. What I didn't expected was a muffin, ham, cooked spinach and hollandaise sauce... all covered with a lake of bad onion gravy! There was no gravy on the menu or in the picture, and I was so sad. The worst part was how much we got to pay for the pleasure of the worst breakfast ever. But at least it was amusing. 
5. Information control - censorship aside (DO NOT WATCH HORROR MOVIES HERE, all patchily censored for blood, gore and nudity), Singapore administrative bodies seem to guard all information like it's national secrets, regardless of how non-sensitive the information is, and how vital it would be to the seeker. How long?, how much?, how can I? and why? seem to be questions that Singapore does not want you to know the answer to, even if it's just about the lunch you just ordered.
6. Big Brother vibe - Singapore is really safe. People mind tables in crowded food courts with their wallets and phones, and there is virtually nowhere you couldn't walk at any time of day. 
7. Plus plus - that was a great dinner for only $20!. Wait, why are there these plus signs at the bottom of the menu... That would be plus plus. $20 PLUS 10% service charge (decent-fancy restaurants only) PLUS 7% GST (GST only charged by larger companies that turn over $1 million per year or something like that). So we'll take your $23.40 please. BEWARE THE PLUS PLUS!

OK, that's some of the new and interesting things we've learned about Singapore/Singaporeans in the first few months. Stay tuned for more of our adventures (I know, I'm way behind).

Kenny Rogers Roasters

One fine Friday night after work, Eoin and I developed an itch. Not STD-related, this was more a yearning to do something that had been eating away at as - a failure unrectified due to laziness, the fact that we forgot a bit, and erroneous Google maps entries. It was time to once again... go in search of Kenny Rogers Roasters.

We had twice sought out the golden tones, locks and chickens of the elusive musician-associated-chicken franchise, but despite our best efforts had ended up chickenless. This time, we checked and doubled checked (on both google maps AND the hungrygowhere), and were sure we were heading the right way. Jumped off the train at Somerset, and soon found signs that we were not gonig to be disappointed this time.

Literally, it's a sign.

We headed down to the basement food court, and there - tucked away in the corner for the most possible tension before we found our goal - was VICTORY!

Victory is spelled c-h-i-c-k-e-n.

Got seated, looked over the sing-title themed menus, and ended up choosing a tw-person combo meal, ribs AND chicken. Obviously we had to have chicken (it's not called Kenny Rogers Ribs, that would be weird), but were really glad we got the ribs as well. Outside of the outstanding garlic potatoes, they were the best thing we ate. The food was actully pretty decent - reasonably pricey (but not as bad as an AWFUL breakfast we had recently that I'll have to write about soon... anyway, we now measure money wastage in terms of that breakfast, so at least we didn't pay $50 for eggs benedict with onion gravy), but we walked away full, happy... and feeling accomplished. 

Proof of visit

The kitchen or whatever - the walls were all Kenny Rogers photos and weirdly old lonely planet guides. 

FOOOOOOOOOOOOD. Ribs and chicken. The chicken also had ribs, but oddly they weren't included in the menu listing. Maybe only mammalian ribs count as ribs? This meal was called the Lucille.

Our final order - chosen as much for name (because The Gamble meal didn't look as appealing, and this is my next favourite song), and a Root Beer to stick with the American theme.

We followed up our successful dinner with a night at a music festival. But I'm lazy, so that's for the next blog post.

Fort Canning, Board Game Cafes and Little India

One sunny Saturday, Eoin and I went to a new park - Fort Canning in the city. We caught the train to Cith Hall MRT station, picked up some sushi and 100 Plus-es on the way, and walked up the hill past the Registry of Marriages (ROM) and Registry of Muslim Marriages (ROMM) (apparently a Muslim marriage can't be registered like other marriages) into the park. We walked through th field that obviously used to be a cemetery, because I felt weird about eating raw fish while sitting on someone's grave (the headstones are moved, but we were pretty sure that the bodies weren't), and then went to eat our lunch while providing the same for some hungry mozzies.

After all 1002 of us had eaten, Eoin and I started our wander around the park a bit. It was a sweltering hot day (basically if you can see blue sky here it's going to be hot hot, not just humid hot), but there was a nice breeze up on the hill at Fort Canning. We were surprisingly alone considering that we'd waded through people right outside the park fences. It was lovely and green and shady, and we wandered past the Battle Box (sadly, closed for the day), through the old married officer's quarters and laid on the seats enjoying the coolish breeze and reading our quiz book.

Gate to the old fort. Lovely heavy gate could keep out a marauding force. Who could then take 10 steps left and hop the tiny fence. 

Torn between calling this a Dr Strangelove reference or a Happy Gilmore one. 

What all prop roots want to be when they grow up - the roots were the size of small trees. 

Yeah. We live in the tropics. Sometimes I forget.

It took me like 30 seconds to get that this was a sculpture, not just a chopped up fallen trunk.

We walked back down into the heat past swety tourists heading back up the hill at us, past Doby Ghaut station, and up Princep street to try to find something that had been standing out on our "To Do" list since we found out about it - a board game cafe! We went to Mind Games Cafe (although found another one nearby that we'll try next time). It's not a bad idea - you pay $10-20 and get a few hours of playing one of the many many, many board games they have there and a drink or some food. We had a great time - I got to try out Ticket to Ride, we played some Quicksand game, ?? others???

Eoin deciding on what would turn out to be a hilarious (to me) catastrophe of a fruit tea. Iced black tea with half a tin of two fruits dumped in (with juice). Mmmmmmmm.

Look at all the board games! So much Monopoly!

When we got kicked out of the cafe, we decided it was time for some real food, our long-awaited Indian Feast (and the main reason we'd hung around the city waiting to get hungry again). We walked on up to Little India and started looking around to find the food/restaurant combo we really wanted. Stumbled across the Sri Veeramakaliamman hindu temple that was being re-commissioned (is that what you do to temples to restart them? Something like re-commissioned. Re-holy-ified, anyway) the next day, and was getting all dolled up. Was very pretty as the sun was setting.

Entrance to Sri Veeramakaliamman temple 

Above a side gate.

I've seen something like this in a museum in Udaipur! That was one real silver and this was just sitting by the side of the road, so I'm guessing it's probably not got quite the same intrinsic of culture value.

We ended up finding a North Indian/Nepalese place close to the temple, and had a brilliant feed of momos and dhal and tandoori chicken. With loverly mango lassi. It was so good I didn't get any photos until it was gone. Ahhh, memories of food.

It was great before we ruined it. Use your imagination.

Post-lunch Durian adventure

Just a quick note - today (yes, I'm actually posting on the day something happened for a change!) after lunch, one lovely guy from Eoin's group named David was pointing out where durian trees were planted on campus, near our walk back to our offices. For those who don't know, durian are the stink/taste monster fruit that many South-East Asian people love, while most Westerners think smell like rotten-onion/fruit chutney. They are heavy bastard spiked cannonball things that grow high high in order to be able to inflict maximum skull damage when they ripen and fall off. So when David asked us if we wanted to go check them out closer... of COURSE we said yes!

Stinky death machine. And a durian.

And we scored a jackpot - these trees are frequently scavenged by off-scholarship PhD students, but a fruit must have fallen not long before we arrived, so there was a beautiful not-too-stinky weapon of mass destruction for us to play with. We found a rock, and ended up opening it and trying some durian right out of the shell.

The look on his face says it all, really.

It was... not good. It was really hard and not very sweet at all - not like the normal durian experience (but also nowhere near as stinky!). It tasted slightly meaty, and had a texture like a very under ripe banana with surprise sneaky creamy bits. But smashing a newly-fallen durian open with a rock and eating the flesh with our fingers while standing on sensitive grass with the army practising a live-fire drill in the grasslands next door was probably one of the most authentic, non-constructed Singapore experiences I've had so far.

David, durian hunter.

Thanks, David! And thanks for not making us take the leftovers home (we plead inability - you aren't allowed to carry durian on public transport, and they have bag-checkers at each station to make sure you don't stink bomb their rail systems). 

Mum and Lovey go to the Gardens (and then go home)

This might be the last real touristy post for a while (depending on how busy our weekends get), and it pretty overdue. The last few days with Mum and Lovey, we headed to the National Museum of Singapore. Saw a few good exhibits - their permanent exhibition on the history of Singapore is quite good and well put together, but really requires several hours, and we were hungry so we did a quick 1 hour guided tour - highly recommended to get a quick sketch of Singapore's origins. We ate at the cafe in the museum - also a really nice bright comfortable spot. There are a few changing galleries, some "living Singapore" small galleries that tell you a bit about the culture of Singapore and how it's developed, and we saw an awesome exhibition of wildlife, human and landscape photos called Genesis by Sebastião Salgado, which made me realise how much of the world I still have to see. 

The roof in Singapore National Museum.

Lovey's best monkey impression

With their last weekend, we went to one of Singapore's most famous tourist attractions - Gardens by the Bay. Construction of the gardens here started on reclaimed swamp land in 2007 and was opened in 2011. There are some really cool bits to it, and it's not at all like the more traditional botanic gardens. There are a few (air conditioned) indoor gardens to keep us sweaty Westerners happy, and they've put a lot of effort into making as much of what they do (or at least what they talk about) sustainable. The Supertree grove is the best example of this, where each of the giant fake trees is a vertical garden, creates solar energy, is involved in the cooling, nitrogen ad carbon recycling activities they use to reduce their CO2 emissions and recycle their biomass into useful products and also look damn cool.

Anyway, it's a LONG way around the gardens, so we jumped on one of the bus tour groups that circels around to give us an overview, then decided which parts we wanted to see up closer.

Western-sized people on Asian-sized seats on the bus tour

All gardens should have giant floating babies.

Marina Bay Sands from the other side!

Supertrees!

The Flower Dome with the Singapore Flyer in the distance (pretty much the reverse view of this shot from this post)

Martini glass supertrees

Three generations of pink and sweaty :)

Walkway over the Supertree Grove. Wheeee!

I got them both smiling in one photo!

Trees of the future (as long as you don't mind spending millions of dollars on building and millions more on upkeep of your trees...)

Inside the FLOWERDOME.

Paris.... NOPE, fooled you, its the French Exhibition in the Flowerdome. 

Fat trees - Singaporeans do not approve.

Beyond the Flowerdome (he he he)

Watching the Garden Rhapsody, the Supertree Grove lighting up at night. Really awesome to watch, but I'm pretty sure it takes more electricity to put on the impressive light show than those things harvest through the day. 

The indoor waterfall in the Cloud Forest - we had it almost to ourselves at night

The fake mountain in the Cloud Forest.

Waterfall from above

After this trip, it was just about time for Mum and Lovey to head home. There are a few teary farewell photos, but I'll spare us all the embarrassment and keep them contained in my iPhoto library. It was so nice to have visitors to explore with, and now we know a few more interesting places to go (or avoid). The week after they left, I started work, so the timing was great. Most importantly, I got to eat cake every day for about 10 days. I put on 4 kg over their visit (truly!), so it also gave me something to do over the next few months to work it all off.