4th stop - Kula Lumpur, Malaysia

Made it to my 4th stop via a land this time. I took an overnight 5hr train from Singapore to downtown KL which left at 9pm (1hr delay) arriving in KL 7am this morning. Just stopping by my hotel momentarily to drop off my bags (checkin is not until 2pm), grab breakfast, and head out for the day. I have dinner with an old friend tonight....looking forward to seeing her, its been close to 6 years since I'v seen her in Italy. All for now, just wanted to update you that I got in fine.

A day in Singapore - too short but very sweet!

I knew that my one night in Singapore would be too short but it was oh so sweet. Singapore is a city that is very easy to navigate, the transit system (MRT) is user friendly and after one trip you get the gist of the layout. I had forgotten that flying from New Zealand to Singapore was back tracking which meant that my sleep pattern was 5 hours ahead...so was extremely jetlagged by 11pm. I had such a goodnight sleep on the comfy bed, so was very reluctant to get out of bed. Checkout time at the Scarlet was at noon so it giving me some time to gather my things, agenda, and breakfast. I grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel restaurant named Desire (the decor is as rich and sexy as the rest of the hotel so its aptly named). I ordered two eggs along to compliment the continental buffet which erred on the european influence with its selection of smoked fishes (e.g. salmon) and nice variety of breads and pastries. The fruit selections were also very yummy....dragon fruit, papaya, kiwi, strawberries, etc.

After checking out, I left my bags at the hotel and headed out for my daytrip through the streets of Singapore. The MRT Chinatown stop luckily was just 10mins. away, within the the short walk there was this pattern of rain and sunshine that came on an off, this is to be the weather pattern for the rest of the day. Since I hadn't checked the weather before leaving the hotel, I proceeded with no umbrella and had to find shelter during the heavy down pour in the shops and/or rolls of hawkers stands. My plan was to hit the neighborhoods of Little India, Little Malay, City Hall, Clarke Quay, Raffles hotel (where the Singapore Sling was first created and where the aurther Joseph Conrad stayed), head back to Chinatown for the heritage center, and meet my highschool friend Margaret's brother Christian for dinner.

Singapore is a wonderful city, they have got the perfect melange of old/new architectures and a united nations of the world living here. The three languages predominately spoken here are Malay, Chinese (mandarin), and English which is lucky for me. Since I stayed in Chinatown there were moments of challenges when the sales person didn't speak English so I reverted back to the more international language of animation and pointing to things (not so suave but it gets my point across). Hitting all the neighborhoods, I made it a point to try all the different kinds of food...you can say that I ate my way around the world in the Day in Singapore.

Little India was so colorful, the old colonial buildings, the wonderful shops selling anything from sari to jewelry, the smells of spice and curry. It 90% of the time during my walk through this neighborhood so I spent (unfortunately) some of my time under the covered shop awnings. My first stop was to the Sri Vat temple to check out the architecture and daily ceremony. Once I left the temple, it started to downpour so I headed straight to one of the food malls (or hawkers)...it was noon and just in time for lunch. I had the very famous and ideallic dish "chicken rice" which is rice that has been seasoned in a chicken broth served with the white meat chicke, cucumber, scallions, and a ginger/soy/sweet dipping sauce. My mom makes a version of this dish, Lao style and it happens to be one of my all time favorite comfort food dish where I have been known to eat 3-4 bowls of it at a time.

More to write and pictures will be updated later...