On the way to Mexico

Uncle Patrick picked us up at 9:00am and dropped us off at Pearson. The first thing my dad does is always get those luggage tags and get us to put one on each bag, even carry on. Our flight was air transat TS550 at 12:35 pm. My dad already checked us in last night so we just dropped off our luggage. My mother filled up all our water bottles.. you know, just in case we get really thirsty in between our house and going past departure security haha. Apart from pouring out all our water in the washroom, everything was smooth and we had two hours before boarding.

 

I taught myself how to fair isle knit while we were waiting to board! I watched a youtube tutorial in the morning and it looked so easy but it only covered a knit all around pattern. The mitten I wanted to make started with a k1p1 ribbing. I kept redoing the first three rows because I was actually double knitting (something I hadn't learned and just started doing by mistake haha)! I didn't figure it out until our flight started boarding.

 

Our flight landed at 3:25pm mexican time. We exchanged our money inside the airport, and then walked out to find our shuttle bus to the hotel. We followed the nolitour personnel holding signs directing us to our bus. I thought it would be so hot but I was comfortable in my long sleeves and leggings.

 

Bus 32! The bus ride took about an hour. The nolitours guide

 

Is he sleeping? or studying an excursions flyer intently? I don't know because I was sleeping when my mother took this photo haha.

Golden Week Day 4 – Kuala Lumpar

I woke up at 6:30. I was so sleepy because I slept after 1am last night. My left eye was hurting a lot, so I took out the contact. It felt really dry and I couldn’t stop crying form that eye.

The morning was one disgusting thing after another. When I went to pee, I saw that there was poop smeared on the toilet seat. Good thing my eyes weren’t SO sleepy, or maybe I would have missed the brown spot! Then, when I went to wash my hands, I saw that one of the sinks had puke marks all over it because it clogged the sink. Fortunately for Tenshing, I woke up before him so I could warn him of the grossness.

Jenny was cleaning the messes in the washroom, so we had to wait for her to check out. I didn’t want to waste any time, so I went next door to buy my massive bun. Yay! It was $3. I hope it’s freshly steamed from this morning..

I exchanged my $50 bill for four $10 bills with Jenny. She said somebody also tried to flush their underwear in the washroom, but everything is all cleaned up now. They have cameras set up everywhere, I wonder if everything was done by the same person.

We left at 7:50 and walked to the mrt station. We had breakfast at the mini food court there.

I had my massive bun. It had mushrooms, pork, sausage and half an egg. It was amazing. I was so happy.

It was hot, but I felt like a hot drink. I got a cheese, egg and ham sandwich with milk tea combo. I drank the tea and saved the sandwich for later. I was rushing because we left the hostel late. I didn’t let the tea cool and I burned my tongue =(

We took the mrt to Changi Airport and the sky train to terminal 1. We checked in, got our cabin baggage approved before customs and went to wait in front of our gate. Usually there are metal detectors at customs, but in this airport, the metal detectors are located at each gate.

Tenshing thought he saw Travis walk by and called after him but when he went after him, he couldn’t see anybody. All of a sudden, Daisuke and Travis come running from the other direction and try to scare us with a yell.

It was so nice to see them. They came from Japan last night and have been waiting in the airport for .. a long time. Daisuke had monopoly cards. It played like a rummy (mah jong) game. It was really fun. Travis won the first game, and I won the second. Then, it was time to check in.

I slept the whole flight. At Kuala Lumpar, immigration took a long time. By the time we got to baggage claim, the conveyor belt wasn’t moving anymore and our baggage was in a pile on the floor. I exchanged 50000 yen at one of the money exchange booths.

The transportation to the hostel was a little complicated. We took a bus to the train station, sitting at the back like cool kids. We took the train to sentral station. We had to go to the ticket counter with our ridiculously large bills to buy a mrt ticket. Then we went two stops and it was easy to follow directions for a short walk to Backhome hostel.

The hostel was nice. I liked the plain and open design of it.

We checked into a 4 bunk bed room.

There was a sink, mirror and locker space. Also a garbage can that worked very well as a camera tripod.

The lady at the front desk recommended that we try eating on banana leafs with our fingers on the next street over in mini little India. That sounded delicious so we got directions to go.

We passed by a Carrefour Express convenience store and decided to go in to break some bills. I chose a Ribena soft juice packet and lined up after Daisuke. I was surprised to see him pay with a 10 ringit bill because I thought he wanted to break a 100 ringit bill just like me. And then, to my greater surprise, the clerk asked “10 ringits!?” with great hostility like we’re trying to buy 1 thing at the dollar store with a $100 bill. 10 ringits is about 300 yen, or $3.

Japan is a cash society so we may have gotten used to carrying around a lot of money and paying for 100 yen items with 10000 yen bills.. but I don’t think we deserved the attitude he gave us. (The photo was taken before this happened.)

Somewhere in between the hostel and the restaurant. A bird pooped on my waist pouch. Yea..

When we got to Sangeeta, the restaurant recommended by the hostel, we were informed that it was too late in the afternoon to have banana leaf meals. It was late afternoon, and I had eaten my food court sandwich on the way to the hostel so I wasn’t really feeling like a meal anyway. I ordered some desserts that came to a total of 8 ringits and a 9 ringits mango lassi.

I chose four different desserts. The miniature apple was the most beautiful and the most disappointing. Maybe because I saved it for last and was already full on sweet things, or maybe it just sold based on looks.. I couldn’t finish eating it.

Daisuke ordered the coolest dish. It had a fire burning under it.

After eating, we went to see the twin towers. We couldn’t go to the bridge connecting the two buildings because the tickets were already sold out for the day.

We walked through the mall and exited into a park on the other side. There was an island in the middle of the man made pond. We relaxed and people watched for a bit. There was a water show in the pond. Travis napped and Daisuke played with timed continuous shots on his camera.

We took the mrt back to the hostel stop. Our destination was china town. It wasn’t very far away, but we took our time and explored the city a little bit. We stopped whenever one of us wanted to take a photo of something. I found some interesting buildings.

Really dirty canal water.

We stumbled into central market. It had outside stalls, but was mostly indoors. It was really arts and crafty, but also had a lot of souvenir and collectable type things. I probably could have spent an afternoon there if I wasn’t rushing. There wasn’t that kind of time so I just followed the boys and stayed outside the stores.

They didn’t have H, or I would have bought a bling bling ring. .. just kidding. Actually, they don’t have H because I bought it already! .. just kidding. Actually, I was just kidding my just kidding. .. just kidding! kidding.

The centre of the market was very crowded with stalls and people. You wouldn’t be able to walk wearing a big backpack without knocking merchandise over. It was the standard kind of foreigner night market you can find all over Asia: cheap knockoffs of everything, the same t-shirts (they’re funny and original when you first read them but I find them sort of lame when I realized they’re sold everywhere), lighters, iphone accessories.. I didn’t see many new things and I wasn’t buying but it still took me a while to get to the other side of the market because it was so busy.

The boys all bought t-shirts. I bought a solar powered wobbling ultraman. I thought it would be cute to have him on my desk at hiyoshi but I got scammed! I thought I was so smart because I asked the lady to test it out in front of me before I bought it. When she showed me, she held it up to the light and slightly shook the ultraman without me realizing =(  At least he can still move. I guess I can put him in the car and he’ll wobble to my music.

We walked back to central market so Travis could buy a t-shirt he saw earlier. However, the vendor wouldn’t lower his price so he gave it up. While the boys were trying to barter, I went to the nearby Guardian pharmacy. My left eye had been tearing and hurting all day. I think I might have scratched my cornea. I wanted to get some eye drops.

I had trouble picking the correct eye medication. I asked the staff and they suggested a local Malaysian brand. The box said “drops for sore, swollen and watery eyes”. I saw cucumber and green tea bad soap. I don’t really use bar soap, but it smelled so nice so I bought that too.

I tried to use the drops right away, but I wasn’t sure if it worked or not. It hurt a lot when it hit my eye. It hurt so much. I clenched both eyes shut and couldn’t open the right eye which was fine. Then my left eye went numb. I couldn’t really feel anything and I think I was less teary?

We walked back towards the hostel, hoping to get food in mini little India or another recommendation from the hostel. We passed by Burger King. Travis saw an advertisement for a rodeo cheeseburger. I’ve never heard of it before, but he went a little nuts and asked us if he could have a burger before dinner. He said he saw them microwave his burger, and it didn’t really taste as good as it does back home.

Same view, but at night.

We walked through mini little India. When I asked a waiter if they served banana leaf, he told me that the restaurants only do it in the afternoon. The hostel was only one street away, so we went back to ask them about a dinner spot. Many places they recommended were not too far away, but we had already walked a lot today and we wanted to go to some place close.

Finally, they thought of a Chinese beef ball noodle place just across the main street. It was a good recommendation! I’ve never eaten something like this before. The menu was very simple. I ordered a small beef ball noodle. Travis and Daisuke followed suit. Tenshing got a big. Everybody got a bowl of 6 beef balls in flavoured soup. The difference in size was the plate of minced beef sauce and noodles.

Daisuke and I both decided to get a beer. The waiter asked us something.. we thought he said something about passports? So, we pulled out our passports.. and everyone was confused. We never found out what he actually said, but it definitely wasn’t passports! I think he was speaking to us in another language. It seemed like everyone in the whole restaurant got a good laugh at our expense. haha

When we were back at the hostel, I took a shower. The shower heads were really cool.

the boys discussed what we would do next. I decided to call it a day because I was still wearing only one contact in my right eye, tearing in my left and couldn’t see very well. Among other smart reasons. The three of them went bar hopping and came back at two in the morning.

Night Safari

We arrived at 8:50. We didn’t have to buy a ticket because we bought a two for one admissions ticket from Jurong Bird Park. There was still time before the 9:30 Creatures of the Night show, so we walked on the leopard trail. Upon arriving at the head of the giants trail, we thought it was the original entrance of the leopard trail. We sort of walked in a circle, got a bit lost and.. we didn’t get a map upon arrived so it was all a little confusing before we figured out our mistake.

The night safari is just like the zoo, except it’s only open at night. In the dark, we could still see all the animals, but I couldn’t take any good photos without my slr. The walking path was considerably narrow and there were some traffic jams from slow walkers and obnoxious people making catcalls to the animals staring us down in the dark. It was so interesting to know that they could see us so much more clearly than we could see them.

Some animals were a lot more active than I’ve ever seen them, but some were still lazy. All the lions were up on fours and walking around, but the tiger I saw was lying down right by the glass separating him and the tourists. He was blinking only two feet away from me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to a tiger before. It was really cool.

Naracoorte Cave. Really beautiful.

Glow worms in the cave.

Bridge of Suspense.

After the giant’s trail, we had to turn back. It was sort of boring because we had to retrace our original trail. When we tried to go to the 9:30 show, we were told that it was already full. We took the next available tram ride instead. The night tram went through most of the park, but you couldn’t see all the animals. My favourite was the baby elephant and baby tapir.

We got back to the main entrance at 10:10. We wanted to line up for the 10:30 show but it was already full. It was a little bit disappointing because it was the last show of the night. We took too much time in the city and couldn’t spend enough at the night safari due to the closing time of the mrt. I didn’t know that the night safari would be so busy! However, I guess there was a plus that we could catch the last bus and mrt back to the hostel instead of taking the taxi back.

Lau Pa Sat Market

We took a taxi to the market. It was basically a huge indoor food court. There were so many different foods, it was hard to choose. Max went to order the locally popular  chicken rice dish. I saved us a table that was relatively close to a fan, but not really.

Max got me to dishes of chilli because the chilli is people’s favourite thing about eating chicken rice. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of spicy food, and I have to stay away from it at this time because of my ulcer. I did do a dip test to see how spicy it was and..

It was so spicy! It got into my throat and made me cough. I got a ice cold can of lemon ice tea. I was the only one at the table when I tried the chilli so nobody saw how weak I was!

Max bought us two different desserts with shaved ice, syrup, grass jelly, Malaysian jelly, red beans, corn, some kind of clear jelly-like seed and pink jelly.

Singapore Downtown City Walk

Max took us on a walk from Orchard Road to Marina Bay. I thought it was so informative. I wouldn’t be able to give the same kind of walking tour of Toronto without studying first. We went through different districts and saw a lot of different architecture.

Reminds me of old school film.

A hole in the building with some green.

Escalator on the outside layer of the building.

The vines reminds me of Edwards Hall at McMaster. Apparently the building is not so old, so the vines were planted on purpose for decoration.

Lion robot head.

I like the bike, but the building is also pretty.

Pigeon on his head.

The windows stick out!

Another hole in the building with some green.

UFO.

So colourful.

“Be Hip. Go Topless.” Slogan for an open double decker tour bus.

I like the elevators.

Colour on the waterfront.

Tourist boat.

Bird poop on bird statue.

Statues of children jumping into the canal.

Informally called the Durian.

The ship on the three buildings complex is a hotel and casino. We saw it lit up at night while we were riding in the airport shuttle bus. It was really pretty. I thought it was supposed to be a spaceship until I saw it during the day.

Snake skin drum.

Hersheys store in an underground plaza.

Apparently built with very bad feng shui. I would hate to have the corner office!

Phallic clam bigger than my hand.

Local chain of fried food. I tried the potato and curry puff. It was so delicious.