Singapore!

Singapore has been fun - it feels like a smaller version of Hong Kong, except without all the air pollution and litter on the ground. Yes indeed, it's a very clean city.

The pictures are arranged in backwards and semi-random order (the last pictures i took are first) because of the way upload uploaded them wrongly - anyways you will still get the gist of things.

Yesterday I went on a free walking tour (organized and led by the hostel I am staying at) of the Bugis area of Singapore. We visited a shop where you buy items to burn when someone dies so that they can have these items in the afterlife. This includes such things as:

beer (Carlsberg - good choice!)

We also visited an Indian temple:


Here are some shots of of Chinatown:

And some more items for the dead people:

Paper cigarettes:

And Louis Vuitton paper bags:


I also went to the wonderful Singapore Zoo (and Night Safari)

Cute baby orangutan on his momma's back!


they threw a live fish into the polar bear enclosure and the bear swam and caught it!


Bonsai trees from the Botanical Garden:

white tigers
asian elephants
penguins!



The quintessential Singapore meal - chicken, rice, and a Tiger beer! what more could you ask for...

Singapore is also known as the "Big Durian"

Singapore Art Museum

More shots from the Botanical Garden



the Arab area in Singapore:

The future site of the first casino in Singapore (have you ever seen so many cranes?)

the skyline in Singapore

another indian temple

Today I am off to Melaka (Malaysia) for a few days for a friend's wedding celebration, and then I will explore some more of Malaysia.

Cheers!

I've been in Bali since May 27 and am leaving this afternoon for Singapore. I have mixed feelings about this place.

On the one hand, Bali is beautiful - here are some beach shots I took:





And each morning the shop-owners put out these little squares of flower and incense in front of their shops to hope for a good day:

Sadly, Bali also has been the target of terrorist attacks - here is the memorial from the 2002 bomb blast that killed 202 people:

But the food is divine!!

And my hostel (US$8 per night) had a nice garden in the front:




Overall Bali is great - cheap food, cheap accommodation, and a lovely landscape. However, the annoying part is that the people tend to harass you to buy stuff all the time. For example, while I was relaxing at the beach in my chair, different people would come up to me every 5 minutes asking if I wanted to buy kites, tattoos, wooden carvings, pedicures, manicures, massage, etc. - after a while it got really annoying and I just started ignoring them.

And Bali has to be the most touristy place I've ever been - literally everything revolves around tourists and all of the shops are geared towards them. They even have a Dunkin' Donuts here (3rd country in Asia that I've seen one in besides South Korea and Thailand).

Interestingly enough, while Westerners eat with forks, knives, etc. and Chinese (and others) use chopsticks, Indonesians don't use anything - they use their hands.

I also accomplished a goal of mine during this trip that I have been wanting to do for a while - I received my PADI certification in Open Water SCUBA diving. I went on 4 dives, including the shipwreck of the USS Liberty in Tulamben - http://www.mimpi.com/mimpi-tulamben-underwater.html

Good stuff - now on to the next country!