Singapore 28.04.2013 - 30.04.2013

I LOVE SINGAPORE!! That's basically what you shall learn from this blog post! Its very clean, easy to get around, the people are all very polite, the food is good, the shopping is good, all the attractions are amazing-its the whole package for a city lover like me!! Although in comparison to Malaysia it is SUPER expensive!!

We met up with Suzie on our first afternoon and spent a couple of hours in Chinatown-which was very large and had stalls selling so much stuff!!! I bought a really nice and very Asian tea set- dont know how I'm going to get that home but oh well :P After lunch and more shopping we changed in the hostel and headed out to Marina Bay. We spent some time in the beautiful Gardens by the Bay, huge botanical gardens surrounding the Marina Bay area which have a walkway and lights up beautifully at night-would've happily spent hours there! We had dinner underneath Marina Bay Sands-the famous hotel with the boat on the top which is the most amazing building ever!! After more photos with the Merlion (mascot of Singapore) we headed to 1Altitude-the worlds highest bar for cocktails and 360 degree views of this amazing city :)

Singapore Dollars

Prayers in the Chinese Temple

Day 2 we headed out to Singapore Zoo. We spent all day there with the free roaming orangutans and loads of other animals in a very open feeling zoo. We saw animal shows too including a sea lion show- I got kissed by the sea lion after!! I also fed 2 giraffes-which everyone knows are my favourite animals so that was my life made! We also did the river safari in order to see the Giant Pandas, Kai Kai and Jia Jia - who are the most gorgeous creatures ever and we spent ages watching them. After the zoo we stayed on for the night safari where we saw lots of nocturnal animals as well as giraffes, elephants and lions in a more natural night time setting, it was fantastic but we were really tired after a long day on our feet! Despite that we headed back to 1Altitude as the views were so amazing we had to experience them again!

 
















Our final day in Singapore was another busy one! We wandered around Little India in the morning and went shopping for Saris! Luckily for my wallet I didn't buy one! We then headed to the botanical gardens which were again amazing! We saw the famous Orchid Gardens too including the Princess Diana Orchid that Will & Kate were here for earlier in the year. After a couple of hours in the gardens we had some Lemon Meringue Pie!!!! (that's awesome trust me!!) We then spent an hour or so in the National Museum which was good but we needed more time in there! Then we headed back to Chinatown for souvenirs then again to Marina Bay to watch the light show-they project light onto fountains for the show and its amazing!! It was a really nice way to round off the trip! Finally we had a 5 hour coach ride back to KL, which was cool in itself as we had massage chairs!!! :O

So basically I Love Singapore!! I cant wait to go back at some point as there is so much more to do and its such an awesome city. I never got bored of Marina Bay and took a ridiculously high number of pictures- about 600 over 3 days!! Yeah Singapore's awesome :)

So now the blog is up to date I've got 4 very boring weeks filled with revision and exams ahead of me - we are at university after all, but after that comes Thailand etc with the girls which I'm researching in my revision breaks-its gonna be awesome!! Missing home lots but closer to coming back now then when we got here - not too long now. Love to the UK xxx

Borneo 24.04.2013 - 28.04.2013

Everyone always raves about how good Borneo is and so we thought it about time we checked it out for ourselves...

Beth and I flew out to Kuching, the state capital of Sarawak, Borneo and instantly aquired all the maps and leaflets you'd ever need to get round anywhere!! We stayed in a really nice hostel, 20minuet walk from the centre of town. We spent the first afternoon exploring the town and planning the rest of our days there. The town appeared to be pretty empty oddly-although it did get much more lively at the weekend!

Kuching Waterfront with Lightening in the background

Day 2 we set off very early for the Orangutan centre to see their morning feed. The Semmengoh centre has 27 semi-wild orangutans which it looks after. We managed to see 2 mums eating while their babies played in the trees above us, then we only saw one at the main feed but it was beautiful, and it proved how wild they really were!! Beth was very exicted as Orangutans are her favourite animal! On our way back we picked up a third traveller, had dinner together and then headed to the famous Fairy Cave. They were beautiful but very scary-there were no lights and a broken walkway through most of it and we only had phone torches to help us through!! It was fun though. On the way back to the bus we got caught in the monsoon and got drenched so had to spend 2 hours sat dripping wet on the bus home! We were so tired that night so had early nights after dinner:)

 

Day 3 was another early start as we set out to the Bako National Park for a day of trekking, jungle and monkeys. We saw wild Proboscous Monkeys in the trees!! The jungle plants and flowers were amazing too as were the beaches. We did 2 trails, one took us to the beach and the other to a view point where we got great views of the beaches below with the jungle surrounding them. Once again we were so tired at the end of the day!

 








Day 4 was our final day in Kuching, we hit the Sarwak museum which was really interesting, and then went to the Natural history museum-the worst museum ever!! They had one floor and it was dedicated to fossilised wood- pieces of wood displayed on stands of wood...was funny really!! The last musuem was the Chinese Museum and the chinese temple both of which were great. We then went shopping along the water front for souviners before having dinner and packing up.

I really liked Borneo-everyone was really friendly and lovely, the food was great to especially the Sarawak specialties - the best of which was the Sarwak cakes, thick moist and very colourful sponge cakes which were very addictive!! Kuching means Cat in Malay so there are cat statues all over the place including the 'Great Cat of Kuching' whihc was right near our hostel!! They were a tad creepy at times though! We were very tired having not stopped for 4 days and the trip took its toll on my best sandals-see photo!! However we didnot have time to rest as our flight on Sunday was taking us to Singapore...

Perhentian Islands 12.04.2013 - 14.04.2013

Ok so firstly just want to say sorry for not updating in ages-theres been alot going on here and Ive been busy with work etc so I'm very sorry but here we go again...

A group of 8 of us booked a snorkeling tour for the weekend on the Perhentian Islands-famous for their beaches and amazing snorkeling. All was well as we headed out on my first ever sleeper train for the 14 hour train journey up to the north east corner of Malaysia. On arrival it became clear we hadn't picked the best weekend to travel as it was cloudy and rainy-and it stayed that way across the weekend! Not that we let that stop us-we are children of the UK after all!! The speedboat ride from the mainland to the large island was the roughest boat ride I've ever experienced- the boat was always lurching and flew several terrifying times!! But we got there safe and checked in before being taken out on our first snorkelling session where we managed to see a turtle!! Needless to say that was amazing in itself!! At Shark Point I didn't see any reef sharks but some of the faster swimmers did. I was still very impressed by the reefs and the fish-I found them just as amazing as sharks as I was still a beginner snorkeler!! We spent the evening drinking together on the beach under the stars :)

Sleeper train

Day 2 brought more bad weather and the news that we couldn't go to Redang as planned as the sea was too rough!! But,  after a couple of volleyball games, we still went snorkeling in several different places and saw another turtle and lots more fish, and WE FOUND NEMO!!! What more do you need?? :P The sea was really rough that day and a couple of us felt really sea sick but were fine once on dry land again for dinner!! That evening was spent on the beach drinking again (well we are students right!!) watching an amazing lightening storm out to sea :)

On Day 3 we were rushed off the island as the sea was rough again and they wanted us to get back to the mainland before it got worse!! So another very bumpy speedboat ride took us back to the mainland in the early afternoon- we all had sea-legs after that and could barely walk straight off the deck!! We had lunch then wandered round for a bit untill the tour people offered to take us to a waterfall-we arrived and the waterfall was fantastic, we swam for ages and it was so good to have fresh water rather than salty sea water!! We then returned to Uni on the overnight bus-the coldest bus ever!!!

We had a fantastic weekend together despite the weather and the snorkelling was amazing! Cant wait to do it again :)