Posts

Posted on

Bus ride to Malaysia from Singapore

Feb 12, 2018 Sunny, Monday

About 10 years ago, I traveled to Singapore and regretted I could not get a visa to Malaysia, which is just 30 minutes bus ride away. Today, David and I made it.

This morning, after breakfast, we took a Uber to the bus station, which only cost $7. Then we got on the big double level bus. It is like the first class on the flight. It is very spacious. You can adjust the seat as a bed, also has a massage function.

Only half hour later, we arrived the border. At the border, we first passed the Singapore immigration, then we got back to the bus, the bus stopped again and we took all our luggage to pass the customs of Malaysia. It was very easy, they scanned the bags and that’s it. They just did the fingerprint and did not ask any questions, not like other countries…

After that, a girl got on the bus taking a big bag, looked like our snacks. We were told they provide only snacks, so I bought a big mushroom Baozi at dinner time yesterday and made some salad this morning.

Just like on the flight, the girl asked customers one by one and wrote it down on a small notebook, “Do you want hot drinks or cold drinks? Chinese tea or Italian tea? Italian tea is with milk and sugar…” Woo, that is better than the flight attendant. So respectful, comfortable and considerate services. Later, each one got our “snacks”, literally, it is a lunch box with fried fish, pickles, eggs, shrimp paste and rice. After my meal and a cup of tasty Italian tea, my stomach has no space for my Baozi and veggie salad.

I saw a guy seating next to me had some newspaper and asked if I could read and he agreed right away. It was in Chinese, very famous Singapore Morning. A few things are very interesting:

1. The government subsidizes the public transportation. (No wonder the cost is so low).

2. The government took more money for public housing.( I heard the married couples have priority to get public housing and only $3000 per month. The western world is helping the single moms and the eastern world is supporting the married couples. )

3. A group of people arrange fake marriage in Singapore were caught.

4. A new immigrant woman from Beijing, she had big success in Singapore and got a lot rewards for helping low income people.

5. Marriage counseling column: couples should have private time after having kids; problematic marriage need to get professional help in order to be fixed and holding hands to the rest of life. The perspective of the counseling is based on a good marriage or a good couple should holding hands to the end of life…

6. An article titled “Socialist is popular”, talking about political policy of China and President Xi…

During the 5 hours’ ride, we saw a lot coconut trees on the side of the road. I guess the coconut dish or milk are very cheap here…a lot of trees too, very green and clean…only until the Center of KL, the traffic got very bad.

Generally speaking, it was a pleasant experience riding a bus to KL from Singapore.

Yanmei

Posted on

Singapore 2

One thing I noticed about Singapore is they have toast shops. They are coffee shops, but they serve toast. I tried a couple out while I was there and had French toast and peanut butter toast. Not bad, but the peanut butter toast was literally just store bought bread toasted with peanut butter. At least it was only $1.

Anyway since all the Bayfront stuff was closed when I got there the previous night, I wanted to go again and see inside and go up on the skywalk in the supertree grove. Yanmei and I had lunch at a good restaurant in Chinatown, and as we were leaving the restaurant we saw a bus going to Harbourfront stopped right in front of us. Great, let’s hop on! After a little while I noticed the bus seemed to be going the wrong way, and then I realized Harbourfront isn’t Bayfront. It turns out the Harbourfront bus takes you to VivoCity, which is the biggest shopping mall in Singapore. We spent about half the day there, and I saw maybe 25% of it and Yanmei saw less because she found several shops she liked and spent a lot of time there. She bought five new clothes. We may have to buy another suitcase at this rate. To me it was just a shopping mall with the standard stores you find in most malls (Forever 21, Under Armor, Sunglass Hut, etc.), plus some asian brand stores. It was pretty busy, so retail isn’t dead in Singapore yet, although it being the last weekend before CNY probably contributed to that.

We finally headed back and rested a bit before dinner. After dinner I decided to rush over to Bayfront while Yanmei went back to rest. It was already starting to get late, but I got tickets to the two biodomes. The first was the flower dome. Not very impressive to me. I guess I’ve seen too many amazing gardens around the world.

The next dome was the cloud forest dome. Much more impressive, you get a big waterfall right at the entrance, then you can go up to the top and walk down, which also gives you nice views of the city through the dome.

As I finished the cloud forest dome I hurried towards the supertree grove because I knew they didn’t let people on the skywalk after 8:30. It was 7:40pm when I got there and they had a sign up that the skywalk tickets were sold out. Bummer, I should have gone there first and done the domes later. They had a light show at 7:45 though.

After that, I went to the Marina Bay Sands to go up to the observation deck. I have to say the inside is pretty impressive too. The towers are largely hollow which give a huge open feeling inside. If I come back to Singapore I wouldn’t mind staying here. I got up to the observation deck on the 56 floor, which is the bottom deck of the “boat”, the higher decks are reserved for the hotel guests. It is a great view of the city.

View of the domes and gardens, and towards the top you can see all the large ships anchored in the bay.

After that I headed home for the night. That’s it for Singapore. I feel like we could have stayed longer and seen more stuff, but tomorrow we are taking a bus to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

David

Posted on

Singapore

I always thought Singapore was an island, and technically it is, but it is fully connected to mainland Asia. Theoretically we could get a car and drive to Paris from here. Anyway, the first night we arrived, Yanmei was pretty tired after the 8 hour flight, so she stayed in while I went out to look around. We are right on the edge of Chinatown, so I went to check it out. Since Chinese New Year is coming up next week, Chinatown is extra busy and decorated for the celebration.

As you can see in the first picture, mandarin oranges are a lucky symbol for CNY in Singapore. Nicer shops have mandarin orange trees in pots outside. It will be the year of the dog, so there are a lot of dog statues up as well.

One thing that struck me is how many restaurants there are. I know Singapore is densely populated, but most people must eat out all the time to support this many restaurants and food stands. As you walk down a street it seems rare if the storefront isn’t a restaurant, and then every so often you come to a big area with 20-30 food stalls.

The next day Yanmei and I set out to see the famous mer-lion statue in the bay. It was only about 15 minutes walk.

After that Yanmei wanted to head to Little India, because she had some good food there last time she was in Singapore. We took the MRT (subway). It seems like a pretty good system, and affordable too. Our ride was $0.77 SGD (about $0.58 US), compared to $4.30 AUD ($3.35 US) for a short ride in Melbourne. One of the rules I found funny was “no durians”.

As we stepped out of the MRT station we instantly found a big building with 40+ food stands.

After Little India we headed back to our apartment. The warm, humid, sunny weather drains your energy. It’s not oppressive, but it is sapping.

That evening Yanmei was still tired so I went out towards the bay and the gardens there. As I got close I could see the tail end of the light show they have.

BTW, that building with the boat on top has become one of my favorites. It is the Marina Bay Sands hotel, and it is on a peninsula so it really draws the eye because there are no other buildings nearby. It just looks really cool to me. When I got closer I saw this:

I headed over to the gardens and Supertree Grove, which is formed from giant artificial trees. Unfortunately it was so late that the domes and skywalk were closed.

Eventually I assume the climbing vines will cover the entire frames and it will look really green and lush. Anyway I headed back to the Bay for the 10pm show. It was pretty good. They definitely tried to do 3D projections in water mist, but it didn’t quite work. Seems like a very cool idea that could be spectacular with some refinement.

It was cooler but still quite warm as I walked back to the apartment.

David