Day 82- Welcome To Malaysia. Where Most People Are In Fact Not Malaysian At All And More People Speak English Than In Most Canadian Cities.

Faster than we could say "Singaporean-Malaysian Cruise" our two night cruise was over.  We awoke bright and early at 6:30am and headed down to the main dining room for our last all-inclusive meal.  In keeping with the theme of the cruise, the wait staff managed to get our order wrong and the food also happened to be rather crappy.  I think it was safe to say that we wouldn't be sailing with Royal Caribbean anytime soon again.  Making our way off the ship we had to scan our "cruise identity" cards so that they could keep track of everyone leaving and to make sure everyone's accounts were up to snuff.  As Colleen went to exit, the card machine started beeping rather excessively and everyone was staring at the two of us.  This was in turn followed by her being whisked away by a handful of employees who told her that her account had not been paid.  It turned out that Visa had decided to put a hold on her credit card, which in turn caused her to become the centre of attention for everyone within gawking distance of us.  Thankfully after a quick phone call we got everything sorted out and the crew released Colleen with her sparkling clean criminal record sheet still intact.



If that doesn't look disgusting, I don't know what does.



Now that the cruise was in the past, it was time for us to lug our backpacks across the city to the bus stop.  Luckily we had a few hours to kill before our bus ride to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which was a good thing as the two of us weren't moving too quickly with our 35-pound backpacks in temperatures that were approaching 40 degrees Celsius.  After much pissing and moaning (mostly from Colleen I might add!), we made it to the bus terminal where Colleen immediately sent me on a mission to find a magnet and post card to commemorate our visit to Singapore.  I figured this would be easy given the fact that we were near a major transportation hub.  I was severely wrong.  I marched around for over an hour trying to find her these God-forsaken mementos.  Let me just say she better not ever lose that magnet, cause I lost a lot of bodily fluids to track that fuckin' thing down!



Street feline trying to kill me!



By the time our bus arrived and started to load up a little after noon, I was looking forward to the air conditioning more than anything.  The bus had some of the most spacious accommodations  I have ever seen for this mode of transport and the seats even had some massage mechanism built into them (I couldn't figure out this technology).  The bus ride itself was pretty uneventful, minus the fact that we had to get out with all of our luggage at the Singapore-Malaysia border to clear customs.  This was definitely a hassle bitch, but on the positive side Colleen added a couple of stamps to her passport which excites her almost as much as topless pictures of Charlie Hunnam.  The bus ride ended up taking a couple of extra hours as the traffic was quite heavy due to the Chinese New Year holiday and the fact that we had our daily dose of torrential rainfall. 



I'm not making any promises.





We made it to Malaysia!



 

Arriving in KL (Kuala Lumpur) a little later than we had anticipated, the bus dropped us outside of Berjaya Times Square.  Berjaya happens to be one of the twenty largest shopping malls in the world and its vast amenities include over one thousand stores, a multi-level movie theatre, a bowling alley, an amusement park, an archery range, and a ton of other stuff that I can't be bothered trying to recollect at this exact moment.  Our hotel (Furama Bukit Bintang) was supposedly located only a couple of minutes away, although it probably took us closer to half an hour to find as we were extremely disoriented and overwhelmed by our new surroundings. 

 

Colleen seems unimpressed with one of the largest shopping malls in the world.



...But Colleen they have a roller coaster.
 

Getting in the spirit for the Chinese New Year.

Some interesting things I observed in my first couple of hours in Malaysia:

1) Since it is a Muslim country many of the women wear head gear.

2) The actual percentage of "Malay" people is quite low.  In fact Chinese immigrants make-up 30% of the population, while Indian immigrants make-up a further 15%.

3) I was ignorant to how widely spoken English was.  Just about everyone spoke English and the signs for all the stores (at least in Kuala Lumpur) were in English.

4) Our hotel room had an arrow on the ceiling pointing towards Mecca.  You know, just in case I need to make a pilgrimage.

5) It is not the easiest country to find a beer in! Because of the fact that it is a Muslim country (albeit a liberal one), all of the convenience stores that did sell beer would have signs on the refrigerator doors stating that Muslims were not allowed to purchase it.  But what if the Muslim wears a disguise?

 

Once we got settled in to our room, we headed over to the mall for some good old fashioned Western food.  Unfortunately for us we decided to eat at Nando's, where we received some of the worst service I have ever seen.  I had read that most restaurants in Malaysia tack on a 10% service charge to your bill, so none of the staff seemed to give a fuck if you actually got served or not.  I mean, like 10-15 minutes to grab me a Diet Coke that was ten feet away.  And it's not like they were busy, they just truly did not give a fuck.  We would discover in the coming days that this was par for the course in just about every restaurant  around and my patience (or lack thereof) was being thoroughly tried.

All those people and their damn "Paking".

~Brentski~

Day 81- So You're Saying That Wearing My Man Thong And Nipple Piercings To The Shopping Mall In A Muslim Country Is Frowned Upon? Bummer.

She loves the towel animal more than me!

In keeping with the theme of shitty food, our room service breakfast arrived at 9am and we decided to make the most of our free balcony upgrade and enjoy our breakfast out there.  Thankfully, eating your food overlooking the ocean on a lovely day can make bland, tasteless food seem not as bad as it really is.

That morning we had pulled into port at Melaka, Malaysia, our sole port of call on the two-night cruise.  There was nowhere for the cruise ships to dock so the ship just anchored a few hundred meters off shore and they boated us in on smaller vessels.  Immediately upon disembarking the boat, Colleen and I realized that we had not taken into account the fact that we were in a Muslim country (this was a first for both of us, so it was an excusable offence in our minds).  Colleen was wearing short shorts and a shirt with no sleeves, both of which are frowned upon.   She did get a few stares here and there, although we did see other women who were dressed more "inappropriately" and the fact that Melaka is heavily touristed meant that she would probably not be stoned to death.  Well at least not today.



Colleen in her "slutty" Malaysian attire.
 



This guy apparently went to the "Brent Moreau School Of Working".



With my "slutty-by-Malaysian standards" girlfriend in tow, we headed to the local shopping mall to try and grab some local currency from one of the bank machines.  We tried at least six different machines, but alas our Canadian debit and credit cards were apparently not welcome.  They must have been warned that Colleen was coming!  Thankfully we had a bit of American cash on us that we were able to trade in for some  Malay ringgit (what they call their funny money).  Now that we had our pockets lined, I did what I always do: force Colleen to hit the tourist trail with me!  We hit up some big spinning wheel thing that takes you a few stories up for views of the city.  Supremely underwhelming if I say so myself.  Next I dragged Colleen to the Maritime Museum where we I got educated on the history of Europeans in the area and naturally the forced enslavement of the local people that followed.  Our last couple of stops so that we could officially say "we saw Melaka" were some church and fort that had been built on a hill.  Typical tourist stuff, and by this point all Colleen cared about was getting out of the heat and visiting the not-so local A&W for an ice cold root beer.  I'm still not sure what Allah thinks of A&W.  I'll ask him next time I see him.



The big wheel thingie. We shall just call it that.


Overlooking the city from said wheel.

Colleen not so pumped up for the Maritime Museum.
 

Future husband perhaps?

Old fort overlooking the city. No doubt used by white people in their enslavement of the locals.

Back on the ship, we hit up the lunch buffet before testing out the mini putt course and rock climbing wall.  I had never had either of these on a ship before, so it was something new and exciting, although I fear that Colleen's career as a rock climber stopped that afternoon (see: quitter!).  Because of the previous nights' debacle in the main dining room, we decided to fork out a few extra bucks and have dinner in one of the specialty restaurants.  My lovely girlfriend treated me for Valentine's Day, which was still a week away, but hey I wasn't about to complain.  The steakhouse was not overly busy, but again there were some issues with the service.  After being seated our server did not come over for ten minutes (again, the place was near empty).  It took them over twenty minutes to bring our bottle of wine and in fact our appetizers arrived before we got the wine.  I will say though, it wasn't all bad and the food itself was terrific.  So terrific in fact that we both felt like Humpty Dumpty afterwards.  After dinner we took in the nightly entertainment, which was standard cruise ship far as I can remember!  Since it was only a two night cruise we wanted to go out and experience some of the nightlife, or lack thereof on the ship, but alas we deemed ourselves immobile and spent the rest of the evening watching "Jerseylicious" on the boob tube.  Pathetic, I know.



Putt putt all-star.

My nuts were not feeling so good at this point.



We'll just say Colleen made it all the way to the top...
 



We opted for the private dinner on the second night of our cruise after the previous night's debacle.



Scoping out the action on the ship.



Chinese people sure love singing and dancing!



~Brentski~

Day 79- The Singapore Sling Was Invented Here? Guess We'll Have To Do One.

I get dizzy just looking at this.

 

The previous day had been the most expensive day (by far!) of our vacation so far due to my ear malfunction.  I was now on some meds that would hopefully get me back to full health shortly and with that Colleen and I headed into the heart of Singapore to continue playing "tourist".  We headed to where all of the tour buses do their roundups and ended up aboard a double-decker bus that looked exactly like the ones you see trolling the streets of every major North American metropolis with camera-ready foreigners onboard. We ended up riding the "hop-on, hop-off" bus completely around the city for an hour, taking in such sights China Town, the Botanical Gardens, Fort Canning, etc.  It never dawned on us to get off anywhere, so before we knew it we were back at the beginning of the route and by now it was raining out.  With nowhere to go to seek refuge from the torrential rain, the wifey and I decided to stay on the bus and do the entire tour again!  I slept through most of it the second time around.  Eventually we got off at the Raffles Hotel, one of the last stops on the tour.  I like to think we got our monies worth.



World's tallest observation wheel, the Singapore Flyer.


Where are all the other tourists?
 

Hiding on the bottom level with Colleen no doubt!

China Town.

The Raffles Hotel is arguably one of the most famous hotels in the world and one of Singapore's most famous landmarks.  It has a rich history dating back to the colonial era in Singapore and is named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founding father of modern Singapore.  More importantly to Colleen, its Long Bar is where the world-renowned drink (and her cocktail of choice), the Singapore Sling was invented in the early 1900s.  This notoriety has in turn led to quite the booming business in fleecing tourists like us out of our hard earned dollars.  The Long Bar itself was nothing special, in fact the floors were covered in peanut shells.  Despite the one-star appearance, the drink prices were on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, as we paid $62(!!!) for two Singapore Slings.  Vicious.  I am also pretty sure that with the quantity of drinks they were selling the Slings were probably pre-mixed as well.  I tried to eat as many peanuts as I could to make me feel like I was maximizing my value, but alas even an elephant would've struggled to take down that many peanuts.  The people sitting behind us clearly had to the right idea: sharing one drink for five people!  Oh well, something to check off the bucket list.



I don't know her...

Inside the world famous Long Bar.



You better enjoy that drink...it cost $31!

 

I'll make up for it with the free peanuts....



Or die trying.

Having just consumed the most expensive drinks of our lives, we wanted to check out the Raffles Museum but sadly it was closed.  Instead we headed down to the trendy ClarkeQuay area of the city to grab some dinner.   The lady and I decided on an Irish pub that a friend back home had recommended to me.  After ordering our food we were forced to give them a credit card as "collateral".  I found this to be not only rude and awkward, but slightly ridiculous given the fact that: a) I'm a 30 year old dude and clearly a tourist, not some 14 year old punk, and  b) we were in Singapore which has some of the strictest laws and presumably lowest crime rates in the first world.  Do I really look like the kind of guy who is going to steal a fucking chicken Caesar salad?  Don't answer that.



Good looking lady on the water.



Once I managed to rustle my credit card back, Colleen and I had plans to go and check out the nightly light show at Marina Bay Sands that we had missed a couple of nights earlier.  Not surprisingly it started to rain, and rain down as if God and all his buddies were up there simultaneously watching Nicholas Sparks movies.  With nowhere to go we saddled up at a microbrewery/restaurant called Red Dot Brewery.  Like the hipsters we clearly are not, we sat around for the next couple hours of sampling microbrews while attempting to solve the problems of the world.  They even had some fruity beers on the menu which kept Colleen happy.  And as we all know: HAPPY WIFE EQUALS HAPPY LIFE.



When it rains, the only logical thing to do is take shelter in a brew house.



~Brentski~

Day 78- $831 For 21 Minutes Of Work. I Picked The Wrong Country To Visit A Doctor In.

With Monday morning and a whole week in Singapore laid out before us, Colleen and I had our sights set on getting out and about in one of Asia's most esteemed metropolises.  Not surprisingly my ear had other plans, as I was still in a large amount of discomfort from my presumed scuba diving accident.  I was not sure of the exact moment that I injured my ear as I was constantly having problems with my ears while diving (I assumed this was normal after talking to other divers).  That morning I awoke again with a large amount of ooze on my pillow and a "blocked" feeling in my ear. After some goading from Colleen and her mother who we spoke to on the phone that morning, I was convinced told that I had to go and make a visit to the nearest medical clinic.

I was afraid to go to the doctor's because I realized that everything in Singapore is extremely expensive and I'm sure their medical bills were no exception.  While I did have travel insurance, I would have to pay any expenses up front out of pocket and then hope that they reimbursed me.  On a more positive note there was a large medical facility located within walking distance of our hotel.  It looked to be quite classy and after filling out some initial paperwork I was whisked in to see a doctor who promptly told me that it appeared I had an ear infection.  For this he charged me $80 (literally a one minute consultation) and told me I would have to go and see a specialist to get further help.  All I could hear was the sound of a cash register going off in my head.  Once I settled up the tab for my initial consultation and explained to the secretary that I did not live in Singapore and therefore could not really wait to see the specialist I was eventually told that they could look at me right away.  Funny how that works.

Fearing the worst, Colleen and I headed over to the adjacent medical building and made our way over to the Head and Neck Specialists office.  We were greeted by four administrators/assistants, one doctor, and a patient count of exactly zero.  With that there was no discussion of price and I was quickly whisked away into the doctor's office and invited to sit in his big, comfy chair.  This was quickly followed by having cameras inserted up both my sinuses/nose and my ears.  As all this was going on, I was able to watch it all unfold on a flat screen TV right in front of me and I could only imagine what kind of bill I was going to be getting for this invasive procedure.  The doc concluded what I pretty well already knew: that I had an ear infection and had popped an ear drum.  He quickly wrote me up a prescription for three different types of medications and sent me on way.  Twenty minutes after first arriving it was all said and done and I was presented with a lovely bill of $750!  As the timid Chinese secretaries presented me with the bill I proclaimed something to the effect of "HOLY SHIT BALLS!!!" and I could tell I kind of embarrassed the staff members.  Immediately after this happened, one of the girls went back into the doctor's office and she came back out a minute later and told me that the doc had decided to give me a discount to $650.  I never intended to try and get a discount, but if that's all it takes to save a hundred bucks, I am going to have to try it more often.  With the bill paid I quickly scooped as many complimentary candies as I could fit into my pocket (got to get my monies worth) and we headed back to the hotel.  Colleen informed me that she was going to pay the bill for me as a surprise until she found out how much it was.  I think she was truly more upset about the whole ordeal then I was, but as Confucius once said, "shit happens".  I would call the insurance company the next day and work out the details.  We had more pressing issues to confront!

My wallet was now significantly lighter, so it only seemed appropriate that our feature destination that afternoon was the TigerBrewery.  I was in need of some sorrow drowning and I felt that a tour at the facility of one of Singapore's most famous exports would do just the trick.  The tour itself was pretty standard stuff (I've done a shit ton of brewery tours over the last ten years) and there was only Colleen, myself and three other people on the tour.  The highlight of the $16 tour was definitely the end where we were welcome to take a seat at the in-house bar and sample power drink for an hour.  After a couple of drinks we started to talk to the other people on our tour and it turned out that they were from Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory and were in Singapore visiting their friend who made like a gazillion dollars a year as a banker.  The world can sure seem to be a small place sometimes!  The tour was excellent value, as for the cost of one pint in a bar in Singapore we were able to not only get the tour but we each had five or six pints in an hour.  The downside of this was that we had planned to go to the Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo that evening.



Tough morning. Beer will most definitely cure my problems.



Tourist shot number one.



Tourist shot number two.





Good idea to let me operate the tap: not!



"Bus ride after this is gonna suck!"



The worst part of taking public transit after consuming large amounts of alcohol is definitely the lack of bathroom facilities.  To get to the Night Safari, we had to take a bus, then a subway, then another bus.  No doubt there were numerous bathroom breaks involved and some regret on my part for trying to maximize my drinking time at the brewery.  Colleen and I finally arrived at the world-renowned zoo around 9pm (a couple of hours after leaving the brewery) and before we knew it we were on a guided tram ride around the zoo to presumably see what it is that animals do after dark.  For the most part, it looked like they did same things as most people; you know surf the net, watch some telly,  eat dinner, take big craps, sniff each other's butts, the usual.  One thing I must say that was unique about the night safari/tram ride was that for most of the animal habitats they used moats instead of fences to keep the animals and humanoids separated.  This led Colleen to believe that something was going to attack her, but I assured her that most of the animals were not fans of white meat.  Since we arrived at the park a little later then we had originally intended to, we were in a mad scramble to do as much as we could in as little time possible.  Once we hopped off the tram, we rushed over to catch the last animal show of the night.  The highlight for me was seeing an otter that had been trained how to recycle.  Shit, I still haven't figured how to do that.  I also thoroughly enjoyed when one of the show hosts left some random dude on stage with a huge boa constrictor snake wrapped around his neck while he paraded through the audience - and right beside us - with some weird black creature on his shoulder (picture below, no idea what it is). Our last stop before the park closed was something called the "Wallaby Trail", where I ended up being used mostly as a human shield in case some of the bats decided to break out of their enclosure and entangle themselves in Colleen's hair.



Best part of the Night Safari? Oversized and overpriced jumbo slushies of course.



The otter is recycling. Mind blown.



Colleen approves of the Night Safari. What a tourist.

"Get away from us dude!"

Since we had arrived at the zoo so late, we ended up catching the last bus of the night back into the city, which was naturally packed to the point of near suffocation.  And to think I used to pay for this kind of environment at rock concerts in my youth.  Clearly judging by their calmness, the law-aiding citizens of Singapore were much more used to these types of crowds that Colleen and I who live in a town with a population roughly equal to that of the bus.

~Brentski~



Tough day not only for the wallet but the old lady as well.


Lineup for the bus. Noooooo!!!!!



Note: This was the first vacation in my life that I had ever purchased travel insurance for, and as I write this now, I am sure glad that I did.  Upon my return to Canada i  started to go through the process of retrieving the funds I had shelled out for my visit to the medical facilities.  It took a couple of months, a ton of paper work, phone calls, and emails, but in the end I was given the full amount of my expenses.  It was a big pain in the ass, so let this be a lesson people: don't go scuba diving if you have a history of ear problems!

Day 77- Belching, Even In Confined Spaces Is Apparently Acceptable In Chinese Culture. I Wish I Knew That Beforehand.

Since our accommodation budget had dramatically increased since we were no longer in Thailand, Colleen and I made sure to maximize our hotel dollars by sleeping in as long as humanly possible.  When I finally woke up around lunch time, I was greeted by a big wad of some waxy substance on my pillow that had been oozing out of my ear over the course of the night.  I had a (potentially) major ear problem in one of the most expensive countries in the world.  The logical thing to do would be to ignore it and hope it goes away on its own, so that is exactly what I did. 

Seeing as how Colleen and I had not done our research before coming to Singapore, we were ill-informed of the fact that they apparently have torrential rain storms nearly every day.  Thus, we waited out our first "Singapore storm" in our room before we ventured out into the great unknown.  Being residents of Inuvik, Northwest Territories we are fairly limited in our entertainment options, so the idea of being able to go to a movie together was a novel idea to us (we hadn't been to a theater together in over a year and a half).  Factor in that it was only $11 (most things here are far more expensive than Canada) to go the movies and they gave you the option of sweet or salty popcorn, and you my friend have yourself an afternoon date.  I had to play it safe with the salty.  While Singapore has a large population of Indian and Chinese descendants, the official language is actually English, which makes getting around (and going to the movies) quite easy for us Anglos.  With that in mind, we decided to go watch the Naomi Watts/Ewan McGregor film "The Impossible".  Without turning this into a movie blog I will just say it was a great film about a family who is caught in Thailand during the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, although it was a little eerie to be watching it as we were going to be returning to that part of Thailand within a couple of weeks. 



Super tourist!



 

Never one to pass up an opportunity at retail therapy, Colleen took advantage of her first foray into a Western style shopping center in a few weeks and promptly dropped a couple of hundred dollars that afternoon.  Me being the cheap asshole that I am kept reminding her that any clothes she bought she would have to carry along with her for the rest of the trip.  Well that, or she assured me that she could just pack them in my luggage.  Thanks babe.



The lights are so bright.



Later that evening, we caught our hotel's complimentary shuttle over to the local shopping center (Novena Square Shopping Mall) where we hopped on the subway and headed into the core of the city.  Our destination that night was the Singapore Flyer, which is the world's largest observation wheel.  On the way over we strolled through the Marina Bay Sands area of the city where one bar was offering martinis on special at the two-for-one rate of $36!  That's one way to get me to curb my drinking habit.  Due to Colleen's extremely banged up feet, we weren't moving too quickly (and I was no doubt bitching at her), but we eventually made it the Flyer. It was not overly busy, as it was a Sunday night, so we each paid our $35 and away we went.  Before the actual ride on the jumbo Ferris wheel observation wheel, we had to walk through a bunch of exhibits and such so that they made us feel like we were getting our monies worth.  Having navigated all the exhibits, we finally arrived at the loading dock and were hurried into a "capsule" with two teenage girls and a middle-aged Chinese couple.  While there were only six of us in our capsule, they could reportedly fit up to 28 people in the  10 foot x 20 foot capsule, which I am sure they had no problem doing during peak tourist hours.  The ride itself was a total of about half an hour and provided beautiful views of the city.  We also got to see the nightly fireworks show put on by the local casino as we were suspended in our capsule.  We had intended to watch it after our ride, but due to our slow walking we were now watching it from the comfort of our capsule suspended 165 meters in the air.  The other highlight of the ride was the Chinese guy who kept awkwardly belching every couple of minutes and never once thought to excuse himself.  Colleen and I weren't sure whether to be disgusted or laugh are asses off, so we just ended up doing a little bit of both.



Our "pod" right before we jumped in.



That's one hell-of-a-view.



Overlooking the Marina Bay Sands complex.



Sadly, we had to leave Sir-Burps-A-Lot and his lady after our ride.  We ended up going for a late dinner at some Boston sports themed bar/restaurant at the base of the Singapore Flyer.  The place literally had hundreds of thousands of dollars of Boston sports memorabilia and really seemed out of place in Asia.  As with the martini pricing earlier, I noticed the alcohol "specials" to be ridiculous.  They were advertising a tower of Tiger beer for $75.  Again, I wish I had grown up here and I might not have had so many hangovers in my younger days (or public intoxication tickets for that matter).


Hungry little fella?



A Boston-themed sports bar in Singapore? Seems logical.

Having done our tourist excursion for the day, we headed back to the Novena Shopping Center.  Sadly we had missed the last shuttle of the day, but I was certain that I could retrace our route by foot.  In actuality I did not have a clue what the fuck I was doing and before I knew it we were completely lost.  Somehow we ended up walking down a highway that I had never seen before with my unimpressed girlfriend not far behind me (keeping in my mind her feet were in a lot of  pain, it was a dickhead move by me).  I carried this charade on for over half an hour before we finally hailed a taxi and I discovered that I had actually led Colleen and I in the complete opposite direction of our hotel.  What an idiot!  I figured a couple of ice cold beers from the gas station across from our hotel was just what the doctor ordered as far as the antidote for my weary feet.  But alas, I tried to purchase it at 12:01am, and since it was after midnight they would not sell me the beers.  Literally, one minute. One fucking minute!!! 



Mean mugging outside the Singapore Flyer.



 

The moral of the story men: listen to women, they're smarter than us.

~Brentski~