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 80- Singaporean Cruises. Where White People Fear To Tread.

Having enjoyed our two-week transatlantic cruise immensely a couple of months prior, Colleen  was super-desperate to go on another cruise while in Southeast Asia.  During our hasty research the previous week, we had found a two-night cruise aboard one of Royal Caribbean's cruise ships that departed from Singapore, did a quick day trip to Melaka, Malaysia and then promptly returned to its beginning port a couple of days later.  The Chinese New Year was fast approaching (the biggest holiday of the year in this part of the world) and it was likely that a lot of local people would be on the cruise as a sort of "mini-vacation".



Pulling out of Singapore.  About to rain; as usual.



Speaking of the Chinese New Year, let me tell you if you ever intend to travel in parts of the world with a large Chinese population during this particular holiday that you should book your travel well in advance.  Since Colleen and I had been flying by the seat-of-our-pants so to speak, we were booking most of our flights, hotels, etc as we needed them.  Originally, we had planned to fly out of Singapore.  We couldn't find a reasonably priced flight so we had decided after our cruise that we would take a bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then figure out what the hell we were doing from there.  Such is life. 

With our newly altered travel plans, the girlfriend and I headed down to the Singapore Cruise Terminal, with Colleen super stoked about her second ever cruise.  The first thing we noticed was the fact that the cruise passengers were 99.5% Indian and Chinese.  I guess this should not have been surprising, given the fact that these two ethnic groups made up the bulk of the population in Singapore, but it just seemed odd.  Usually when you think of cruises you think of old white people and families with fat middle-aged American parents toting their soon-to-be fat American kids from buffet table to buffet table.  Once we got the initial culture shock out of the way, we boarded the 20-year old ship and made our way to our room.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that we had been upgraded from an inside room (what we paid for) to a room with a balcony.  While the ship was certainly a couple of rungs down the ladder from the Celebrity Equinox we had been on previously, it was still a nice ship that had apparently just been in dry dock (see: not on the sea) for a month undergoing some renovations and upgrades. 



Who invited Derek Zoolander on the cruise. Blue Steel!



 

Once we got settled in, Colleen and I did what all good cruisers do: head straight to the lunch buffet!  We ordered a couple of adult drinks and settled in with our mountains of food.  Sadly, they forgot to put the most important ingredient in Colleen's drink...the alcohol.  We had been told that the ship had a ton of new staff right now, as is usually the case when a ship comes out of dry dock.  Being the non-confrontational experts that we are, we were too afraid to go complain, so we just relegated ourselves to the fact that it was a rookie error and moved on to go watch some Russian contortionist do things that I still can't figure out if they turn me on or repulse me.  This was quickly followed by a ten minute blackjack session in the casino where I lost $100 and proclaimed my disgust for all things gambling related (these feelings never last).



Freak between the sheets, no doubt!



During the reservation process for our cruise, we had requested for a table of two at dinner time, so we were a little surprised when we were seated at a ten-person table.  Initially this was ok, as for the first half-hour we were the only people there.  Eventually we were joined by two other couples and some random guy who was sitting by himself (can't say I've seen this on a cruise before).  It was a super awkward dinner, as one of the other men at our table kept constantly berating the wait staff and his wife/girlfriend was beyond embarrassed.  I shit you not, when I say he requested three different types of water, two appetizers, and then had to try three different main courses before he found one that was up to his ridiculous standards.   He also felt it necessary during his Hitleresque dinner to demand the dessert menu while he was still eating.  To say it was an uncomfortable dinner for all involved would be a major understatement.  To make matters worse, the wait staff were really slow and terrible (we shall assume they were some of the new recruits).  They spilt our bottle of wine on me (no apology), served us super warm water, never checked  on us once, and to top it off we had to go and procure our own bottle of wine that they had stashed away from the table as they were supposed to pour it for us.  If you aren't going to pour it, just leave the damn thing in front of me; it will disappear quick enough.  I guarantee it!  On top of this the food was super bland and when we wanted to pay for our wine and leave we couldn't find a staff member for the life of us.  By this point we were so pissed off and wanting to get out of there that we just decided to leave without paying for our wine and figured we had pulled a fast one.  Sadly, the inept wait staff still managed to track down our room number and charge the wine to our accounts, but at the time it felt like a minor victory. 

Doing our best to put our dinner experience behind us, we headed over to check out a Village People review that was actually pretty entertaining.  The cruise director was dressed up as the construction worker, while another portly (and exceptionally white) member of the staff was dressed up as the Native American.  His Sketcher shoes made the whole thing feel that much more authentic.  One thing I must say about the Chinese tourists is that they sure loved their YMCA.  They were singing and dancing along as if we were at a Bon Jovi concert for Christ's sake.  Once we had our fill of the cheesy shtick, Colleen and I headed up to the bar/nightclub for a couple of drinks.  Instead of a nightclub atmosphere, we were greeted by large packs of men standing around in groups, not drinking and just looking generally like perverts on the prowl.  Needless to say it was a sad state of affairs and after a couple of drinks and Colleen feeling like she had been eye-fucked enough for one night we made our way back to our room.



The shoes just authenticate the performance that much more.



Back in our room we searched high and low for our breakfast card to place on our door for room service the following morning, but I could not find it.  I had to ask at least four different people who were all quite rude about the situation if I could possibly have a new breakfast card.  It was literally as simple as handing me a piece of paper.  All of them insisted that it was in my room on the desk (it wasn't) and basically called me a liar.  Eventually, a gentleman brought one to our room for us, but in keeping with the ridiculously bad service decided not to knock on our door and just barged right in.  What if Colleen and I had been having a mud wrestling match or had our dominatrix gear setup?  That would have been doubly awkward.  To say I wasn't impressed with Royal Caribbean so far would be a fair assessment of the situation.  We did our best to drown our sorrows by ordering three plates of room service, which I quickly devoured before passing out in a gastro-induced coma.



Don't judge me.

~Brentski~

Note:  I realize this posting may make me sound like some kind of "service snob".  I am actually the furthest thing from it.  As someone who has worked in the industry for years, I actually despise said snobs.  The service was THAT BAD, made even worse by the fact that it was on a cruise where service is usually far superior to that which you receive elsewhere.

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~