Here it finally is….the Malaysia/Singapore write-up…
A very unique port as we didn’t dock on land. The ship anchored in the middle of the harbor, and we got dry land via the Explorers’ emergency life boats, or tender boats. It was a fun, new experience when we went out….but for others, not so fun. The boats only ran every 30 minutes, making it very inconvenient for people who stayed in the area to get on/off whenever they wanted.
Anywhos, after serving my 2 hours of dock time, Adam and I took a cab to the Penang airport, got flights, and arrived at Kuala Lumpur around 6pm. We spent the next 5 hours riding the rails, taking pictures of the twin towers and the KL tower, walking around downtown and eating sushi at this bomb place called Hanabi. At this point there’s a long mini-story here that involves us heading back to the airport at 11 in order to catch a standby flight back early (instead of waiting until our 6am flight). We get there, find out that the airlines don’t operate between midnight and 6, and so we end up waiting for 6 hours at this horrible, horrible airport that’s way too bright, way too uncomfortable, and way too overpopulated for an airport with no flights.
Anywhos, we finally get back to the Penang airport, where we hang out for an hour or two until our Singapore group arrives. Another two hours of waiting and we’re in the seats of a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 on our way to Singapore! Let me tell you, Singapore Airlines is damned classy. Not only did we get decent hot meals for a 50 minute flight, our 777 had that in-flight entertainment system with on-demand Nintendo, current movies, music, and phone built into the seats. Now that’s style. Upon arriving in this huge megastructure they called an airport, we met our guide and bussed over to the hotel where we had an hour to prep before the beginning of our first tour.
I fell asleep and overslept by an hour, totally missing the first half of the tour (which I heard wasn’t very exciting), and ended up taking a cab to meet them at the Raffles Hotel. From there we went to the Clarke Quay waterfront where we took a bumboat tour of the Singapore River. After we returned to the hotel and freshened up, a few of us went out to dine at the Equinox - a nice little restaurant located at the top (70th floor) of the tallest building in Singapore. And then, after around 30 hours of intense sight-seeing and dining in two major cities in two countries and taking 3 flights, I finally crashed.
The next morning we departed for Sentosa, which I can only describe as a paradise within a paradise. Singapore itself was very nice with the lack of litter and crime, the bright sunny weather and beautiful waterfronts, but Sentosa was nicer…and had really sunny beaches. We first visited the Underwater World aquarium, where we got to molest various sea creatures in a shallow tank and view even more aquatic animals in various tanks, including the “Sea Angel”, which had it’s own little section and special viewing tank.
Afterwards we went to the Dolphin Lagoon to watch a ho-hum show featuring 2 pink dolphins. Following that, the majority of the group went to the Images of Singapore exhibit, while me and a few other bored souls took a revolving viewing platform ride followed by a luuge (louge? luge? looge?) run down a hill and a cablecar back up. And then another cablecar (the big on) from Sentosa to Mount Faber, after which we were bussed to the Hog’s Breath Cafe for lunch.
Afterwards, Mary Jo and I went down to the park/beach front/whatever you call it where we cruised up and down the trail for a little over an hour (me on bike, her on rollerblades). This was the perfect afternoon - bright blue sunny day, a nice cool breeze, beachfront trail, and me on a bicycle for the first time since middle school. If I lived in Seattle (as opposed to what we locals call the “eastside”, the suburbs across the lake from downtown Seattle) where all the bike trails are, I could see myself taking this up on a daily basis.
Afterwards we went to this mall (the name escapes me) to meet up with one of her sorority sisters who was studying abroad in Singapore and went to her campus (something Tech) for dinner at the cafeteria - they had the pineapple fried rice (the least-asiany thing on the menu) and I decided to go with the sea cucumber. Yum. And of course, I got spoken to in Chinese by the cook and the cashier, who didn’t realize I was with the foreign students. I see this happening a lot on the remaining ports.
I just realized the last 3 paragraphs started with “afterwards”. If only I had gotten into the Writing About Travel class like I wanted…
Let’s try this again.
Following the events of the last paragraph, we rounded up some of the American study abroad students on campus, filled up two taxis, and set off to the club. This is where I was introduced to free-flow night (considering I haven’t gone clubbing in my own city as I just turned 21 may explain that), and where I think I was subjected to racial discrimination by the bouncer.
It’s easily enough. You pay the 20 Singapore dollars to the man, get your hand stamped, and go in. After waiting 15 minutes in line, I finally get upto the man who asks me for ID. Thinking that this was a little odd, I show him my ID knowing fully well that I’m past the legal drinking age in Singapore, and get rebuffed with a, “Gotta be 23,” followed by a gentle push out of line.
No one else in my group was 23, so this was a big WTF moment. The others got through, so while they were deciding how to deal with this situation, I bowed out, got a beer from the 7-11 next to my hotel, and watched MTV in my room. I had just turned 21, so being denied at the club was a big hit to me. As I sat there thinking, I realized several things:
- There were no asian people in line
- There were no asian males inside the club
- The patrons consisted of caucasians, hispanics, and african-americas
- The bouncer was a white ex-pat, probably from the UK or Australia
“Holy cow, did I just get dissed on account of my race?” I asked myself. I can’t be 100% sure that it was racial - there are an infinite number of variables that kept me from entering the club. Mary Jo didn’t think it was. I just can’t help feeling that it was.
In the morning, Ally and I shopped at the Chinese open-air market a few blocks away from the hotel that we randomly stumbled onto. And then we all flew back on yet another excellent Singapore Airlines flight.
And then waited nearly 1.5 hours in line to get on a damn tender.