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30/11/08
Quite a bad night sleep. It was like sleeping inside a bag of McCoys, every time someone turned in their sleep it would wake everyone else, the pillows were far to big so you get a sore neck if you used it and a sore neck if you didn't. It was also rather cramped, spent the whole night fighting for leg and arm room, although Burns didn't cough very much. Woke up to Burns alarm at 10am which felt really weird because the room had no windows and it was still pitch black which made me feel really tired. Finaly managed to get out of bed and headed to the Prince of wales hostel which we booked yesterday, got a bit too early and the previous backpackers hadn't quite got their asses in gear so we left our bags by the stairs and went for breakfast down the road. Pat found the toothpicks straight away and went to town on them. Went back to the Prince of Wales and took our bags to the room, we all have individual beds in a 6 bed doorm, I felt quite sorry for the 1 other random guy in our room, he's gonna have to listen some serious s***e later. Dumped our bags and locked our valubles away before deciding to walk to Orchard Road to check out the shopping malls, yet another example of the girls appauling sense of direction, they turned the wrong way out of the first shop we entered. Spent the afternoon walking around the malls, everything is really expensive here, so didn't actually buy anything. It started to rain when we left the first mall so we went for a coffee at Starbucks, one of the two women sitting behind me had rotten bowels and kept letting some really nasty ones go. Burns bought some headphones from an electronic store, the guy said "I can bung in a shaver if you want". Headed back to the Prince of Wales using the MRT, we were told that we needed to pay a $1 deposit on our tickets which we would get back at the end, but when we reached the end there was nowhere to put our tickets to get the deposit back, so we all now have a souveneir of the MRT in Singapore.
Attempted using the internet in an internet cafe when we got back with no luck, so tried to set up the wireless internet at the hostel. That didn't work either so I made use of the 40% off Pilsner while everyone else showered. Went out to eat at an indian curry house down the road, had a really nice vindaloo which everyone enjoyed including Helen, although I'm told it repeated on her later. Went back to the Prince of Wales for the evening and got a few more drinks in, I got Coops to get me a Jam Jar which it said on the board was 'Just for girls'. Me and the girls went outside to play pool while the lads watched the football. We only managed to play two games before we had to go back inside the pub because the girls were being freaked out by Indians walking down the street and stopping to stare through the fence at them playing pool. It was rediculous there were two guys that literally watched both games and didn't take their eyes off the girls for a second. Went to bed fairly early and managed to get another good nights sleep with the ear plugs in.
01/12/08
Woke up early and packed our stuff away so we could move about 3 buildings down the road to the InnCrowd. Dumped our stuff there and went off in search of the shuttle bus to the Zoo. We were told it picked up outside the 7-11 on the right side of the road. There was no stop there but a load of stops on the other side of the road, so we asked the locals how to get there, every person we asked told us some different method and we spent about 20 minutes walking around the roads looking at all the numbers of busses and asking the drivers whether they went to the zoo or not. In the end a bus pulled up outside the 7-11 on the right side of the road covered in paintings of Zebras, Giraffes and all sorts of other animals, we assumed that it probably went to the zoo so got on.
Walked into the park and instantly were harrassed by photographers wanting to take photos of us. Ended up getting some group ones taken with some parrots in the background. As the guy took the photo a white parrot started squarking really loudly right in Pats ear and he pretty much ran away, which ruined that photo. Tapirs have the most rediculous noses ever, the white tigers were impressive even though they were just laying there, they are huge. Saw some things that looked like hogs called Babirusa or somethings, they looked rediculous, they have tusks sticking out of their faces in the most random places, reminded us all of the episode of Look Around You where Jack Morgan gets medibot to perform and op and ends up getting a tusk, so we all wandered around saying 'Oh, I really like the tusk' and 'but I love it' for the next 10 minutes. Went to see the Pygmy Hippos, Pat saw a cut out of one and remarked 'look theres a life size one over there', Burns and I looked at each other and thought what a tit, he was looking at about 3 actual Pygmy Hippos through the glass, they were all getting their arses groomed by little fish. Saw the Roos, got in a box to see what its like to be an animal in transit and found a little fact sheet in there. Fact of the day, the name Kangaroo comes from when people first asked Aborigonies what a Kangaroo was and the Aborigonie replied 'Kangaroo' which means I dont understand your question. Stumbled upon a Sea Lion called Big Phil performing tricks, he's got a really good planch, he can even balance a ball on his head while doing one. He's also awesome at frisbee. When he was doing his tricks there was this Manitee floating around the bottom of the pool just doing nothing, its got to be the laziest animal ever, looked so funny though. All got photos of us being kissed by Big Phil at the end, ended up with quite a fishy cheek. Entered the critters longhouse and found that a lot of their signs weren't correct, one of them said that it was some kind of squirrel and the only thing in there was a small version of a peacock. Saw a couple of giant black squirrels, their tails are huge. Then saw a whole load of energetic ground squirrels. Wandered into the crocodile area and checked them out, then realised that Pat and Rich weren't with us any more. Decided to wait on the bench for 10 minutes and when they didn't show we went back to the squirrel area. They were nowhere to be seen. So we explored the reptile area some more and found some Giant Tortoise, they were massive. Can't help but think they get bored living for like 150 years just eating leaves though. Komodo Dragon. Still hadn't bumped in to the guys yet so I put it to the girls that they'd probably assumed we'd gone on around the park so they would do the same thing and we'd end up meeting at the Polar Bears. Helen said they wouldn't go off very far if we weren't together and they would still be somewhere around the critter place or reptile area, so we waited at the Kids playground on the main road in view. I couldn't be bothered to wait any more and needed a s*** so decided to go off and find them. Found the toilets, that was one spicey vindaloo. Carried on around the road and finally found them next to the Giraffes and African Lions, got them and then had to walk all the way back to meet up with the girls, now I had a sweaty back, I was perfectly fine before hand. Rushed walking the rest of the section and made it to the Polar Bears with 15 minutes to spare before feeding time. This Polar Bear was 17 and weighed 550kg, I had the closet guess with 600, not sure how tall he was but they can get up to 3.5m. Each day he eats; 15Kg of meat, 300g of pellets, half a loaf of bread, 1.5Kg of cooked rice, 5 fish, 6 apples and a carrot. The feeding was impressive, they fed him half a watermelon (which wasn't on his list of foods, maybe he didn't get any appels) and he just mashed it against the side of the glass and ate it in 2 bites. They then chucked in a live fish for him, the girl commenting on it was hillarious, she was like 'theres the fish, can you see it, swim fishy, swim for your life, you're gonna get eaten...oh, there it goes... it's dead'. we then followed the tour around for a bit and saw the African Lions being fed, not very impressive because they don't have to put any effort in to catching the food, a guy just stands there and chucks half a chicken at them, one chicken hit one of the lionesses right on the head. I looked around and spotted a german looking guy with white socks pulled up half way between his ankles and knees, gonna leave some good tan lines. We then went and saw some Meer Cats fighting over a chicken leg, some monkeys swinging around and an Orang utan pissing from a great height trying to get people on the path below. The only place to eat on the way out of the zoo was KFC, I wasn't going to get one but everyone else did and it made me feel hungry. First fast food meal of the trip so far.
Went home and showered, Burns and Helen had a nasty toilet experience. The showers were awful, reminded me of the Goldfinger song 'My girlfriends shower sucks', the water was barely even a dribble coming out of the shower head, I had to squash my back against the wall to get the water to drip on the top of my head. Turns out it was just showers 3 and 4 that had no pressure, the first 2 were fine. Used the free wi-fi at the hostel to book a hostel for when we get to Melbourne, the wi-fi in this place was awesome. Went next door to use the 10% off voucher in the Countryside Cafe. Ordered food, 10 minutes later the waiter came and told us that the mutton madras wasn't available any more so ordered chicken tika. Got some big bottles of Tiger in and played P&A. The food came an hour later and was awesome. Pat said 'mmm...the foods pretty good here' while stuffing his face full of garlic bread.
Walked to Raffles, or Ruffles as we have now named it. Walked in to the Long Bar and managed to get in wearing shorts, shirt and flip-flops. On the way in I thought I was walking over smashed christmas decorations because things were constantly crunching uner my feet. Sat down and realised that they were peanut husks, they were literally everywhere. Everywhere you looked there were people eating nuts and just chucking the husks where ever they fancied. Pat and Burns went to the bar to get 5 Singapore Slings in, came back and told us that they were $126, that has to be the most expensive 5 drink round ever, its about 60 quid, crazy money. As we'd paid so much for the drinks we thought we had better join in with the peanut carnage. Don't think I've ever eaten so many nuts in my life, the table was a mess! The drinks were actually really nice, shame they were so expensive, I could have done with a few more. The had some live music, the vocalist had the deepest soul voice ever, it was insane. Wen't to the bog, Pat was in there chatting up the bongo player. On our way out we found about 10 massive sacs of peanuts. walked back to the InnCrown, had a shower, forgot about how bad numbers 3 and 4 were so had another awful shower, then spent all night chatting online on the awesome wi-fi.
02/12/08
Woke at 10am to pack all our stuff again. Had a shower, went in shower 1 this time, it was great. Took all our stuff downstairs and the girls went out to buy some beans so we could all have beans on toast. Waited for Coops to finish sorting out all her stuff for the post office before leaving. Turns out she was just wasting time waiting for everyone else because she thought they were upstairs, so we headed off when I told her that they'd been waiting outside for her for the past 10 minutes. Found the post office and spent ages queuing up to send stuff home for christmas. Coops forgot to get stamps for her postcard, she said she'd do it at the airport instead. When we got to Changi Airport Pat told us that we needed to go to terminal 2, when we got there I checked the itinerary, we were supposed to be at terminal 1. So we took the shuttle over to terminal 1. When we got there Helen came out with a classic 'Shall we go find a...umm...fast food place'. So we spent the next half hour attempting to find where Burger King was, it took us long enough to work out what floor we were on. Pat and Burns saw a sign for a Bullsy, Pat shouted out '4 bits of meat and 4 bits of cheese!'. So they spent ages deliberating whether they had enough money to get one each, and eventually decided they did. Helen got her meal so we went and sat down, there was some old woman / man, constantly mopping the floor so it never dried and there were always footprints on the floor. A few minutes later burns came power walking round the corner saying 'Luke, you got 2 dollar?' and as he said it his feet slipped out from underneath him and he was 2-3 feet in the air with his body horizontal then he just came down in a heap on the floor. I managed to postpone laughter until he tried to get up quickly and make it look as though nothing had happened and then got stuck on the edge of the table and said 'aaaah, I've really hurt my arse', me and Helen just burst out laughing. I gave him the $2 and he staggered off. When he was out of site the couple that were sat right next to where he fell joined in with the laughter. Pat and Burns came back with an enormous burger each and spent about 20 minutes eating it. Went over to queue for customs and Helen and Coops put on some warm clothes, Coops looked pretty stupid wearing leggings with a skirt and we all let her know how stupid she looked. Helen asked pat for some immodium after returning from the toilets and Pat said 'There's no point, you'll just s*** that out too'. Got to the departure lounge and found out that the toilets Helen used were the last ones before the plane and we weren't allowed back. Overheard a conversation about the plane being delayed because someone was really ill on it and they had to get all the London - Singapore passengers off to clean it and then let them all back on again. Spent about an hour sitting around in the departure lounge discussing things too vulgur to repeat, me Pat and Burns were in tears and I think the girls were a little confused. Finally got ont the Plane at 9 and took off by 10. We were all split up, I had a fat Russian next to me that kept jabbing me in the side by accident every 20 seconds making me think that she wanted something. Managed to sleep most of the way though.
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