sawatdee ka

Check-in and security at Singapore's International airport lasted all of 15 minutes. So we had some time to kill. Thankfully, the airport has the amazing social tree, food, more food, and shops. Thus, we were fully entertained.

We're famous!

Oh Gary, you work-a-holic

2 hours of mucking about lead us to our final destination, Bangkok Thailand!

sawatdee ka

'Sawatdee ka' is a Thai greeting, like Aussie's say 'G'day mate'. Obviously you make a polite bow with your hands in praying mode to be ecstatic about saying hello. After clearing immigration, we made our way to the train to brave public transport to reach our hotel. A shout out to the friendly stranger who showed us the 'English' button on the ticketing machine, we were able to obtain our token and ride the 1980's train that was probably -10F for 4 stops (which takes like 30 minutes!). Our hotel was directly across the street - an added bonus! The unfortunate part of that is the elevated tracks were just below.

A view from room #1

Now, being 20-somethings we could not be bothered doing any type of pre-planning. So we arrived, settled, showered (again) and went now what? My pockets were loaded with Thai Baht  so I was keen! (My 400 Australian Dollars fetched me approximately 12,000 Thai Baht.) Our first tourist stop was the Grand Palace - really an entire complex of everything.

Golden Light

In today's time the Grand Palace is a giant tourist trap while sometimes holding functions, state business and other royal doings. The King of Thailand currently doesn't live here, but past royal families have. To even get to the palace, we had to catch the MRT and then a taxi.

Welcome to tourist central, where pick pocketers thrive, beggars beg and scam artists don't even flinch. Admittedly, walking up through the grand entrance is like walking in NYC for your first time - your neck hurts form looking up. 

It's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

After paying our 500 Baht (15USD) entrance fee AND 100 Baht (3.00USD) clothing rental fee we entered the sacred grounds for some tourism. Of course we were too cheap to pay for such extravagance as a tour. Instead, David and I just followed one of the Chinese speaking tours and translated for me - who is gonna think a fat, white American can understand Chinese?! I didn't so we were able to pick up tidbits of useless trivia.

My amazingly colourful clothing rental. And gold, lots and lots of gold!

Along with the hundreds of other tourists, we walked throughout the grounds to admire the beautifully ornate buildings, statues, foot paths and temples.

Naughty folks turned bird-ish

Obviously the gold looks the best

David literally touching gold

With all that ornateness, of course they have to work on it.

Does it even look real?! It's like entering the Asian version of Mr Rogers Neighborhood :D

Being all granded out, it was time to walk. Oh Lordy did we ever walk. In the end we really walked in a gain circle. During this long walk is the first time I got us ripped of. While shopping through the riverside markets, ended up paying around 1,500 Baht (USD45.00) for two of us to take a "river cruise".

We gots in to the rinky dink boat, and they took us around all the residential canals and other dirty places. Highlights included seeing a male wank himself under a bridge and seeing giant river snakes. They also had the audacity to have a canoe paddle up next to us in a desperate attempt for us to buy some stuff from their "floating market". Needless to say, waste of time and money. Didn't see much of anything and the drive didn't even drop us off to where we agreed on! Redonkulous!

After growing tired of touching and looking at so much gold, it was time to hit up the remainder of Bangkok and its highlights.

Nice monument to signify an important part of Thai history, or a gift. You pick.

Actual Floating Markets. I DARE anyone to touch the water...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were in Bangkok when the opposition started storming government buildings, demanding the resignation of the Thai Prime Minister. I'm sure you've heard some stories.

Police barricade

Opposition Rally at Democracy Monument. Cannot say this is the best place to find ourselves...

Lots and lots of people were pissed.

 We all mucked about quite a bit. So many bloody markets and shopping centres, tourist traps and rivers to explore. Plus the local cuisine, street food and pubs that only damaged my waistline and gave way to my inverted hour glass figure (haha). That Thai Massage was amazeballs, but reminded me of Catholic Church with its up, down and all around work-out. The pool and bar were grand places to do absolutely nothing. Of course our last hoorah was Tiger Temple and Elephant riding.

Of course I ate food on the street!

Because why pick it up yourself?

Chaz and Glenn on their elephant behind us

Parting ways - now it's time to visit each other in the Northern Hemisphere!

After a grand two weeks (thanks to those bloody Irish and their slang), sweating in parts I didn't even knew existed and eating until my fat pants stretched it was time to return to the land of Aus. So. Much. Fun.

the Eye of the Lion

Now that I'm fully practiced in speaking Australian, it was time for a lil further cultural exploration. Throwing a dart on the map landed directly on Bangkok, Thailand. You may have heard of Bangkok from such films as the Hangover 2, Bangkok Dangerous and Rambo. Let's commence playing travel agent!

#LessMoneyMoreProblems

Cheap only scratches the surfaces in how cheap I have become. Thus, after an exhaustive pricing search on Asia airfare, turns out we gots to fly budget airlines Jetstar and AirAsia. And of course, adding on a short stop-over in Singapore is do-able. (The LCCT, or Low Cost Carrier Terminal, at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia airport leaves everything to the imagination. Luckily, I was able to stretch my legs out in the mile-long walk from airplane to stiff terminal seat.) Un-recommending it.

Welcome to Singapore, the Lion City!

Singapore's 5.4 million folks bus, train and drive about on their wee island country which is 15,000 times smaller than America. The friendly folks at the Changi International airport use their AK-47's to ensure you don't j-walk or burst through immigration. Thankfully, the Singapore MRT trains speak like 19 languages so we can easily find our way (like we really had any idea where our way was). After waiting in the airplane queue for 20 minutes to land, our 8 hour flight landed at 5pm and we successfully managed to use public transport and a lot of our own legs (walking) to check-in to our windowless hotel room.

To my own surprise, Singapore isn't as built-up as I'd imagined. The MRT system lets us travel to all the tourist spots, and with 36 hours we had to get our bums-a-movin'! A shower and a rumbling tummy, we ventured outside again to stuff our face with some strange Singaporean food at a hole-in-the-wall. It was a block from our hotel, but my goodness I felt like I'd just run a marathon - the air warmer than an oven after a Christmas baking fest. (It was delicious.)

Now, according to the locals, the Srivijayan Empire King decided to make a new capitol. So, he meanders about and lands on this wee island. During a hunting excursion, he sees a fast moving cat-like animal. The hunting party assumes it's a lion and because a lion is seen as good fortune, the King decides to build his new capitol here, naming it Singapura ("Singa" for lion and "pura" for city). Take that educational tid-bit for your school holidays!

She's a beaut! and really a Merlion

P.S: a Merlion (as pictured above) has the head of a lion and a body of a fish. It has become Singapore's national symbol as "Mer" means sea and "lion" means, well, lion. Singapore was first established as a fishing village, before transforming in to a financial and business centre it is today.

Further exploration found us in Chinatown, shopping through the markets. This is where I discovered two interesting situations I have never, ever encountered:

• Here's a new sales tactic: a customer would walk up to an ATM to withdraw cash. The bank staff would wait for the customer to complete their transaction, and while walking away approach the customer to pitch more products or services to them. How annoying?!
• We were in the Chinese market, looking at electronics. Me mate David was interested in purchasing a very affordable, unlocked Samsung smartphone. Well, they left me standing at the counter while they took David to some back room to try and get him to hand over his identification documents and sign-up to their "plan" in order to even use the phone. Before taking him back, they even showed us the entire book of people who had already done it (which included clear copies of passports, drivers license and other photo IDs). 45 minutes of me standing alone at the counter, and David finally walks out empty handed, and after hearing his story, we quickly left - but not until we snapped a picture of me:

After this lil excursion, we explored the city centre/downtown core/central/downtown:

Singapore bench art v American

More finance.

One giant tourist trap aka Marina Sands Towers

NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT THE PUBLIC VIEWING DECK ON TOP OF THE SURF BOARD!!!!!!! (I write that in all caps on purpose, because I am literally shouting at myself for missing this).

Cool kids sit under bridges.

David on Marina Bay Pedestrian Bridge...it literally sways heavily

Nearby, we visited Gardens by the Bay to poke around some gardens. Beautifully done and well maintained. The only problem was I was bloody hot, tired, and exhausted from a full day of hiking around. Needless to say, it was still worth it! (It's really gardens and park area that was reclaimed from those pesky buildings). Here are some garden pics for your viewing leisure:

Now, we spent only one full day in Singapore. I'd recommend 2-3 full days, just to be able to leisurely see everything. Guess that means I just has to goes backsies :-) Here are a few other memorable moments from our 36 hours in the Lion City: 

A vending machine displaying soda choices.

Singapore subway. Everyone is so happy to line up and enter the doors in single-file.

Many public toilets required you to grab your toilet paper before entering a stall. You also dried your hands with this same roll after washing.

Now I did pretty well on all my Geography courses through life. But as it turns out I am gettin' a wee rusty in my old age, so I need some map assistance to figure out where the hell I was in the world. I figured you may need some as well (cough, cough):

Let's not forget about our 10-day Thailand excursion, coming soon to a screen near you!

Hope your weather treats ya nice!

Ciao for now,
:D

Manly Mustaches & Missing Cider Buddies

Joshy and Bry are patiently waiting for their facial hair to sprout so they can grow some impressive facial hair, as is commonly seen in a variety of Melbourne suburbs (especially those that have caught the hipster movement). For you coffee lovers, those bearded, oddly coloured folks make a damn good coffee.

In any case, since I am the only coffee addict of the family, I had to venture out, alone, to enjoy the sweet nectarine to keep me going. The other two haven't matured enough to develop the craving.

Surprisingly, these two fellas are remarkably self-sufficient in finding the nearest pub. Part of the Australian experience is experiencing Australia's beers (while attempting to speak in the Australian accent). I hear that criminals arriving in Oz back in the day had a wee drinking problem - probably not any difference as youngin's have today ;-) In any case, here's the bro and I having a brew:

Bonding Brothers.

Now that we've bonding time outta the way, let's enjoy some footy! Joshy and Bry were uber excited for this adventure. How many times in ones life does a Minnesotan enjoy an Australian Football League footy game?! Now, if only one of those university-educated guys could learn to read time, we could have arrived at Etihad Stadium on time...

She's a beaut.

Admiring the 53,000 seater

Nobody's actin' natural in these shots...

 Just kidding, we made it to see the last half of the game. Good thing too, I was lost, they were lost, we all were lost so half of it was enough....just to say I went :D

Joshy and Bry chose to cheer for the North Melbourne Kangaroos...

....only issue is the Hawthorn Hawks won.

 Obviously, if you now want more footy, I'd go here to get it. And when you're still lost about it, give it another read. Only after your second read just start screaming at the TV, pretending you know what's best.

Blessed Mornings

The biggest draw for the Great Ocean Road tour is the 12 Apostles. The 12 Apostles is a collection of (now) 14 limestone rocks. A few of 'em have fallen in to the ocean due to natural erosion and hey, the area needed a marketable tourist attraction that resonated worldwide, so they rounded the then 16 formations down to 12 to get the 12 Apostles.

Now, the Great Ocean Road came about because the government recognized the need to connect all of these smaller communities along the coast. There also was quite a high unemployment rate following both world wars so hey, why not build a road? Thus us modern travelers are able to enjoy a few stunning views alongside winding roads and steep cliffs.

Welcome to the Beginning.

 To stop all the ships from sinking, they had to build this lil treasure.

Cape Otway Lightstation

Cape Otway Lightstation grounds

WWII Radar base

And no tourist outing would be complete without seeing some wild Koalas!

Where's Koala?

And now for those delicious rock formations we all worked so hard to get to:

Reminds me to renew my travel insurance...

Now that's a view to end on. Have a lovely Labor Day Weekend all you 'Murican's! Enjoy a brew and a cider for me :D

Cheers,
:D

PS Happy (Australian) Father's Day!!