Fun times in Singapore

It was a relief to enter the sterile shiny world that is Singapore. Not sterile as in character-less. Sterile as in.......clean, germ-free, modern, GLEAMING! Singapore is truly a first world city, with first world prices to boot! We had to spend $40 a night to sleep in a concrete box with a mattress on the floor at the hostel we booked. Nevertheless, it was CLEAN and homey.

We stayed for 6 nights, explored the city and visited a friend of mine (Camilla) from college. Singapore is a really interesting city, with a variety of different ethnic groups. We had fun exploring Little India, the Arab Quarter, and Chinatown (which is alight with glowing red lanterns and loud chinese music and hordes of shoppers for Chinese New Year). The subway is efficient and modern (it reminded us of the subway in Shanghai), and reasonably priced.

My friend Nadine took us to Sentosa island, where they have created several beaches out of sand imported from Indonesia. The beaches are very nice and clean, but feel kind of artificial...like Disneyland or something. We went to the Aquarium on the island and walked through the shark tunnel, as well as saw all sorts of other strange and wondrous creatures.

After our week in Singapore, we crossed the border to Malaysia (which was a easy and pain-free experience) and are staying in the border town of Johor Bharu. Today we went to Carrefour and bought lots of cheap camping equipment for our trip to New Zealand and Australia.

We fly tomorrow to the Gold Coast in Australia and will spend a day there before catching another flight to Auckland, New Zealand. We have a car rented there and will have about 12 days to drive from Auckland to Christchurch. We also look forward to visiting my aunt in Dunedin, a mysterious character whom I have never met, though she has always been thoughtful and generous with birthdays and special occasions. Exciting!

We then will fly from Christchurch to Sydney and have a little less than a week to get back to the Gold Coast, from whence we will fly back to Malaysia, Hong Kong, and...our final destination, CHINA. WHOO HOO.