Island Down Under.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010Okay, so I'm a month late, but I figured it was time to finally get off my laurels and talk about my Resorts World Singapore Universal Studios experience.
The boyfriend and his best friend had been talking about taking a trip to the little island down under to check out Universal Studios. Because Pok Xian, his best friend, works on Saturdays, they picked a Saturday which was a public holiday for us and the best choice was 5th June - Agong's birthday! Plus, it was also Dominic's birthday, so it was like a celebration of sorts too. (Btw sigh Agong why must your birthday be on a Saturday? My employers don't give us replacements for public holidays boo :( )
Being the chronic procrastinator I was, I left the packing till late. At about 11 p.m. with a wake-up call at 4:30 a.m. the next morning to get to the LCCT in time for our flight at 8 a.m, I was still packing. Or something along those lines.
Anddddddd during my packing, Adam sits me on my bed, taking both my hands in his and drops a bombshell telling me that "Err dear ah... I have bad news." Like he was pregnant wtf. Or he might have tried to make it a good news/bad news thing, but it was most definitely bad.
See, 5th June was not only a public holiday, but the first weekend of the Malaysian school holidays AND the Singapore school holidays. Read: Bumbling children all over the theme park whose over-zealous parents had bought the tickets for 5th June off the Resorts World website wayyyyyyyy in advance. Leaving us with no theme park tickets. Jeng jeng jeng.
A lot of drama later, we decided we'd just go try our luck with going there anyway. The moment we touched down at Changi, we hailed a cab to go there in person.
The silhouette of an AirAsia plane against the sunrise :)
Cloudy morning.
Nope. No luck. Staff at the counters told us that the tickets for Saturday had been sold out in advance and that there were none left for over-the-counter sales. Blasphemy. We decided to switch our plans around and get tickets for the next day instead -- although that meant we would have to rush through the theme park instead because our bus left Singapore at 4:30 p.m.
After buying the tickets, we wandered around some of the shops there instead. The Hershey's shop is to. die. for. Omg.
They had a Reese's section too. I love Reese's! I bought a packet of white chocolate Reese's (which Pok kindly informed me, white chocolate isn't real chocolate -_-) but they melted after leaving them in the locker all day long sigh.
Hershey's galore!
Next to the Hershey's shop was Garrett's Popcorn who does these really kick ass fragrant caramel popcorn with really big corn kernels. Till today, Adam still laments on and on about why nobody has brought it to Malaysia yet.
Because Dom and his colleagues were clever enough to buy tickets off the site in advance unlike us, they went on Saturday, and Pok went off to visit his sister on Saturday instead of Sunday like he initially planned, that left Adam and I a whole day to go dating around the island :p
We checked into our budget hotel on Joo Chiat Road and began our hunt for Katong laksa. Katong laksa is my absolute favourite-st dish in Singapore and is something I insist on having everytime I'm there. I think we took a twenty minute walk under the hot Singaporean sun, but it's okay! No walk is too long for Katong laksa. :p
As usual my poor sense of directions eluded me and I couldn't find the famous one that my family always goes to, so we settled for this one instead which was pretty damn good too. (Only that people don't usually serve chopsticks with Katong laksa because the noodles are supposed to be so short that you can eat it with a spoon alone.)
IF YOU HAVEN'T TRIED, YOU MUST TRY IT!
Soon before long my bowl became like this. Only with the remnants of my uneaten taugeh bleh. And the plate in the background had what Adam proclaims as the best fried mee suah he has ever eaten.
After an incredibly satisfying lunch, we went back to the hotel to get changed for an evening at the malls :p
That picture was taken right before I dragged Adam to countless shoe shops, three of which were Charles & Keith. Charles & Keith shoes are actually so much cheaper in Singapore when they're on discount. But get this, after all the shoe shops I visited, not a single pair that I liked had my size left! ROAR.
I'm a size 39/8 and in Malaysia, this is the size that's usually leftover during sale period. Singaporean girls have bigger feet than Malaysians. :( So, Great Singapore Sale, you were not very fun this time round. (Also, Adam probably found it the most frightening ordeal ever.)
Dinner at MOS Burger. This is a Chicken Teriyaki sushi rice burger thingymajig. Incredibly small and I wouldn't think worth the SGDs we paid for it, but interesting nonetheless. The boyfriend said he felt like he was "...eating a bento box." The stuff from the bento box, I mean, not the box per se. Never mind.
We met up with Dom and his colleagues, Pok & ZH for after dinner drinks at Clarke Quay and I feel like kicking myself for not taking any photos because we got the birthday boy drunk. And he was a bloody intellectual drunk too might I add. I've seen quite a fair bit of drunken people -- emo drunks, hyper drunks, sleepy drunks, violent drunks, but I've never seen a smart drunk. :p
Dom: "What are the 5 Greek Options!? Tell me, what are the 5 Greek Options!"
o__O
I don't think I could do justice to the whole situation, so I think I'll leave it to one of the guys to blog about. Hehe.
Went to bed late and woke up early on Sunday to be in line to rush into the park when the gates open.
Welcome to Universal Studios, oh we went through quite a lot to get tickets for you geez.
First stop: Jurassic Park! We sat on that glider coaster thing which isn't one of my favourites because ever since Gold Coast, I figured that coasters where my legs are left dangling in mid-air aren't for me. Maybe it's just that I don't feel secure enough.
The mandatory photo with a dino.
Far Far Away, the kingdom in Shrek. Sigh. It's one thing watching princess all your life in cartoons when you're little, and another seeing castle structures in real life. I swear I practically skipped down the path when I saw this.
Welcome to Far Far Away! Adam having fun pushing his girlfriend far far away. His idea for a photo op, not mine.
More pictures of Far Far Away & the quaint streets. And two knight in shining armours at the top left. :p
Shrek! /waves crazily. I keep on forgetting I'm 22 this year instead of 2.
The Enchanted Airways ride where they make you queue up in this house with stone walls, complete with fun posters for you to read whilst waiting in line. The roller coaster is actually the dragon in Shrek, or in this case, their "airplane", hence, Enchanted Airways.
Trying to keep a straight face vs. trying to be yeng.
The boys!
Clockwise from top left: The view of Far Far Away from...far far away (no pun intended), the famed Battlestar Galatica which is still shut after months, the matinee where we caught the Monster Rock musical, and the streets of Lights Camera Action.
One of the Egyptian men on stilts who walked around the park nearly all afternoon in the scorching heat. He had very nice abs though. Ahem.
One of the vintage cars outside the diner where we had lunch.
Madagascar! With "I like to movit movit" blaring out of the speakers! Super fun.
Cannot not take a picture with the Madagascar animals. :D The rest of the area looked really good. Unfortunately, didn't really take as many pictures here as I would have liked since the rides in this side of the park were mainly for children and we were running out of time anyway. :(
One of the signboards in Old Hollywood. If you can't quite read it, it says "Welcome to Hollywood; Population: Glamourous". Hee.
And last but not least, the two majestic statues outside the Revenge of the Mummy in Ancient Egypt. The best ride of the whole theme park, IMO. It was a super long wait, but it was the one that made my ticket's worth. It's a roller coaster ride with parts in complete darkness so you don't really know which way you're going to tip next -- left right up down, even backwards.
Looking back, we only actually spent about 5 hours in the theme park, including lunch and watching a few shows. We missed this water show which was supposed to be really good, and the guys would probably have liked to go on some of the rides again but despite all that, if you plan your time properly, go in when the gates open and all that, you can probably cover the whole park quite nicely.
The size pales in comparison when you think about Movie World in Gold Coast, but that probably makes it much better for families with children. My brother, Su, and their three kids went a week or two after us and they spent the entire day there.
After all that, we hopped into a cab to go to our last destination in Singapore where we were to take the bus from -- yet another mall. And of course, what with my luck with all the shoe shops earlier on, the guys suggested that I try the very last Charles & Keith in that building which would bring my total tally to four Charles & Keith outlets in two freaking days.
So I did, and again... no size. :'((((((
Whilst wandering around waiting for our bus (after my fourth and final traumatic Charles & Keith no-size drama), we saw this. xoxo.chic for real one day, perhaps? Maybe we should copyright it soon. Lol.
So, with that, ended our two-day weekend getaway to Singapore. Did I enjoy it? Sure I did. Good company and new places to see made the two days great fun. I know I grumbled when the boyfriend planned it because the MYR to SGD exchange rate is never soothing for Malaysian bank accounts, but I'm glad I went. Now, next stop is Bangkok/Krabi in September, and I'm dead excited.
I never knew why holidays were so important before I started work, because my family was never big on travelling, but now, after I've fully immersed my life into a 9 to 7 job, I totally get it. Bonuses, from now on, are going into my once-a-year travelling fund. Koh Samui, Bali, Hong Kong, Japan, Melbourne, Paris, Rome, US of A, England, Egypt, here I come! /broke and dreaming.
<3
2 spoke
Just one small correction. It was not "countless" shoe shops. There were 7-9 in total for that ONE day!! I think i have beaten even most girls with that record, while also picking up the award for Most Patient Boyfriend laa. (u should have so bought that oscar award for me..hahaha)
ReplyDeleteWell.. isn't "countless" better than 7-9 shops? It means there were so many I lost count :p
ReplyDelete