allyson and bryan

For reasons I'll explain later, Bryan and I did something quite out-of-character this weekend. We left Kuala Lumpur early Thursday morning, caught a bus to the old-world, southern Malaysia city of Melaka, and spent one day and one night there. Then, on Friday morning, we rose even earlier to catch a 7:30 a.m. bus to travel another four hours south to Singapore. We arrived in Singapore a few minutes before noon, ready to hit the ground running -- for less than one full day of sightseeing.

Now mind you, a) Singapore is its very own country, meaning that in order to get in and out you need to go through immigration four separate times, and b) it's also a good-sized, international, sophisticated city with tons of stuff to do. Normally Bryan and I don't move that fast (e.g., seven whole weeks in Australia), so we obviously had our work cut out for us. Here's what we were able to see, experience, and enjoy in 21 hours:

*all times p.m.

12:15 -- Hostel Check-in
Naturally, we stayed in a shared-bath room at the Catholic Welfare Center.

12:30 - 3:45 -- Singapore Zoo
Normally I avoid zoos like a malaria-carrying mosquito, but we'd heard so much about Singpore's that we decided to make this our first stop. We were not disappointed. I've never seen anything like it -- most of the exotic animals (with some exceptions, like the gorgeous white bengal tigers) are separated from you by moats rather than cages, and they have far more beautifully landscaped space to roam and run than in any zoo I've ever seen. Then there are the animals who aren't separated from you by anything, really -- they live in the trees above the park and you're quite literally thisclose to each other. Inside a rainforest area with a very high top net, a butterfly landed on Bryan's hand, right after our forward progress was halted momentarily as a lemur ran across our path.

4:00 - 4:45 -- Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery
A lot of names for a very large monastery, located in the northern half of Singapore. It's listed in Lonely Planet as one of the country's more off-beat attractions, I think mostly due to the fact that there's an on-site crematorium. Weird stuff.

[break for showers]

6:00 - 7:00 -- Singapore Art Museum
Normally I wouldn't have pushed for an art museum on this tight of a schedule, but it was right around the corner from our hostel and happened to be free on Friday nights. The museum ended up being our second-favorite sight, as it included a very cool modern art exhibit called fiction@love (as well as this most excellent photo op.) One of the pieces was a small white room covered from floor to ceiling with different shapes of red felt.

[break for bickering]

7:30 - 8:30 -- Raffles Hotel
Apparently any visit, long or short, to Singapore is not complete without a visit to the famous Raffles Hotel. Despite warnings to the contrary, Bryan ordered the classic Singapore Sling at the hotel's historic Long Bar -- by far the most expensive beverage we've had on the entire trip. I was the only person in the whole place without a red, frothy glass, as I opted for white wine. There were also lots and lots of peanuts.

8:45 - 10:00 -- Lau Pa Sat Hawker Center
Mmmmmmm! Another highly-touted must on the tourist trail, we ratcheted down the posh a few notches for dinner, heading to one of the city's famous "hawker centers," which are basically large, authentic food courts with a huge variety of ethnic treats. Overwhelmed by all the choices, we clearly overate, sampling pork buns, shu mai, noodle soup, pepper beef, fried yams, and Tiger beer.

10:15 - 11:00 -- 'Lost' on the laptop
We were up to "Lockdown," an excellent, excellent episode.

We quickly fell asleep after a full day, awaking Saturday morning to catch our 9:00 a.m. bus back to Kuala Lumpur. The bus, supposedly a five-hour ride, took nearly nine. Ugh. But we're back in KL, here for another three nights before moving on to Thailand (by way of a spa in Phnom Penh.) I'll tell you exactly why we're spending so many days in KL next...

stars, they're just like allyson @ 1:06 AM