Singapore and Legoland Malaysia

Last weekend I was lucky enough to fly to Singapore to meet up with my boyfriend’s incredible parents for an all too short 40 hours. Let’s be honest, I was not super keen to go to Singapore when Matt first mentioned it as an option for weekend trips. The cost of the place is altogether ridiculous, but the moment he mentioned his parents were coming I started looking at flights. Matt and his friends weren’t leaving until Saturday afternoon because they were staying through Tuesday and had all been to Singapore before. Those of you who know my traveling style know that I will pay more money, sacrifice sleep, and opt for uncleanliness if it means more travel time. In this case all I had to give up was the sleep, so I left my apartment at 3:00am to catch my 6:10am flight from Jakarta to Singapore. I hadn’t travelled alone in awhile, so I was a bit nervous, but lets be honest traveling alone in a first world, English speaking country is easy as pie. Once I arrived I had no issues at customs, and caught the next train for 2.5 Singapore dollars. I did a few transfers, but thanks to being able to read maps and signs and understand the lady on the speaker I easily made it to my stop only an hour after arrival. I met some pretty cool dudes on the train too. One had recently finished up a week long trip in Montenegro, and Croatia, so we had a nice chat about how cool the history of the Balkans is and how we both want to go back. If I haven’t overstated my love for the Balakans enough in this blog here it is again: Do not go to the Balkans because it is untraveled, super cheap, full of incredible untouched sights, and filled with totally lovable people. If people start going it will be ruined. Therefore if you are reading this you better never ever go.

So a small backstory. I had told Matt that I would simply take my pack with me and explore Singapore a bit on my own for a few hours and then plan a time and place to meet up with him, before we met his parents. Matt said I was silly and that meeting his parents without him wouldn’t be a big deal. Everyone I talked to thought I was crazy, but I trusted Matt, so that is what I did. His dad was waiting on the corner for me and had apparently been waving to every blonde white girl he saw. When we got to the room I was showered with chocolate, a new waterproof case for my camera, and baby pictures of my sweetie(which I had totally asked for)! We sat and they told me stories behind the pictures while we laughed at how silly Matt looked in most. Afterwards they figured I was hungry and in need of coffee, which I was, so we headed out to a nearby café and had, get this (!) a whole grain roll and an Americano. Matt’s mom thought I was being healthy, but really I felt like this was more of a treat than any of the pastries. We spent the rest of the morning browsing the malls, finding and pointing out interesting items. Next on the list was a cool drink. Matt’s dad had been to Singapore a long time ago with the Navy and he kept explaining how different it was. One particular hotel had peaked his interest, and according to him you couldn’t go to Singapore and not have a singapore sling, so we headed to Raffles for 27 dollar singapore slings. Raffles is a famous hotel in Singapore, mostly for its history during the Japanese occupation and has been featured in several books and movies. I read a bit more about it online and it turns out it was originally very close to the seaside.

A very interesting point to be made about Singapore is that a good portion of it is reclaimed land, meaning that they literally took ocean, added in rocks and dirt, and created more territory for themselves. Pretty cool if you ask me.

After our drink at Raffles we went and checked out another mall, got some water in our system and then ate lunch. To give you an idea for how expensive Singapore is we ate a Chilis. I had a burger, which cost 24 Singapore dollars (the equivalent of about 22 USD.) The only plus side to their pricing is that gross beer seemed to cost relatively the same as the micro brewed beer. I was constantly looking for some delicious IPAs.

Brewerkz. Rumor has it they are opening a branch in Jakarta

After lunch we headed back to meet Matt and after a quick shower we were ready to head out again. Matt suggested the nearby gardens as an option for the evening, but also suggested a drink first. Well we ended up at a very cool run down bar first and then ended up at a microbrewery, sipping on beer overlooking the water. There was also a music festival going on in the area for free. The bands didn’t exactly play my kind of music, but it turned out Matt knew a few of the songs and names of the bands. It was excellent to get some live, non pop music in, even if it wasn’t my favorite kind of music. The rest of the night was spent taking shots, drinking beer, eating dinner, and eventually heading back to the hotel for a bourbon and coke.

shots bar

I woke up after my 6 hours of sleep, feeling exhausted and a little bit hungover. I quickly chugged water and packed my bags since I would be rushing to the airport when we returned later, and we hopped in a cab to the Singapore flyer. Matt and I split a footlong breakfast sub from subway (I was beyond excited about the honey oat bread.) and then we boarded our bus to Johor Baru, Malaysia. That’s right. I fit in two countries in 40 hours. The bus trip was awful. Mostly because at the first boarder patrol stop the bus lost 6 people and we had to wait about an hour for them. The second stop wasn’t as bad and I was able to get some water for my pounding head. Mostly I think I was just exhausted.

So excited!

Once in legoland I remembered why I didn’t enjoy amusement parks as we waited in line to take the train ride. I was actually quite happy with the lines for the day. That was by far the longest one we waited on. Legoland was a pretty cool amusement park, mostly because there were so many cool statues built from lego! 

if it wasn't for the ultra large trees you could pretend you had actually seen these buildings. 

We got soaked right away on a water plunger ride, which was an excellent way to cool off. After we had seen everything we ate lunch and headed to the waterpark. Needless to say we were definitely ready to go at 3:00 and our bus didn’t leave until 4 so we just explored the shops and sat down in Burger King (aka Hungry Jacks for the aussies.) It inevitably started to pour right before it was time to walk to the bus, so Matt’s mom ended up buying an umbrella for us to share so I wouldn’t be soaking wet for my flight home. 

The gang building a raft of the lazy river

We did not have any issues on the bus ride home, and once at the hotel Matt and I took 5 minutes to cuddle before they sent me off in a cab saying how much they looked forward to (hopefully) seeing me at Christmas.

Matt asked me a kind of strange questions yesterday. He asked if meeting his parents made out relationship feel any different. I didn’t even hesitate to answer with a very confident yes. Something about it feels like it isn’t just this dream we somehow invented. That makes it sound like our story is a fairytale, which it isn’t in any way, shape, or form. There is something so strange about dating in another country. Maybe it’s just for me because I’m one of those girls who is crazy close to her friends and family, but I feel like meeting family and friends from back home is a necessary step. I explained it to Matt like this: The only people who see us together here are people who have known us here, or for a very limited time. But his parents have known him his whole life, so it is just natural that they would know if something was really right or really bad. Parents have your long term interest at hear, and they have to (essentially) deal with your choice of partner for the rest of their life too. I’m not saying I’d ever base a life decision on what my family and friends from back home said either. There is something to be said for the fact that I have dramatically changed as a person since I started living abroad. But the opinion being there is absolutely an important factor. I have to say that Matt’s parents absolutely passed in my books and according to Matt they liked me too, so that’s a good sing. Now we just have to see what my parents think when they meet him next month. And now for the best photo from the trip:

a younger version of my boyfriend. If I ever decide to have children I want them to have this exact smile please.