South East Asia - Final part posted (on page 3, girl!)

[Jake]

I took a little trip to South East Asia for an end of exams/birthday sort of thing.

Rough outline:

Day 1: Singapore - Beach and Chinese Gardens
Day 2: Singapore - Chinatown and RAIN
Day 3: Singapore - Universal Studios Singapore
Day 4: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Cosmo's World
Day 5: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Petronas Towers & KL Tower
Day 6: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Sunway Lagoon and Batu Caves
Day 7: Genting Highlands, Malaysia - Genting Theme Park and First World Plaza

Day 8 was spent on a coach and day 9 on a plane, so I won't bother including them as there were no photos .




Day 1:

I First full day after arriving late the night before. Luckily, I managed to avoid jetlag, however kept getting up really early... although this was a blessing in disguise as i'm usually AWFUL at waking up (just ask Vadge )

Walking down the street... I see a wheel!

It's called the Singapore flyer. It's currently the tallest in the world but is getting spited by Beijing soon...

Phunky bridge and phunky building:

The bridge had cute little observation points with a view of the CBD...

Singapore is famous for being clean and safe, due to harsh punishments for relatively minor offenses (huge fines for littering and lashes for graffiti/vandalism).

More fabness

It was a nice day, and Universal Studios was sold out, so I bought tickets for another day and headed to the beach.

The nicest beaches in Singapore are on Sentosa, the same island as Universal (only a short monorail ride from the main island).

Cable cars...

The beach was nicer than I expected from Singapore. Although you could see ships in the distance (hundreds of them), they were well hidden by the small islands directly opposite.

There was a bridge (and a zipline coming from a hill behind) over to one of the small islands. The water was boiling!

They had a flow rider <3

After the beach I got the MRT (mass rapid transit) to the Chinese gardens, as it was still sunny and I wanted to cram in as much as possible. On the MRT they had these fab stickers on the windows <3

What a FINE city.

...and at the Chinese/Japanese gardens, more fines!

At least it was clean...

I won't bother captioning these as there isn't much to say....

The dragons were paticularly fabulous <3

Turtles <3

They had a huge pagoda in the middle, which I went through the effort of walking up just to get these photos, so be greatful

The steps were putrid in the humidity <////3

One last photo of a tree on the way out to conclude the photos for today!

Part 2 to follow soonish.

x

 

[Mark]

Im jealous already.

It looks absolutely stunning. Personally love the dragon trees. They are brilliant.

I look forward to seeing more report soon. I didn't realise Singapore was soooo very strict!

 

[peep]

Wow, some lovely photos in there, Singapore looks beautiful. Like Mark I had no idea they were so strict but it seems to work. I look forward to seeing the next instalment to your trip report.

 

[Snoo]

Where do you get this money? I want to be you.

 

[marc]

Fantastic Jake so far, cannot wait to read the rest of the report.

 

[ciallkennett]

Re: South East Asia

Turtles <3

That's a terrapin darlin'

Nice report so far Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Nic]

I love you, pet poof!

 

[Jake]

Day 2

I woke up to horrendus rain, so waited until it had calmed down a bit before I braved going outside. I opted for Chinatown for no apparent reason .


Rain.

Fab temple <3

Chinatown shop bit...

I then wandered around and took some crappy urban photos. My camera hates dark conditions...

New buildings in the Marine Front development;

They were near the fab boat building.

CBD from a weird angle...

I went on a date with a girl from my hostel

This is the area our hostel was in... red light district <3

Random shop

As the sky was starting to clear by nightfall, we headed to the CBD to see what it was like at night. It was gorgeous!

FIN

 

[peep]

Another interesting report Jake. A date with a GIRL!?

Shame the weather was a bit blah though. Look forward to the third instalment of your report

 

[Jake]

Universal Studios Singapore

 

[Hixee]

I love how that looks over the water! I bet it looks amazing with the trains running. Shame they weren't really. Looks like a nice park.

 

[gavin]

I LOVE Singapore!

That cool boat building is actually the world's most expensive (to build) hotel; it just opened a few days ago I think.

I think I spent most nights there in Chinatown, breaking the law. Love it.

 

[peep]

Another great part to your trip report Jake. I've not really looked into the new Universal Studios park much and it doesn't look great. As you say, too small and squished. The theming looks great though and the castle looks amazing. Battlestar looks so out of place though, just a very bizarre merge of themes in that area.

Looks like you had a nice time though.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

I think Universal are planning on getting a Transformers ride in the future...

Plus was the Madagascar ride open yet?

Either way, looks AMAZING...

 

[Jake]

I LOVE Singapore!

That cool boat building is actually the world's most expensive (to build) hotel; it just opened a few days ago I think.

I did actually go inside. It was open but still a bit of a construction site (only went in the lobby area... theres a resturaunt at the top but it wasn't open yet).

There's also this at the top:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/artic ... ds-newsxml

It looks AMAZING! When I eventually go back to Singapore (which I will, because it's amazing) i'm sooo staying there for a night even if it bankrupts me!

Also went in the mall opposite, which has a gondola ride thing, but that was a construction site too

 

[Anonymous]

Awesome report! The thing that struck me was the park being sold out on the day you visited!?! :shock: Never experienced this in my life! Is it due to crowd control rules in Singapore or because the park is really small and it's genuinely not big enough to cope with the crowds (The latter seems absurd).

Out of interest though, what are the dinosaurs like on Jurassic Park? All the pictures of the area look like oversized plastic models in the sense they seem out of scale to those in the American rides and movies?

The Shrek area looks pretty darn awesome though and that Marina Bay swimming pool makes me feel sick just looking at it :lol:

 

[Jake]

^ It MUST be the crowd control rules. It was sold out the day I bought the tickets too (and it was hammering it down).

Even though it was sold out, Mummy only had a 5 minute queue :S

The dinosaurs on the actual ride were the same as the ones in the states, but obviously you can't really take photos of them.



and Benin, I didn't notice the Madagascar ride so can't comment! Although I dislike the movie so didn't pay much attention to the area .

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

^The ride is in the big mother-****ing boat...

Though since the park opened I haven't paid it much attention so you know... Apples and Oranges...

 

[Jake]

Day 4.

The cheapest way to travel between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur is by bus. I paid £15 each way for the 5 (but 7 hours with immigration checks, rest stops and general bus faff) hour journey. There were cheaper buses, but I got the more luxury ones as I didn't want a long journey with no aircon or leg room!

After getting off the bus twice for immigration (leaving Singapore and entering Malaysia) you are greeted by this sign:

Jungleness taken from the bus:

6 hours or so later I was in Kuala Lumpur. I was tired and it was about 6pm so I thought i'd get Cosmo's World done and dusted (it's open till late).

I used the KL Monorail to get around quite a lot, although the trains aren't nearly long enough for the amount of people that use them (even though the platforms could clearly accomodate longer trains...)

After getting lost in the gigantic berjeya times square shopping center.........

.....I eventually heard screaming and stumbled across this!

I'll post a load of photos of the coaster (Supersonic Odyssey) and then write a very small review...

(This transition was fab!) ^

As some lifts are right next to the ride, I attempted to get some exclusive shots from inside them

It isn't top ten breaking (obviously), but for an indoor coaster it's incredible! I like ride interaction, so loved how it snaked around the shopping area during the prelift. Like colossus, it was rather rattley, but MUCH more pleasant than Colossus (even with the older trains). It was short, but long for an indoor coaster, and had some pretty intense moments (such as the turn through the mouth after the loop).

Photos of other rides...

I'll post this again as you can see the tower ride and mini top spin thing in it...

They also had bumper cars and a double inverter style ride, but I failed to take photographs!

The theming throughout the park was pretty crazy/drug-induced;

I then got the monorail heading towards TITIWANGSA (hehe) and headed home for some food, wifi and an early night

Fin.

 

[gavin]

^Pretty much sums up what I thought of Supersonic; I loved the snap to the side as you go through the flower and the snap in the other direction to go through the corkscrew.