Smashed Chicken, are you feeling Lucky?

Ok, so in the Lucky Plaza mall there's this restaurant on the 4th floor that sells Indonesian food and it's popular enough that the lineup wraps around the corridor by 6:00pm. What do they sell? Well, we had smashed chicken and smashed dory fish. Basically it's fried meat with a crunchy dried shrimp topping, some tofu and tempeh chunks, side veggies on a banana leaf and then a chilli sauce that that's a little darker and hotter than the sauce for Nasi Lemak. It's served with a side plate of rice. Don't forget to order a crazy coloured
drink with condensed milk in the bottom.

Booking side trips from Singapore

I do tons of research on travel all the time and often end up booking or researching things for friends and family too. Honestly there's no trick! It's just me with usually a bunch of tabs open and some of the following websites running.


FLIGHTS

Skyscanner
I went into a travel agency and watched the agent pull up Skyscanner to find me flights. Then she quoted me an unbelievably high rate (she gave herself a $200 commission on a $500 flight). I left and went home and typed in Skyscanner to discover that she could, in fact, see all the discount flights as well as flights from bigger airlines. Lesson learned, start at Skyscanner at home, don't use an agent and then go to the airline's site to book as not all flights come up on skyscanner.

KLM
Sometimes it's good to just check the KLM site to see what deals might be coming up. They run flights from Holland to Bali via Singapore. This flight is always cheaper than booking on Air Asia for the same trip AND you don't have to throw a tantrum trying to use the Air Asia website.

Berjaya Air
Never heard of it? It's a small Malaysian airline with fairly new planes that go to the various Malaysian islands and they are pretty cheap. They also partner with local resorts and offer deals. This is probably the easiest way to get to Tioman, Redang or Langkawi. They won't come up in any other travel sites. You have to book flights directly through them.

Tiger Airways
They are a royal pain in the arse to deal with but sometimes there are good deals especially in off seasons and to locations that aren't as popular with western visitors.


ACCOMMODATION


Agoda
I often start with using Agoda to look for hotel deals. I always keep Trip Advisor open while I do this so I can check actual experiences and rates. I've had 50% off really neat places on this site but I've also had to cancel a booking when I all of a sudden realized that my quoted rate was not what they put through on my credit card! Just be wary. It's not a scam per say but it can have some tricky wording just before the final check out.

AirBnB
I had no idea AirBnB was in Asia! Seriously I discovered this today. We use this in North America a lot and it's a great way to find reasonable vacation rentals and nightly B&B accommodation. I was just skimming through what's available in Bali for instance and there are some really good deals. Well worth spending some time on here.


TRAVEL APPS

It's no secret that I run everything in my life from my iphone. When I travel it's my most trusted sidekick. Here's what I use:

Tripit
Forget Tripit pro. I had it for a year and it never did anything amazing it was supposed to. Just get the basic, free account, forward your itineraries and voila. Everything neatly ends up compiled in one itinerary. I usually need to type in B&Bs and some obscure modes of transit but generally it's pretty easy. This is where i look to check flight times, confirmation numbers and to share my itinerary with my co-travelers. It works without data/wifi but doesn't refresh so scroll through your itinerary right before you leave home to make sure you have it all loaded.

Trip Advisor
I have to say I'm pretty thrilled with this app. We had wifi in our car in New Zealand and finding a place to eat lunch on our road trips was so easy! We'd pull over, type in the name of the town, tap the highest rated option and then ask it to guide us there with this little compas arrow. So simple.

Skating in Singapore

So when we first arrived here I was taken to view Singapore's ice rink. It turned out to be a studio rink (like the one we had behind the other two rinks at Minto that one really used) and it's inside a shopping mall. Since I haven't been in the country long enough at a time to have a normal schedule I just never got around to going to check it out again.

I did attempt to contact skaters here but I couldn't find any. There were no schedules on any of the skating club pages and no contact information either (and most of their links to anything were broken). The skating rink itself has a site with operating hours and again no schedule. I decided to write to them and ask what sessions I could drop in on. They did not understand what I meant by a "session." Nobody books ice. There are no hockey sessions, figure skating sessions, tot skates.... nope. Just one big long public session. Even if you are in lessons, they still let the public on the ice. They refused to put me in contact with any skating clubs. Fine, I said, I'll just rent the ice. They said that would be $800 an hour and would come with a birthday party room [headesk].

No wonder skating isn't popular here, it's a royal pain in the ass.

Identifruit

We just went through a market stall in Little India and grabbed a few things we were unfamiliar with and looked them up when we got home. This little guy we are still unsure of. Once cut open we couldn't even figure out what part to eat as the flesh is not really soft and "fruity." Any ideas bloggers?

Roti Prata mi amore

Parantha is a South Indian dish which was introduced in Malaysia and Singapore. It's known as Roti Canai in Malaysia and Roti Prata in Singapore. There are few foods that produce the levels of sheer bliss of a freshly fried prata.The pure unadulterated version is just feathery layers of butter soaked and almost pastry-like bread. In the picture above the plain one is in the front on the left. You can also have egg, cheese, onion or mushrooms folded into the dough while it cooks like the egg prata on the back left of the platter. On the right side of the platter are the typical curries served with prata, lentil dahl in the front, fish curry in the middle. This particular vendor also served up a dollup of his own special masala sauce on the back left. This meal is $2.00USD at our closest hawker centre. I also buy whole wheat prata from the grocery store which is sold in stacks in the freezer section. It's not as fluffy as the fresh but it does make a great quick breakfast with an egg and cup of iced coffee.

Back to 'normal'

Joel is home from his month abroad (that makes [cough] three this year... not that I'm counting) and my family have all gone home now. My mother and brother were here for two weeks. During that time we did a whirl wind trip to Penang and saw lots of stuff in Singapore. My mother decided to stay on for three more weeks. We traveled to Bali and finished off her bucket list of things to do in Singapore. It was a great five weeks but it's nice to have Joel home and be back to another version of normal.

Will we stay put for long? Probably not. I'm looking at flights right now actually... Thailand and possibly Bali part 2 are on the horizon. In the meantime I've got three more weeks of a history class left. I decided to bite off a big research paper that has me tracking down out of print type specimen books from a 16th century typographer and having them couriered to Singapore. I'm in heaven.

You're probably wondering what the image above is all about. Yes, that's my kitchen table set for dinner and that's Joel's new Lego train. He has been visiting this train in Lego stores for more years than I can count so while he was in Colorado I went and bought it. It was such a hit! I can't quite bring myself to ask him to take it off the table so for now we're eating with our plates in our laps watching the train go around. Choo choo!

Awesome bike trip in Colorado

After New Zealand I flew to Colorado to do the Triple Bypass ride through the mountains with friends. We stayed in a really nice place in Vail and psyched ourselves up by watching le Tour in the mornings.

Triple Bypass was a pretty fun ride to do. The first hill was 11,000' the second hill was 12,000' and the final hill was 10,500'. 120 miles in total with no flats but the hills were extremely gradual. We were worried about rain but it held off until the last ten miles.

-Joel

Singapore Expats poll

Most of us really don't know how long we'll live here but just for fun, I made a poll. Do you think you're in for the long haul or just passing through?

Cheers and happy Friday!

How long do you think you will live in Singapore?
1 year or less 1-3 years 3-5 years More than 5 years (but not forever) Indefinitely Forever, no question about it
	Results

Jurong Bird Park

 

We are back from Bali and back into Singapore things again. I took my mother to the Jurong Bird Park today as this was one of the last attractions on her bucket list before she leaves Singapore. We arrived at about 2:30 but found by 6 we'd run out of time to see all we wanted to see. Lesson learned, arrive earlier.

The birds and buddies show in the Pools Amphitheater (11am, 3pm) is meant for younger kids but the birds they bring out are amazing and it's your only chance to see some of the breeds up close. Not a show for anyone afraid of birds swooping over their head as this is what most of the show is made up of.  The trainers stand out in the audience and send the birds back and forth to the host on the stage to give everyone a chance to have wings beat a couple of inches from their head. It's pretty thrilling.

The Lory feeding is fun and fairly low key. If you buy the main entrance and the monorail pass you get this thrown in for free. The picture above gives you a pretty good idea of what these guys look like.

I was a little disappointed by the all the caged aviaries. Very few of them have a plexi-glass area where one can take a photo. The cages are very tightly made so you really can't get much of anything. Bring a long lens and go to the shows if you want a shot of any of the cool hornbills or birds of prey.

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