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This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

-Regina Spektor "On the Radio"

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Since my last post, I've spent two nights in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - and another week and a half in Singapore. Now for a phrase I never thought I would utter, "Tomorrow it's off to Cambodia."

Kuala Lumpur was good for the most part. I don't have the same love for the place that I have for Singapore. Mostly I went there to break up my three weeks in Singapore and to see my British friends (from my time in New Zealand) Kate. I don't know that I would have gone there if it weren't for her. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that I went there, it's just that well... what do you think of when you think of Kuala Lumpur? If your mind pulls a blank, you're not the only one. I wasn't sure at all about what to expect. I went to the place knowing that due to fraud I wouldn't be able to use my ATM card at all, (changed money ahead of time), and that the drinking water was highly suspect. That's pretty much all I knew.

I stayed two nights at a hostel located near Chinatown and Kate and I spent a lot of time exploring that area as well as going to see the two giant towers that sit in the middle of the city and taking the bus to see the Batu Caves. The Batu Caves were pretty damn impressive - not to mention that I got my first wild monkey sightings. And by "sightings" I mean that Kate almost ran into one of them. And they weren't tiny monkeys. Ok, so they weren't giant either... but they weren't no spider monkeys... that's for sure. Those things move damn quick too!

While in Kuala Lumpur I had Starbucks for the first time in a long time as well. I told Kate it was ok because at least in the U.S. they give even their part-time employees health insurance. I also indulged in The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf while waiting for my flight back to Singapore at the airport. It was everything I constantly keep dreaming it would be. Sigh... Western food delights.

So much has been happening in Singapore that it's hard to know where to start. Each day/night seems to bring a new adventure. I've made a few friends, which has been great since I've been traveling alone. Nadia is a Indonesian looking for a graphic design job in Singapore, while Mikal is a Filipino who is currently working as a computer programmer in the city/country. They've been two of my main hang out buddies, although I've also had some awesome and some decently ok experiences with the other people I have met - including Anna a Jewish woman from Ohio that is now living in Asia (we only hung out for a day before she left, but we were instant friends). I've done a lot of random things with people from the hostels that I've been staying at. A group of five of us, (mostly Brits), went to the Singapore Zoo together, for instance.

Sigh... Too many adventures to write about and still remain making sense.

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The Departure.

There really wasn't much pomp and circumstance to my departure from Wellington, NZ. Frankly, I was glad to get going. Sure, I'll miss my friends and my favorite haunts, but I'll get more of those in life. I consider myself pretty damn lucky to have had the month that I had before leaving New Zealand. First I got a visit from Lisa, then a visit from my parents, then Welly-bff Liz M. returned for a visit (she'd been traveling around the North Island for the past few months), and finally, Kate and Andy returned from to Welly from their travels around the South Island. I couldn't have planned it any better. My final month in Welly was full of joy and an absurd amount of good times. Sure, there was some drama with my flatmate, but the goodtimes I had in those final weeks far outway the bad. My final weeks in Wellington included my first rugby and cricket matches, coffee (platonic) dates galore, pizza night, a dinner party, a big night out, an Indian dinner to see me off, and ridiculous amounts of love. I got pretty lucky. Ironically, I ended my time in Welly living at the YHA hostel, just like I started my time in the city. It felt very "full circle". I left happy, but ready to go. That's the best a person can ever ask for.


The Cooks.

I didn't know where the Cook Islands were located before living in New Zealand. I blame both my American education and the fact that they are really, really small. I choose them for two reasons, 1) What doesn't sound good about being on an island in the middle of nowhere? Who doesn't need a little time alone? (I know the answer to the questions now.) And, 2) If not now, then when? The Cooks are a pain to get to if you're not coming from NZ. To cap off those two reasons, there was also a deal for a resort on the island of Rarotonga making the advertisement rounds and I'm a gal that likes a deal.

My week on Rarotonga was quiet and for the most part, uneventful. Would I go back? Probably not. Why? It's expensive there and with so many islands dotting the South Pacific, I would much rather visit a new one than return to one that I was just "Eh" about. The scenery and water there was amazing, (the island is surrounded by a coral reef), and it was good to spend some time alone. The food there was sad though - and expensive to boot. The best food I had was some pricey pizza. (What?!?!) I got a chance to watch some movies and read some magazines. I rented a bike and road around the island, (literally). I went to the Saturday market. I got caught in massive rain while taking a walk. Hmmm... but overall it was a very quiet experience.


Melbourne. Melbourne. Melbourne.

After Rarotonga, I headed to Australia. I stayed in the St. Kilda/Port Philips area of the city which I quite enjoyed. I took several walks there and found some lovely houses that I liked to pretend looked like my future houses. I went to my hostel's wine and cheese tasting, did some reading at the local library, and ate cheaply. My second day in Melboure I befriended a Canadian named Debbie and together, Debbie and I befriended the other girl in our dorm who was from Holland. Together we all explored the Melbourne CBD, ate Mexican food (not bad!), shopped at Target (a welcome sight after all these months), and then eventually enjoyed a big night out with one of Debbie's other friends that included cheap happy hour drinks, Asian food, and very rich hot chocolate.


Singapore. My love.

My favorite city so far on this trip has been Singapore. So much so that it perhaps deserves its own entry, but for now, it's part of this one. Upon arriving in Singapore, I joined a food tour run by the owner of my hostel right away. It was an amazing way to spend my first seven hours of time in the city. I must have tried 40-50 dishes (just a bite of each) and there's no way that I would have done that without the tour. I was by far, a highlight of my trip. The next day I relaxed until it was time for me to go to the touristy island of Sentosa to see one of my all time favorite bands, Jimmy Eat World, play. They were great, and even better, no one is more polite than a Singaporian concert goer. I really did have a great time at the show and was a little bummed when it was over since although I'm sure I'll see them play again, I don't know when -- and like I said, J.E.W. is one of my all time favorites. Saturday and Sunday were spent surrounded by friends from the hostel exploring Chinatown, Little India, and going to the Night Safari, (a zoo of sorts). Singapore has a reputation for being pricey. And it can be. But, realistically, that's only if you stick to the highly touristy areas and stay in hotels. I've found that Singapore can be reasonable the way I'm doing it, by staying in a hostel (8 bed dorm room, yo), buying your meals at hawker centres (food courts, of sorts), and limiting alcohol (booze is pricey here). I also enjoyed one of my best days yet in Singapore when I joined two of my hostel-mates on a trip to an island off of Singapore for a water-soaked bike-ride with lots of nature-viewing, (and mistaken mountain dew drinking... ewww).

I need to catch a plane now, so I gotta cut this short. More on my love of SE Asia later.

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I went on the most awesome food tour of Singapore last night right after my arrival in the country. I must have tried 30-40 different things, (yes, so many I lost count). It's somewhat amazing that I didn't explode into many pieces. For those of you that don't know, almost the entire reason I initially chose to come to Singapore was because I had heard so much about the food here. Once I did additional research on the area, I wanted to visit even more. But first and foremost, I was always coming for the food.

The people who were on the tour with me were great. All good-spirited and all with a good sense of humor. There were 16 of us total, but it never really felt like a big crowd to me, (we all fit at one table!). We walked around Chinatown with our guide, Tony, and stopped at stores to talk, restaurants to gather food, and finally a park-like area to discuss the ins and outs of Singapore's unusual laws.

I would HIGHLY recommend this tour to anyone visiting Singapore. Please let me know if you ever make a visit!

In addition to eating more food than I thought humanly possible, I also learned a lot about Singapore on the tour. Below are some Singapore fun facts. I haven't done an extensive amount of research to back-up what I was told on the tour last night, but I have little reason to believe that Tony the guide would lie to me.

Singapore Fun Facts:
1) Singapore has no national religion, although there is a list of “approved” religions. Scientology is considered a cult and is banned. Jehovah Witnesses are not allowed to practice their religion openly. Singapore has mandatory service for all young men and if your religion frowns upon involvement in war, fighting, weapons, etc.... you're going to prison for two years instead of national service.

2) There are 5 million people in Singapore.

3) There are four official languages in Singapore, (English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil). All official signage is in all four languages. If you are involved in a confrontation with police who plan to shoot at you, they must yell their warning in at least two languages, (goodluck if you only speak English and they yell at you in Malay and Tamil I).

4) There housing is very integrated. The goal of the make-up of building residents is that the ethnicities of the residents match the proportions of the ethnicities in the general population of Singapore. Also, those living on government assistance may be placed in a home right next to the richest person in town. Singapore has neighborhoods that have lower-incomes than other neighborhoods, (mostly filled with older people who make less money than they once did), but they don't really have slums.

5) Up until five years ago, oral and anal sex was illegal in Singapore. Now it's only legal if it leads to intercourse. No one's sure about how the government can follow up on this.

6) You can get the death penalty for drug trafficking or for discharging a gun, (among other things). That's DISCHARGING A GUN, not shooting someone with the intent of injuring them. Singapore has a sick cure for all those people that think randomly shooting a gun in the air is a good idea. As for drugs, I was initially worried that security and customs at the airport here would be insanely tight, (or that I would get in trouble for carrying vitamins and Sudifed). It's not. Well, at least I didn't feel it was anything special.

7) They don't recycle the way I've seen other countries with limited land space. Maybe they should work on that. Everyone needs a goal.

8) Prostitution isn't illegal here, but solicitation is. Since solicitation is so hard to prove, most prostitutes end up being prosecuted for overstaying their visas, (most aren't from Singapore).

9) Sugar-free chewing gum and nicotine gum are available by prescription. Chewing regular gum isn't illegal, but it's not available and it is a crime to import it with the intent of selling it, (don't worry, it's not punishable by death).

10) They have community cats! Trap, neuter, release is big here and the community takes responsibility to the extra cats wondering around. The cats are not feral, (they constantly approach to say hello and see if you have extra food). Cats from Singapore also have a genetic defect that causes them to have a kinked tail. Despite what you might think, smelling like local stinky fruit durian won't deter a cat from checking to see if you have food. P.S. For my feral/community cat friends: They slice the tip of the ear on the cat here too.

I woke up really early this morning, like 4AM type early. I don't have a lot to do during the day on Rarotonga (mostly sitting by the pool, going to the beach, watching movies, etc.) so my sleep schedule isn't great. I had known that I was going to go to the Saturday morning market that I had heard so much about, but I ended up wanting to go much earlier than expected. I headed out to the lobby of my hotel to wait for the 7:40AM bus to head into "town" for the local market at about 7:30AM. One bus came, but it wasn't the one I wanted, so I waited. And waited. And waited.

A man with the word "security" printed across his back and a thick Cook Islands accent came to sit next to me while I waited for a bus that I was pretty sure wasn't coming anyway. We talked. He kept telling me all these different women around the hotel property were his girlfriend and then yelling, "just kidding!". He told me that he liked fish and women... in pretty much that order. He asked me if I was married, asked me about how many people were in my family (Cook Islanders have big families and he told me about how his was no exception), and finally told me the story about the time he tried to visit the U.S. but was immediately turned away for having either no visa or the wrong visa, (he wasn't the easiest person to understand and his English was interesting, to say the least - since my English is "interesting" as well, you can just imagine the conversation we had). He then told me that I could take off with one of the hotel's golf carts and take it into town. Since I was pretty sure he didn't have any real authority, and I don't have a Cook Islands driver's license, I turned down his offer, (yes, you really have to get a Cook Island license to drive on these islands... although I'm pretty sure all it takes is already having a license from another country and paying 20 dollars). Although I did breifly suggest that I could collect chickens from the road (there are plenty of them running around) and take them to market for sale on the golfcart.

I gave up waiting for the bus and took off walking down the road. Since there is one long road that goes around the entire island, it's pretty hard to get lost. It is hot and humid here though. But I figured that town was only 4.5 km away, so how hard would it be for me to walk. I walked and walked. And sweat and sweat. Eww.

Just as I was walking near the airport, a woman pulled over and offered me a ride into town. Normally, the American in me would have turned her down. Afterall, that's how people get kidnapped, right? However, the temporary Kiwi in me accepted because hitching and accepting rides from strangers is totally normal in New Zealand. I got in the car and chatted with the woman who told me I was still at least a 25 minute walk into town. Although she was white, she told me that she was a native Cook Islander and was born on the tiney tiny island of Palmerston, (almost the entire island has the same last name... that's how small it is - they're almost all desendents of one guy). She explained that she works as a nurse - although she made it clear that she had done much more with her life than just nursing. She told me about the year she and her sister spent living in Los Angeles County working as nannies. And she told me about how although her kids (just a very young daughter joined us in the car) were born in New Zealand, she brought them back to the Cooks so that they could see how much they have living in NZ, (strangly, I think NZ is where people should go to see how much they have in America). She mentioned that having a two-year nursing contract in the Cooks didn't hurt either and that she will be going back to Palmerston next week to relieve the ONE nurse they have there while she goes on her holiday.

I eventually made it to the market. It was way less interesting than the time I had missing the bus.